Customer Reviews

The Great Railway Bazaar

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This fabulous account of getting on the train in London and riding trains (including the decrepit Orient Express) through Europe, across Asia as far east as Japan, then looping back to Europe on the Trans-Siberian, is not a bit dated, even though it was first published in 1975. Theroux is sometimes cross and prickly, but he doesn't miss a thing, and he ventures into places (and eats things) that most people never would. Because he is also a novelist, he's deft at limning the appearances and characters of the people he meets, and these people, who are variously vain, odd, smelly, crazy, foolish, bigoted, or just eccentric, give this travelogue--and indeed all of Theroux's travel narratives--the quality of a Dickens novel.

I've read and enjoyed several of his other rail narratives, including "The Old Patagonian Express" (Central and South America) , "Kingdom by the Sea" (United Kingdom), and "Dark Star Safari" (Africa). I'd start with this one, though, with its wonderful section on Vietnam in the last year of the war and its melancholy voyage across Leonid Brezhnev's sclerotic Soviet Union. As with all good books, it will transport you to places you did not know existed, even in this era of Google Earth. As for those who don't care for Theroux's sometimes cranky persona, well, there are always the twittering ecstasies of Peter Mayle ("A Year in Provence," etc.) or--worse--Frances Mayes ("Under the Tuscan Sun," etc.). Theroux's sojourns will never inspire busloads of tourists or the astronomical appreciation of the local real estate. Once you've read "The Great Railway Bazaar," be sure to follow it up with "Ghost Train to the Eastern Star," his recent (2009) account of his retracing (with some new stops) of the trip he took in the seventies. It's equally compelling, and it illuminates the story of the first trip.

I like trains, and now I like Paul Theroux! I picked up this book because I was interested int the travel itinerary. After reading it, I bought all of his travel books, even those that didn't have a train in it. I have every one of his books that I can find and have read them all, and loved them all. Do yourself a favor; if you haven't read any of his books, read this one to start with and I assure you, you will be hooked on Mr. Theroux. Now, if I could only pronounce 'Theroux' properly...

This was the very first travel book I ever read. My parents had early on inspired in me a love of travel. Reading this book increased that desire to explore the world. Coincidentally, I also shared a love of traveling by train, though as the author frequently mentions, this can often be somewhat difficult, and at times downright unpleasant.
While some people consider Paul Theroux to be cynical, I prefer to think of him as a realist who does not feel the need to sugar coat any of his writing.
Part of embracing travel is to deal with the good and the bad,the same as many life experiences.
I feel that the author was a pioneer in his belief that the journey is sometimes more rewarding than the destination itself.
If you've never read any of Paul Theroux's works, you got some great reads to look forward to !

Published in 1975, historically this book covers a time that has passed and cannot be revisited. Theroux describes Soviet Russia and an Iran of more openness than is possible today. But even more than that, Theroux's trip encompasses a vast territory from London to the tip of India, across to Japan and back to London via Russia...ALL ON A TRAIN! It's an astonishing journey.

Theroux is a master observer with a grand command of his writing talent. Each scene is described vividly, with amazing attention given to the colors and smells of each Asian railway stop. At times it seems as if Theroux should have titled the book "The Great Railway Bizarre."

This book is exactly why I read travel books. Transported through the author's visions, travel books allow readers to travel to spaces that might never be seen in person. And trust me, I will NEVER take the trip that Theroux completed in this book. The travel classic "The Great Railway Bazaar" by Paul Theroux is gritty, long and at times it's boring. In short, like it's subject, this book is exactly like a trip around Asia exclusively on trains. Have you ever traveled a long distance by train? I have and, trust me, it's gritty, long and boring.

Rating: 4 of 5 stars because I'm a suburban church lady and sometimes the raunchy side of Theroux's travels was a bit tough for me to read!! :-)
Disclosure: I have nothing to disclose about this book. I read a copy of this book that I obtained at my local library. Check out your library today!

Like the title says, a great read in my opinion. The Kindle edition was clearly ported by a computer. Would love my money back on that version. Buy a paperback for now.

