The Tao of Travel: Enlightenments from Lives on the Road [Bonded Leather]

Paul Theroux (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 19, 2011

Paul Theroux celebrates fifty years of wandering the globe by collecting the best writing on travel from the books that shaped him, as a reader and a traveler. Part philosophical guide, part miscellany, part reminiscence, The Tao of Travel enumerates “The Contents of Some Travelers’ Bags” and exposes “Writers Who Wrote about Places They Never Visited”; tracks extreme journeys in “Travel as an Ordeal” and highlights some of “Travelers’ Favorite Places.” Excerpts from the best of Theroux’s own work are interspersed with selections from travelers both familiar and unexpected: 

Vladimir Nabokov           J.R.R. Tolkien 
Samuel Johnson               Eudora Welty
Evelyn Waugh                  Isak Dinesen 
Charles Dickens               James Baldwin 
Henry David Thoreau       Pico Iyer 
Mark Twain                     Anton Chekhov 
Bruce Chatwin                  John McPhee
Freya Stark                      Peter Matthiessen 
Graham Greene                Ernest Hemingway

 The Tao of Travel is a unique tribute to the pleasures and pains of travel in its golden age.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Travel maestro Theroux (The Great Railway Bazaar) conducts a rambling tour of the genre in this diverting meditation on passages from his own and other writers' works. Several chapters spotlight underappreciated travel writers from Samuel Johnson to Paul Bowles, while others explore themes both profound and whimsical. There are classic set-piece literary evocations, including Thoreau on the hush of the Maine woods and Henry James on the miserable pleasures of Venice. A section on storied but disappointing destinations fingers Tahiti as "a mildewed island of surly colonials"; travel epics—shipwrecks, Sahara crossings, Jon Krakauer's duel with Mount Everest—are celebrated; exotic meals are recalled (beetles, monkey eyes, and human flesh, anyone?); and some writers, like Emily Dickinson, just stay home and write about that. The weakest section is a compendium of aphoristic abstractions—"Travel is a vanishing act, a solitary trip down a pinched line of geography to oblivion"—while the strongest pieces descry a tangible place through a discerning eye and pungent sensibility: "I do not think I shall ever forget the sight of Etna at sunset," Evelyn Waugh rhapsodizes; "othing I have seen in Art or Nature was quite so revolting." Photos. (May 26)
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Review

A "determinedly personal collection of travel appreciation."
-Kirkus Reviews

A "diverting meditation on passages from his own and other writers' works. [T]he strongest pieces descry a tangible place through a discerning eye and pungent sensibility..."
-Publishers Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Bonded Leather: 304 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (May 19, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0547336918
• ISBN-13: 978-0547336916
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #105,222 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Paul Theroux's highly acclaimed novels include Blinding Light, Hotel Honolulu, My Other Life, Kowloon Tong, and The Mosquito Coast. His renowned travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Dark Star Safari, Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, and The Happy Isles of Oceania. He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 80 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Potpourri for Armchair Travelers March 23, 2011

By Michael J. Edelman TOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

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In addition to being one of the finest American writers of fiction of the late 20th Century, Paul Theroux is arguably the outstanding travel writer of his generation, having written brilliantly (and contentiously) about his many solo adventures the width and length of the Americas, Asia, and Africa, as well as tours around the Pacific Rim, Mediterranean and the British Isles. His writing is as honest and sincere, and reveals as much about the writer as the countries and people he encounters along the way. He is also a great student of the writing of others, many of whom helped shape his own writing. His travelogues are filled with references to writers like Vladimir Nabakov, Anthony Burgess, Somerset Maugham, and his former friend V.S. Naipaul, as well as legendary travel writers like Paul Bowles, Richard Halliburton, and the last of the great British adventurers, Wilfred Thesiger.

For this volume Theroux has assembled a collection of his own brief essays along with quotes and essays from great travel writers, a class that for Therous includes not only writers of travelogues like Eric Newby but also authors like Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson and Evelyn Waugh, all of whom had much to say about their travel experiences. Each chapter is in the form of an essay about some aspect of travel- food, company, railways, walking, calamities, Englishmen escaping England- and is in the form of an essay, augmented by quotes from various writers (including Theroux himself) on a particular theme. There's even a chapter on staying home, and one entitled "Imaginary Journeys."

