The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas

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		The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas
		The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas

Starting with a rush-hour subway ride to South Station in Boston to catch the Lake Shore Limited to Chicago, Theroux winds up on the poky, wandering Old Patagonian Express steam engine, which comes to a halt in a desolate land of cracked hills and thorn bushes. But with Theroux the view along the way is what matters: the monologuing Mr. Thornberry in Costa Rica, the bogus priest of Cali, and the blind Jorge Luis Borges, who delights in having Theroux read Robert Louis Stevenson to him.

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Yes, he is a curmudgeon - but I still love his books.

This one in particular fed into my wish to " someday" travel. I was a poor student who thought travel was only for the rich. I didn't realize you could do it cheaply - if you don't mind a few discomforts. It gave the information I needed to take journeys that expanded my world view.

The book reads like a diary of his travel from Boston to Tierra del Fuego, most of the time by train. Along the way he meets both ordinary & famous people - most of whom he dislikes. At the beginning of his train trip he meets a self-centered young woman who gives him a rundown of her dietary needs and "sensitivities." She is a the first of many people who will annoy and confound him. He also manages to meet luminaries like Jorge Luis Borges. Even Borges doesn't distract him from train" schedules", breakdowns, people, and misunderstanding that - he thinks - exist only to thwart his enjoyment. He hates everyone and everything but manages to describe it all in hilarious prose.

I know many people dislike his grouchy persona - they wonder why he even travels. Give him a break - he is like one of those old - fashioned uncles (at least in literature) who fill your head with wonderful images of far away places while complaining about the most trivial problems. You know he's finicky, so all you take in is the wonder of discovering new places.

I will always love this book and Mr. Theroux for leading me out of small, Midwestern-town-USA. How else would I have found myself hitching a ride to Otoval market (ECUADOR) on top of a precarious truck carrying vegetables & chickens? Two Japanese sisters made the trip even more fun as we screamed & laughed all the way. A trip of a lifetime on a shoe string budget. Luckily I was young enough to ignore discomfort so that I could enjoy new vistas and people.

I will always keep my worn copy of this book. I give it 5 stars for inspiration, hilarity, and practical advice.

It's not his best work by my tastes but it is Paul Theroux's only account of traveling through North and South America. It has all the challenges of a travelogue written in the late 70s such as disparaging remarks about people of colour, endless commentary on the dilapidation of non western cities and towns but the character studies are there of the people he meets on trains and the delight is his description of time spent with Borges. It's a worthwhile read for armchair travellers eager to experience the Americas.

Theroux writes travel books like no other. Taking a train from Boston to the southern tip of South America, with only once having to take alternate transportation. I was right there with him, observing the people, listening to their accents, sometimes participating in their culture, commenting on their customs, and I didn't have to learn Spanish to do it. I really enjoyed this book, bought a copy to give to a friend.

I like the way this rather sour-puss writer tells it like it is on his travels, on a shoe string budget. In our current culture of materialism, where everything is hyped up into a commercial product, and sanitised and censored, it is refreshing to read Theroux, who tells it like it is. His descriptions of places can be very poetic and vivid, lasting in your mind, about countries far away, that have much beauty and much ugliness, but above all they are raw and real, in the travel writing of Theroux.

I enjoyed the Dark Star Safari with Paul very much and carried that level of expectation with me on this trip through the Americas.
It was an unfair comparison because of Paul's history with Africa his insights there were based upon his Peace Corps experiences there.
The trip through the Americas seemed to be a struggle for Paul and didn't have the historical awareness and intimate connection with the areas covered so the depth that I was hoping for was lacking.

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