This book would have been a joy to read, if it were not in Kindle format! The Kindle version looks like it was scanned from a printed copy, and nobody bothered to proofread it. Numerous misprints, "1" instead of "I", gobbledegook words and missing or misplaced punctuation make it a challenge. $9.99 is rather steep for such a poorly produced Kindle book.

Let me make it absolutely clear, I like Paul Theroux and his writing, my problem is with Amazon's poor workmanship.

I'd been meaning to read Theroux's "The Great Railway Bazaar" for the past 20 years. When the travel book first made it on my radar in the late 1980s, I was myself starting to travel the world, but I kept putting off reading the book because I thought it would be dated, slightly offensive, and filled with obvious and superficial observations by a grumpy old man. Well, I finally got around to reading "Bazaar" and it's everything I thought it would be -- and also more fun and engaging than I would have imagined it could be. Theroux sets off on a four-month journey by rail from London to Tokyo, swinging through Southeast Asia and Russia along the way. He catches rides on some of the most storied trains, including the Orient Express and the Khyber Pass Local, and meets a bunch of colorful locals and expats. Theroux fills each stop with enough details, anecdotes and historical background to make this an easy and informative read. He also recognizes that any literal trip is ultimately also a figurative one of self-realization: "The father one traveled, the nakeder one got, until, towards the ends, ceasing to be animated by any scene, one was most oneself." And after this epiphany, a traveler is finally ready to return back to his or her loved ones with a greater appreciation of and a deeper perspective on life. In a book filled with great one-liners -- including the book's famous opening line -- Theroux writes late in the book, near the end of his epic, continental loop, "the grand tour is just the inspired man's way of heading home."

What a pleasure to read. The writing is crisp and entertaining. The tales are fun without being hyperbole. Only a few chapters in and I feel that I am on the trip with the author.
Highly recommended.

NOTE: This book is even better on audiobook to help recreate the voices and inflection of the author. The sarcasm and irony comes through even better in the spoken word. Loved it.

Theroux's epic collection of train journeys is a classic of travel literature, packed with unforgettable scenes and characters, the CIA agents living on the beach in Vietnam, the Japanese porn shows, and the sadness in Afghanistan. We see these again with the perspective of more time and the pass of history between his journeys and our journeys (real or via CNN). We could criticize the lack of political correctness, or of the curmudgeonly ways of Mr. Theroux, but hopping on trains all over Asia, regardless of the local political environment, and writing beautifully about the trips is a lot harder to criticize. This the starting point with Theroux, if you like it here, you'll love Dark Star Safari and will collect a good pile of books. They make excellent books to read during your own travels. If it's not your thing, then try a Theroux novel, maybe Hotel Honolulu and see if that works better for you.

Reading Theroux's travel literature, one wonders why he left home - the people he meets are almost universally irritating for him, and he takes little interest in much else except perhaps his own physical discomforts and prejudices. Of course we love to hate this type of splenetic and cantankerousness writing, not unlike Tobias Smollett's 1786 Travels Through France And Italy (Smollett also took a 'Grand Tour'). Theroux models himself an anti-tourist, resisting seeing the sites but when forced he rarely has anything positive to say. This appeals to the reader who wants to travel without being a tourist, but in the end comes across as crass and of little value. He is at his best describing the lowest encounters, prostitutes seem to fill the most interesting stories (it's unclear if he partakes but he does imbibe in smoking a fair amount of hashish). Theroux followed the "hippie trail" for part of the way but found them, like most everyone, open to ridicule.

There are some interesting historical curiosities. He traveled through Vietnam in late 1973 when the US military was pulling out, and so he got to see first-hand the deserted bases overtaken by squatters, stripped of every valuable not unlike what happened to Iraq in the wake of the US invasion in 2003, and perhaps not unlike what might happen again in the near future. He also makes a literary connection between the Vietnam War and Conrad's Heart of Darkness, well before the appearance of Apocalypse Now (1979). The best scene in the book I think is with the 3 Americans living on the beach with some Vietnamese women.

In the end this is an important book in the travel literature canon because Theroux set out to create something new and found a wide following of readers helping to revive interest in the genre, but he was eclipsed by writers like Bruce Chatwin (In Patagonia) who really did move the state of the art of travel writing out of the 19th century into a modern aesthetic.