Fresh Air Fiend: Travel Writings (Paperback)

by Paul Theroux (Author) "ONE OF THE MORE bewildering aspects of growing older is that people constantly remind you of things that never happened..." (more)
Key Phrases: fang hong, fresh air fiend, tiger fish, Hong Kong, Peace Corps, Cape Cod (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Paul Theroux may be pompous, self-important, cynical, and grumpy. He may even be, as accused by a heckler in Australia, "a wanker." So what? The man is prolific--having penned 36 books--and when he's inspired, his insights and sparkling writing are so startling that it's easy to forgive him for his occasional crankiness. Besides, as he reminds readers frequently, he is a man who takes pen to paper for a living; as the title essay points out: "Normal, happy, well-balanced individuals seldom become imaginative writers...."

In Fresh Air Fiend, Theroux's pen serves him well with astute, lively pieces that stray far beyond simple "travel essays" and reveal his self-inflicted lifestyle of compulsive travel, writing, and alienation. In this collection--containing mostly previously published magazine pieces written over the past 15 years--there's a strong autobiographical streak, as well as historical perspectives and a sardonic view on aging. "One of the more bewildering aspects of growing older," he writes in "'Memory and Creation,'" "is that people constantly remind you of things that never happened."

Now nearly 60, Theroux has lived a rich, varied life: the book jumps from post-Mao China and years spent as an Africa-based Peace Corps volunteer in the '60s to turtle watching in Hawaii and kayaking on Cape Cod; the jumbled collection even includes pieces on other travel writers (Bruce Chatwin, Graham Greene, and William Least Heat-Moon) and the film adaptation of his novel The Mosquito Coast. A chronic sense of aloneness permeates all these pieces--be it the lost traveler paddling through fog, the lone writer living without a phone, or the hermetic trekker who can't speak the native language. Most touching: a short sketch of a road trip when he's lost, his wife is anxious, and the children are fighting; Theroux doesn't want the moment to end and soon enough he returns to his self-imposed alienation. It's that perpetual sense of loneliness and not fitting in that seems to motivate Theroux in many of these essays. Theroux may be getting older, even nostalgic, but as these vibrant essays show, he sure isn't getting stale. --Melissa Rossi --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly
In the 15 years since his first collection, Sunrise with Seamonsters, novelist and travel writer Theroux has gotten around. He's sailed the Yangtze River in China, crossed the U.S. in the comfort of a private rail car and camped during an ice storm in Maine. This collection gathers more than three dozen essays about these adventures and others, along with some book reviews. There is wide variety here, but Theroux's excellent observations of factory life in China rest uncomfortably on the same pages as his pride in exploring such places as Uganda, Honduras and Sicily before the "deluge" of other visitors (especially the "supine" tourists) swept in. Beyond the fun of learning about different parasites and reveling in his home turf around Cape Cod, these essays reveal much about the author himself. A solitary experience that requires self-imposed exile, optimism and a fair amount of "self-delusion," travel is also, as Theroux notes, "almost entirely an inner experience." At its best, travel writing lends insight into the human experience; at its worst, it settles for lighthearted navel-gazing. This collection encompasses both ends of the spectrum--from Theroux's revelation that "travel always involves a degree of trespass" to his whimsical declaration that he reached the peak of "fresh air fiendishness" on a hot, moonlit night on the Filipino island of Palawan: "Fulfilled, content, naked, alone, happy. I thought: I am a monkey." Author tour. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1 edition (May 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618126937
• ISBN-13: 978-0618126934
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #371,629 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vintage Theroux - a treat for fans, August 23, 2000

By	Michael J Edelman (Huntington Woods, MI USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Fresh Air Fiend: Travel Writings (Hardcover)

The title of "Fresh Air Fiend" is a little misleading, as this is a collection of more than just Theroux's travel writings. There are a number of essays on other topics, including some reviews of other writers; I especially enjoyed his enthusiatic review of McPhee's "Looking For a Ship", itself a personal favorite of mine. For so prolific an author Theroux's writing is always of the highest caliber; there are no wasted words in a Theroux novel or travelogue, and yet no important detail goes unrecorded or described. Given this you can see where his enthusiasm for McPhee comes from; his admiration is obvious and freely given.

The discussions of Theroux's own novels, and how he came to write them, are also particularly enjoyable and illuminating. The story of "Mosquito Coast" covers not only the writing of the book, but the production of the movie as well, and Theroux's description of how it brought out the "Allie" in all involved- Producer, director, actors- is both witty and revealing. The story behind "Milroy the Magician" will prove interesting to anyone who has read "The Happy Isles of Oceania".

The travel stories, which do make up the bulk of the book, will be familiar in scope and tone to anyone who has read Theroux. Here he is, driving through remote Africa, wandering about in Singapore or kayaking alone around Christmas Island amid the wildlife.

