When I set off in search of South American travel literature, I was inspired. Determined, even. I was going to return home with at least one book, of that there was no room for doubt. My search took place in a town which runs no risk whatsoever of being mistaken for the seat of literature and bibliophilia. I headed to Waterstones, the only bookstore in the vicinity, undoubtedly as only chains had a chance to survive where independent stores would struggle. Waterstones is a blast from my past. It was the first bookstore I got to know and love when I moved to England, other than the second bookstores of course. I spent many a day, and many a pound, there. So nostalgia had already endeared the store to me long before I stepped in. Stepping in was an immediate delight. Sweden, or Malmö at least, is no centre for literature, either. I do not know what it is exactly but the bookstores here are just, in a word, lacking. In titles, genres, themes, choice, atmosphere, whatever, everything! Also the English language titles are of course even more limited. So that little Waterstones was to me a gem. Even making a beeline to the travel section, I spotted ten things along the way I would have gladly given all my money away for. No surprise then that I ended up buying four books.
In the travel section, the choice was scarce. No, not scarce. There were hundreds of titles of travel memoirs of all descriptions, on places all over the world. I had to reluctantly limit myself to books on on South America and even only on the places where I hoped to travel: Peru, Bolivia and Chile. With those parameters, they were not that many choices left. I bought the Old Patagonian Express, despite the rather dated cover and the unappealing print, for two reasons only. Okay, maybe three. The "third" is that it is a book which I have heard of. I do not think it is actually possibly to be remotely interested in travel writing and not have heard of Paul Theroux. The other reason was the word Patagonia. Patagonia is in my mind, a magical land. I cannot tell you what I think of it, or why I think it is magical. I do not actually know enough about it! But the name alone, without any context, is sufficient to invoke my interest. The other reason is that it is about a train journey; one long, epic train journey. And I love train journeys. There is no better way to travel. Sure, planes get you there faster. And cars give you the convenience of being able to stop and take detours at will. But trains, are soothing to the soul. I needed no further persuasion and bought the book.
Once chosen, I usually find it easy to like most books. As I type, only three books come to mind** which I disliked so much that I was so personally offended to the point of anger with the book and author for having wasted my time. I still read them through to the end though, of course. For the most part, I love most books. A look at my goodreads ratings will show that very few books get less than three stars from me, though not many get five. All it really takes is for something about the book to resonate with me, for me to learn something from the book, or that it has touched or invoked some strong emotion in me, and that is enough for me. And there is, at the end of the day, always something which can be taken away from a book.
But I was still unprepared for how much I was to like the Old Patagonian Express. I mentioned already not long after I started it, in the post about my Latin American reading, that this book, more than any others, made me want to immediately go travelling and start writing, ideally both at the same time! His thoughts upon departing and reflections along the way were so familiar, so naturally portrayed that I wanted to set off immediately so that I too could experience them and then, just as eloquently, capture them in writing.
This was the perfect balance of everything you would want in a travel memoir. Well, everything that I would want in a travel memoir. Theroux is my South America cartographer. The other books I had read before started the process of filling in the map for me, as others to come with surely continue the process. But what Theroux has managed to capture in one book, one journey, is remarkable. It is not often that any single books changes my views so dramatically. Of course, it has to be clear that my ignorance was the starting point. From there, any information is enlightenment. But the manner of it! As I journey farther and farther south with him, I could almost see the borders being drawn and colours being filled in, mountains rising and rivers flowing.
The book itself
I am never going to be able to give the book a just review, so I will settle for listing out some of the things I thought about it.
1. Is it weird that one of the things I liked most is that he writes about the books he was reading on the trip? How cool is that! I am always reading on trips and the right book on the right trips, sometimes does make a difference.
2. It is not full of anecdotes and funny stories. There are some, of course, but it is not what I call typical backpacker travels - which is probably unfair to most backpackers who do not seek out stupid things to do and commit cultural faux pas out of ignorance or sheer disregard. But you know what I mean, there are so many books purporting to be travel memoirs, but are in reality a collection of idiotic activities and near misses a group of people got up to. That they happen to have happened in a foreign country somehow seems to entitled them to be called travel memoirs. This is not. It is intelligent and well researched. Well, I cannot really just for how well it is researched. But there is enough convincing information in there to make me believe that it is researched, at least. And since a good many decades have passed since its publications and there does not seem to be much criticism as to its correctness, I will assume it is fairly accurate, or at least fair. And this was presumably pre-backpack days,*** so he travelled with a suitcase.
3. I liked that it was such a long journey. The scale of it really widened the range of all he experienced, and what we get to experience with him. From the snowstorms in Boston to the solitude in Patagonia, the mountains, the deserts, the middle of nowheres to the cities, and the wining and dining and the private chauffeur. From avoiding annoying conversation on the train to discussing literature with one of Latin Americas most renown writers.
4. Perhaps a consequence of the length of the journey though, he seems to grow weary. Well, he says as much in the book when he questions the purpose of the trip and longs for home. But it is also reflected in the telling of his tale. His reflections from Boston to the Mexican border are in vivid detail. Somewhere in the middle of the book, he starts a chapter at some place or other with no clear description as to how he got there. Perhaps that also has something to do with the landscape and is perhaps something to keep in mind when planning my trip to South America. Rocks and plains and trees might be fascinating at first, but after a while especially when one is inevitably physically weary, might start to look the same.
5. I admired and was confounded by his decision not to take a camera on his travels, consciously choosing instead to rely on his memory and talent for verbal illustration. On the one hand, I think he did a remarkable job or it. On the other, I would still loved to have seen some pictures. I cannot imagine travelling to South America without a camera and am even considering upgrading my camera for the trip, hesitating only because of the price of the cameras I want and concern about theft. They do warn you against the overly flashy.
