His journal
begins as Theroux leaves London to travel across Europe and Asia and back, on a
rather epic train trip which will take nearly four months. He will give
lectures on English and American literature in cities along the way.
He left
a Great Britain that at the time was in decline, its Empire days long over, its
economy struggling. The train will go to the coast of England on rail, but since
the English Chunnel is still decades away, he will have to take a boat to the shore
in France before his train ride will really begin. Once in Paris, he will board
the famed Orient Express, or should I say its remnants as it too has
declined with the times and the aftermath of two world wars. Still, it remains
somewhat good traveling, though no longer an Express – while one stays on the
train, one changes countries, operators, and quality, as it makes its way to
the outskirts of Istanbul.
He
clearly liked the multi-cultural and urbane aspects of Istanbul, one foot in
Europe, the other in Asia. And he clearly did not like the trip segments in the
rest of Turkey and northern Iran, with nothing good to say about Afghanistan or
Pakistan. His experiences in India, just twenty some years after Independence is
a mix of highs and lows. Urban environments left over from the British
occupation of Delhi, and extreme poverty throughout the rest of the country. He
will again have to resort to boat trips to cross to Sri Lanka and on to what
was then called Burma. Travels in Thailand and on the Malay peninsula down to
Singapore were better and somewhat unified. Cambodia does not have a well-developed
rail system. His trips in Vietnam from Saigon up to Danang are greatly limited
because the country was still a war zone in the early seventies.
From
Vietnam he will again travel by ship, this time to Japan, which he covers
extensively from bottom to top, before transferring across to Vladivostok at
the western edge of Russia, where he boards another famous rail line, the Trans-Siberian Express, to Moscow, then trains to Berlin and back to London.
While
that is the geography of the trip, his interactions with other passengers, from
luxury class to cars that bordered on freight cars is of equal importance in
the book. His commentary is biting at times, in fact most of the time. My initial
reaction to this was that it was routine American arrogance, but then I had to
stop and ask myself: why is this man even associating with poor people, and
doing it well? Turns out he wasn’t just “slumming” as a rich tourist, his
background was as a journalist, with a history as a Peace Corps volunteer in
the early 1960s in Mali and Angola before moving on to Singapore. His interests
and abilities to connect with people were real, as were even his harsh commentaries,
not only on the populace but also of the so-called “developed” world.
Recommendation: Yes, though it is not always a
pleasant read, it is definitely an interesting one.