Reviews of Theroux's travel writing often center on what a misanthrope he must be, or on the accuracy of details and minutia contained in the books. But Theroux himself points out in an essay on his late friend Bruce Chatwin that his books are not meant to be a guide to a country, a people or even a city; they are about the trip itself- his trip, not yours or anyone else's trip. In that sense, even his worst critics must admit that he succeeds marvelously well.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Paul's Peregrinations, February 5, 2001

By	Rick Hawkins "rhawk15" (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fresh Air Fiend: Travel Writings (Hardcover)

Paul Theroux is highly prolific, highly opinionated, a bit of an intellectual snob and a very good writer. He has produced a large body of fiction as well as many travel books like "Riding the Iron Rooster" (across China by train), "The Pillars of Hercules" (recounting his peregrinations around the Mediterranean) and "The Happy Islands of Oceania" (where he briefly gets stuck into Australians). Theroux is like a more choleric and worldlier Bill Bryson except that he is a writer of greater depth who was probably appalled by Bryson's effusive and almost fulsome praise of Australia in "Down Under". The latter writer wears his heart on his sleeve and his humour is more penetrable whereas Theroux is also capable of great wit and biting humour (this is especially evinced in a story from his collection "My Other Life", where he recounts his meeting (the reader isn't sure if it is a completely fictional account) with a serene Her Majesty and an extremely irascible Duke of Edinburgh). While there is humour in "Fresh-Air Fiend" there is no laugh-out-loud stuff like the piece just mentioned or like most of Bryson's tales. Sometimes you can get irritated by Theroux's somewhat supercilious superiority but there is no denying the quality of his writing. Theroux has none of the couch-potato tendencies of Bryson and would probably scoff at Bryson's Appalachian epiphanies in "A Walk in the Woods" - he is well aware of the dangers of solipsism in a solitary travelling writer, as he says in a piece about camping in the Maine woods: "..no reader ought to be subjected to a pompous discussion of the wilderness experience and the Meaning of Life." Now, is this a manifesto, a dig at one or many other travel writers or just an acidly apt warning to any writer? With Theroux, it is hard to tell, but through the haughtiness which colours much of his work (and provides us with much of the humour because it is funny reading a witty person's description of clueless people) we sometimes get a sense of his vulnerabilities, perhaps even (dare I say it?) his "pain". Nevertheless, we are rarely disabused of any notion that he prefers anyone else's company to his own. He makes many cutting observations of travelling companions, who are generally people he has been forced to commingle with in a railway carriage or on a cruise, yet while he is not a total misanthropist, either towards people in general (he seeks out local people to talk to while travelling) or even other writers (there is a warm appreciation of the work of the late Bruce Chatwin in this volume), there is a lingering smell of cold fish in his prose. Not that this should put you off reading Theroux - as I noted, he is extremely prolific and you are bound to find something by him you like. For Theroux fresh air and wild places are the perfect antidote to the constrictions of a writerly life: "I grow sick of being indoors, alone all day, for several years, needing isolation and at the same time hating the hostage-like atmosphere of alienation. I am sure some writers love this monkish inactivity, but a long spell of it drives me nuts. I think it is also physically unhealthy to be incarcerated like this." And he is a particular type of traveler, as all those train books attest: "Plane travel is very simple and annoying and a cause of anxiety; it is like being at the dentist's, even the chairs are like dentist's chairs. Overland travel is a great deal more trouble, and very slow, but it is uncomfortable in a way that is completely human and often reassuring." "Fresh-Air Fiend" is a far ranging collection and there are some long articles with real substance, especially about China, on which he wrote extensively in "Riding the Iron Rooster". The piece "Down the Yangtze" allows him to compare the huge changes that have occurred in China since he wrote Rooster, when China was emerging from Maoism and all the attendant disasters like the Cultural Revolution. Theroux's piece is thorough and full of epigrammatic observations: "The Chinese have a genius for putting up buildings that are instantly seedy and almost ruinous. The dust clings, the cracks appear as soon as the ribbon is cut. Every building acquires a mid-nineteenth century look almost overnight." (Theroux certainly doesn't attempt to ingratiate himself to a country!) There is also a well-researched and cogent piece on Hong Kong just before its return to China. Theroux has been everywhere but seems to have a particular affinity with Africa - he lived in Uganda as a young man and this book has a long article about sailing down the Zambezi - and a particular fascination with (if not affection for) China. "Fresh-Air Fiend" is as good an introduction as any to his extensive travel writing and because it is a compilation, it covers a whole peripatetic's world.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Moving Read, June 12, 2000

By	"jtupy" (Minneapolis, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fresh Air Fiend: Travel Writings (Hardcover)

As a once world traveler I was empowered by Mr. Theroux' writings. They encompassed not only the beauty, confusion and enlightenment of travel, but also the baffling loneliness and inevitable ethnocentrism. I found myself nodding in agreement, and moved that someone else had spoken truths about me of which I was not aware. It is not only the journey of a body, but the journey of a man through his life. This is a must read for anyone wondering about the world outside and the world within.

JT