Name: Great Railway Bazaar
ISBN: 9780141189147

Paul Theroux

Great Railway Bazaar

Wynter

In theory nothing is more romantic than a long voyage aboard a train. In reality you tend to get yourself into strange situations, meet questionable characters, occasionally starve, and be left to your own devices and demons for days at a time, while you bob gently in solitude along the endless tracks. This is a travelogue of just such a voyage. 

The biggest complaint from others I noticed with this book is apparent negativity and rudeness displayed by the author as he traverses through Central and East Asia to Japan, and making a return trip through Russia. I really didn't find his manner off-putting, but rather realistic. He doesn't subscribe to the romance of train travel (though confesses his unbound love for it in the very beginning), but rather looks at the world through a clear lens. While witnessing poverty and anti-sanitary conditions in India he describes them just so. While seeing a beautiful landscape in Vietnam, he makes sure to give it its due. 

His conversations with fellow passengers might sound snooty sometimes, but I didn't think them offensive. There was no particular distinction between his treatment of locals and his fellow countrymen. I find it curious that during his journey he got to explore sexuality in the culture of various countries: from shady pimps of India to ladyboys of Thailand, and pornographic scrolls of Japan to repressed sexual tension of Islam. Some of his stories are comical (like his endeavors to ditch a strange train companion in Russia), and some are tragic (the vignettes of futile attempts by Vietnamese government to attract tourism at the end of the war). I find Theroux a little cynical, yet sensitive to his surroundings, and more at ease with solitude than his fellow man. Great book.

Great Railway Bazaar

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