Customer Reviews

Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China

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4 star:		(4)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an often hilarious and extremely informative look into Chinese culture and geography from a travel standpoint. Very enjoyable for anyone who likes Chinese culture, as well as those who know little to nothing about it (which was once me). It was on a college class list of mine, but now I buy it for people. A good read, tho he does get slightly vulgar from time to time.

I actually read this book nearly twenty years ago and have never forgotten it. I was so pleased to find it available at Amazon.com. One of the things that especially stuck with me was the eating habits of the Chinese at that time---fascinating! Never forgotten was the pail of eels in the "bathroom" ready for the evening meal.
This reading I was able to take more time with the book and get more out of it because I wasn't working and raising three children. I even looked up Paul Theroux on Encarta to get a feel for his personality.
This is a fabulous armchair travel of China, a detailed description of the beautiful, the ugly and the strange parts of that vast country. I highly recommend it!

The book, like a long train trip, gets tiring after a while, but Theroux loves traveling this way. His observations of the people, land and culture are well worth reading.

OK, just slammed a Theroux novel so it's only fair to balance it with a complimentary travel-book review. Boy, can Theroux write travel books, and he's always at the very top of his game when recounting train journeys. This tale is no exception.

Sure, it's been "a few years" now, and Chinese society has changed organically in that time. It was ever thus with travel books, but the good ones survive this passage of time -- capturing a particularly significant moment, perfectly encapsulating the essence of a country or people, offering insight into the human condition in other places and societies -- or all of the above.

"Iron Rooster" is one of these. Theroux has a naturalist's instinct for keen observation and a Pepys' gift of translating his insights onto the printed page. He puts us right in the middle of each scene and brings it alive for us.

Theroux, mind you, is far from a dispassionate observer! You may not always agree with him, but he'll always engage you. Fun stuff, and he shows his mastery of it here.

Welcome to Paul Theroux's idiosyncratic brand of travel writing. The opening chapters are hilarious - Theroux joins a tour but spends most of it trying to avoid his fellow travellers, whom he dislikes. They become suspicious of him in turn when he is constantly seen to be writing.

There are many moments of dark humour, such as when Theroux answers the call of nature on a train at midnight, only to find a bucket of dead eels on the floor next to the (very dirty) toilet. The next day in the dining carriage he asks what's on the menu, and receives the disturbing reply: "Eels!"

It should be remembered that this book was written back in 1988, but while dated it provides an interesting and perceptive snapshot of a country on the threshold of change between Maoism and capitalism.

The book contains many interesting insights, for instance: "One of the weirder Chinese statistics is that 35 million Chinese people still live in caves. There is no government program to remove these troglodytes, but there is a scheme to give them better caves. It seemed to me a kind of lateral thinking. Why rehouse or resettle these cave-dwellers? The logical solution was to improve their caves. That was very Chinese."

Or: "Mao was once asked what he thought of the French Revolution, and replied: "It's too early to say."

Other insights are more humorous: "Perhaps John Maynard Keynes to [the Chinese] was like D.H. Lawrence for us, and I tried to imagine what forbidden, dark, brooding supply-side economics might be like."

Or disturbing: "It is the belief of many Chinese I met that animals such as cats and dogs do not feel pain. They are on earth to be used - trained, put to work, killed and eaten."

The differences between northern and southern China strangely parallel those of northern and southern Germany; northerners are stereotyped as "imperious, quarrelsome, rather aloof, political, proud noodle-eaters", while southerners are "talkative, friendly, complacent, dark, sloppy, commercial-minded and materialistic rice-eaters."

But Theroux find the emptiest parts of China the most beautiful. He journeys to the far north of Heilongjiang in Manchuria, because he heard there was wilderness there: "real trees and birds." The most interesting parts of the book deal not with China itself, but these outlying areas it has attained sovereignty over: Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Xinjiang and especially Tibet.

Theroux's trip into Tibet is a mixture of sublimity and farce, as he is forced to take over the car from his inept Chinese driver, who nearly gets them killed. Theroux clearly admires the Tibetans (although not their enormous and rabid mastiff dogs). "The Tibetans found a way of distancing themselves from the Chinese, and in the most effective way, by laughing at them."

But Theroux was unfortunately wrong in his assertion that Tibet would be safe from the ravages of mass tourism because it had no railway. In fact, the railway went through in 2006, some eighteen years after this book was written.