Anyway, I was profoundly glad to have read this book. And that is mostly what drove me to write this blog, more than a month after I finished it. Even as the memory starts to fade, with it the impact the book made on me, I want to remember what I can. If nothing else, I hope I will always remember that I have learnt a lot about South America from it.
And when I do finally make it there, I hope that I would at least make one journey by train.
*That is to say, it is not a book review
** As I lay Dying by William Faulkner (despite what the critics and many others might say), The Thrall's Tale by Judith Lindberg (which despite being the Viking and changeling themes, succeeded in being mind-numbingly boring); and The Unconsoled (which hundreds of pages of Catcher-in-the-Rye-esque nothing happening, without the inexplicable magnetism of Catcher in the Rye and almost made me turn on Kazuo Ishiguro.)
*** Actually, not! Backpacks, according to Wikipedia (which is never wrong) has a much longer history (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpack).
Once chosen, I usually find it easy to like most books. As I type, only three books come to mind** which I disliked so much that I was so personally offended to the point of anger with the book and author for having wasted my time. I still read them through to the end though, of course. For the most part, I love most books. A look at my goodreads ratings will show that very few books get less than three stars from me, though not many get five. All it really takes is for something about the book to resonate with me, for me to learn something from the book, or that it has touched or invoked some strong emotion in me, and that is enough for me. And there is, at the end of the day, always something which can be taken away from a book.
But I was still unprepared for how much I was to like the Old Patagonian Express. I mentioned already not long after I started it, in the post about my Latin American reading, that this book, more than any others, made me want to immediately go travelling and start writing, ideally both at the same time! His thoughts upon departing and reflections along the way were so familiar, so naturally portrayed that I wanted to set off immediately so that I too could experience them and then, just as eloquently, capture them in writing.This was the perfect balance of everything you would want in a travel memoir. Well, everything that I would want in a travel memoir. Theroux is my South America cartographer. The other books I had read before started the process of filling in the map for me, as others to come with surely continue the process. But what Theroux has managed to capture in one book, one journey, is remarkable. It is not often that any single books changes my views so dramatically. Of course, it has to be clear that my ignorance was the starting point. From there, any information is enlightenment. But the manner of it! As I journey farther and farther south with him, I could almost see the borders being drawn and colours being filled in, mountains rising and rivers flowing.
The book itself
I am never going to be able to give the book a just review, so I will settle for listing out some of the things I thought about it.
1. Is it weird that one of the things I liked most is that he writes about the books he was reading on the trip? How cool is that! I am always reading on trips and the right book on the right trips, sometimes does make a difference.
2. It is not full of anecdotes and funny stories. There are some, of course, but it is not what I call typical backpacker travels - which is probably unfair to most backpackers who do not seek out stupid things to do and commit cultural faux pas out of ignorance or sheer disregard. But you know what I mean, there are so many books purporting to be travel memoirs, but are in reality a collection of idiotic activities and near misses a group of people got up to. That they happen to have happened in a foreign country somehow seems to entitled them to be called travel memoirs. This is not. It is intelligent and well researched. Well, I cannot really just for how well it is researched. But there is enough convincing information in there to make me believe that it is researched, at least. And since a good many decades have passed since its publications and there does not seem to be much criticism as to its correctness, I will assume it is fairly accurate, or at least fair. And this was presumably pre-backpack days,*** so he travelled with a suitcase.
3. I liked that it was such a long journey. The scale of it really widened the range of all he experienced, and what we get to experience with him. From the snowstorms in Boston to the solitude in Patagonia, the mountains, the deserts, the middle of nowheres to the cities, and the wining and dining and the private chauffeur. From avoiding annoying conversation on the train to discussing literature with one of Latin Americas most renown writers.
4. Perhaps a consequence of the length of the journey though, he seems to grow weary. Well, he says as much in the book when he questions the purpose of the trip and longs for home. But it is also reflected in the telling of his tale. His reflections from Boston to the Mexican border are in vivid detail. Somewhere in the middle of the book, he starts a chapter at some place or other with no clear description as to how he got there. Perhaps that also has something to do with the landscape and is perhaps something to keep in mind when planning my trip to South America. Rocks and plains and trees might be fascinating at first, but after a while especially when one is inevitably physically weary, might start to look the same.
5. I admired and was confounded by his decision not to take a camera on his travels, consciously choosing instead to rely on his memory and talent for verbal illustration. On the one hand, I think he did a remarkable job or it. On the other, I would still loved to have seen some pictures. I cannot imagine travelling to South America without a camera and am even considering upgrading my camera for the trip, hesitating only because of the price of the cameras I want and concern about theft. They do warn you against the overly flashy.
Anyway, I was profoundly glad to have read this book. And that is mostly what drove me to write this blog, more than a month after I finished it. Even as the memory starts to fade, with it the impact the book made on me, I want to remember what I can. If nothing else, I hope I will always remember that I have learnt a lot about South America from it.
And when I do finally make it there, I hope that I would at least make one journey by train.
*That is to say, it is not a book review
** As I lay Dying by William Faulkner (despite what the critics and many others might say), The Thrall's Tale by Judith Lindberg (which despite being the Viking and changeling themes, succeeded in being mind-numbingly boring); and The Unconsoled (which hundreds of pages of Catcher-in-the-Rye-esque nothing happening, without the inexplicable magnetism of Catcher in the Rye and almost made me turn on Kazuo Ishiguro.)
*** Actually, not! Backpacks, according to Wikipedia (which is never wrong) has a much longer history (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpack).
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