Theroux comes across as an old curmudgeon with an acid view of humanity. Perhaps this is the result of having observed human nature all over the world and finding it wanting. Although some portions may seem like blown up cynicism you have to admit that many of his observations are spot on. The comments on the arrogant and simple-minded Hong Kong tourists to China is hilarious as is his recounting of his experiences with a couple of young babushkas out to make a buck in Russia. Forget being PC and hop on the train for a down-to-earth trip through Europe and on to the Middle Kingdom.

From curmudgeon to comedian, Paul Theroux plays many roles. So too does China, and this is why they make such a good match. Riding the Iron Rooster drags in places, but to that end it only mirrors actual travel. It isn't just about the destinations, but the time spent between the destinations, or in this case the time the author spends riding China's trains. Readers looking for an informative history of the Great Wall or an amusing anecdote concerning the Terracotta Warriors will have to look elsewhere. Theroux shuns tourist sites almost as much as he shuns tourists. When he does encounter a famous place, he often gives it a one-line assessment. He sums up Beijing's abundant cultural offerings as "very big and very impressive." Of China's biggest Buddha statue, he adds, 'and probably the ugliest.'

There is no doubt that Theroux can be caustic, but his cold appraisals should ring true for anyone who has traveled in China, at least to some degree. The problem with many China books is that they are often penned by people who are besotted by the Middle Kingdom and don't wish to offend. But Paul Theroux doesn't care who he offends. In any of his books. Period. He's just trying to be honest, a quality that, for some odd reason, irks people. Perhaps such individuals would be better off with fiction.

Despite a penchant for intellectual snobbery and a misanthropic streak (and what writer worth their salt doesn't exhibit these qualities?), one thing Theroux is exceptionally good at is getting in on the ground level and talking to the people. This makes for many of the volume's brighter and more revealing moments, like when he asks to see a commune and a group of Cantonese laugh so hard they almost fall over.

Riding the Iron Rooster is a thorough inspection of China (no pun intended) during the days it was emerging from the long shadow of Maoism, but before it had begun rocketing to a spot worthy of Western news magazine covers. To that end, it has become a kind of historical document. Unlike other Theroux books, it can be frustrating, but no more frustrating than China itself, and like China itself, it's worth it for those gripping moments and laugh-out-loud encounters. If you want to find out what China was like X number of years ago (and much still holds true today), read this book (and then read Colin Thubron's Behind the Wall, also good). If you want to acquaint yourself with the writings of Paul Theroux, try other titles first: The Kingdom by the Sea, The Great Railway Bazarre, The Happy Isles of Oceania, The Pillars of Hercules, or Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. They are all excellent, whereas this book is merely very, very good.

Troy Parfitt, author of Why China Will Never Rule the World

For years I saw The Great Railway Bazaar and other early Theroux books on my dad's bookshelf. In my late 20's, my dad gave me an extra (1st ed.) copy of Riding the Iron Rooster he'd found at a book sale. I wasn't really that interested but lacking something compelling to read that evening, I picked it up...and was absolutely hooked. I've read every travel memoir and non-fiction book by Theroux and have to admit that this one was special - the book that got me started on travel writing and all these wonderful journeys to places I'll never probably go myself. True life is so much more interesting than fiction, I found.

The description of the trains, the people riding the trains, the stations, the strange conversations, the food, the odors, the varied landscape, the buildings - were all so vivid and fascinating - and so utterly different than my safe little plush American world. Of course by this time in 2011, there's been some change to China but it still shouldn't take away from the experience of traveling with Theroux. The snapshot of history read now is just as interesting as read near the time he traveled in my opinion.

Some say Theroux is a curmudgeon and maybe he gets more so in his later books but it really didn't bother me. He's the ultimate people watcher and is quite entitled to his observations! I routinely recommend Theroux to friends - moms like me who don't get to travel extensively. Or, at all. Even if you're not interested in China per se, this may just suck you in as it did me.

I loved Theroux's non-fiction "Dark Star Safari" about his travels in Africa so decided to try his travel book on riding the Iron Rooster train from Mongolia all the way across to Peking in the late 80's. What a book! No one can write like Theroux. This book was very informative, educational, and lovable - his descriptions of the culture, food, and passengers in these small towns in China, pre and post cultural revolution, was such an adventure. I have bought this gem to give to friends, many of whom have traveled to China, and we often have big discussion about Theroux's infinate patience while jotting down notes about his book along the way and only Theroux can describe the Chinese travelers on the Iron Rooster so well that you can fantasize being a fellow American passenger riding along with Theroux. I loved this book!!

This is the first book I've read of his. Really enjoyed it. Never had been into travel writing before (though I love to travel). I am so pleased to have found an author that brings places to life from a perspective I can relate to. Anne Fadiman is, to me, a rather similar, female author, if you've read her.