One chapter (by way of illustration) is entitled "How Long Did the Traveler Spend Traveling?" Theroux begins by noting that D. H.... Lawrence managed to get an entire book out of one week spent with his wife in Sardinia, while Marco Polo spent twenty-six years in China. He discusses journeys notable for their length (Sir John Mandeville, thirty four years, if he in fact ever left England) and their brevity (Lawrence, and Kipling, who never did make it to Mandalay.) In between we find Graham Greene (six weeks in Mexico) Jean Cocteau (eighty days) and many others.

This is not, as you might suspect, yet another compilation of the writings of others, hastily assembled by someone anxious to get a book out to cash in on their reputation or fulfill a contract. The great bulk of the text is by Theroux himself, comprising his opinions and judgments, and it reads as well as any of his travel books. Theroux uses quotes from other writers to illustrate and illuminate his points, such as this excerpt by Georges Simenon from the chapter on railways: "That feeling about trains, for instance. Of course he had long outgrown the boyish glamour of the steam engine. Yet there was something that had an appeal for him in trains, especially in night trains, which always put queer, vaguely improper notions in his head." This certainly resonates with much of what Theroux himself has written about his rail voyages, traveling alone across Asia or through Europe.

Paul Theroux has been writing for over forty years now, during which time he's produced around a dozen travel books and easily twice as many novels. As he is approaching his seventieth birthday, it is not reasonable to assume that his future globetrotting will be w=more limited than it has been in the past, and that we will not see many more books like "The Great Railway Bazaar" or "The Happy Isles of Oceania." For those of us who greedily devour any and all of his works, and who especially look forward to the publication of his travel writings, this collection is especially welcome. Read more ›

67 of 71 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Others say this book isn't just a compilation, but it really is June 15, 2011

By Bob Peck

Format:Bonded Leather|Amazon Verified Purchase

(Up-Date)

I recently discovered that the book some of us were looking for in Paul Theroux's "Tao of Travel" actually exists....it's the first 7 pages and much of the rest of chapter 1 of his previous book, "Ghost Train To The Eastern Star".

In those pages he briefly but thoughtfully touches on many of the topics I thought I'd find in this book: Youth vs. Experience, The Challenge of Re-visiting locales and former glories, How Travel informs and changes us, How External Factors in our lives color our perception, etc. Fleshed out, that would have been the ideal Paul Theroux swan song.

While I understand the satisfaction some people received from the excerpts in this book and the exposure to previously unknown writers and works, if you're looking for the actual Tao of Travel by Paul Theroux, check out the early sections of Ghost Star. By page 22, he even uses the phrase...."the lesson in my Tao of Travel....

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Since the first 10 reviews have all been 4 stars or higher, I'll be the first to go against the grain. Like most others who I imagine gravitate towards this book, I've read all of Theroux's previous non-fiction/travel related material and would categorize myself as a fan. My respect for his ability takes into account his legendary grumpiness and political views that I don't always agree with. To me, the unyielding consistency of those two potential negatives actually acts as a positive, making it clear from the start where he's coming from and allowing me to adjust for my own sense of the people and places he encounters and writes about....

It was also clear to me prior to purchase that this was never intended as another of those typical travelogues, but more as a review of his general thoughts and theories of travel, thematically tied together through excerpts from his and other's previous work.

What convinced me to purchase the book were earlier reviews stressing that this was far more than just a compilation, and instead reads like a brand new narrative, with the excerpts only used to tie everything together. But after 275 pages, that wasn't my perception at all. To me, it felt EXACTLY like a compilation book, in many cases with only tangentially related snippets included to fill out the book. Perhaps this was necessary because several other chapters had only enough material for 3 pages or less. The very limited new prose from Theroux was what actually then tied things together.

Several problems arise from this. The first is that all the material quoted from Theroux's previous work is quite familiar to me, and that's a decent chunk of the book. The second is that, quite naturally, my enjoyment of the material from the other --- in many cases, unfamiliar --- authors varies a lot, to the point where my lack of interest in that person's style, content, or whatever, caused me to skim through it and move on.

So my negativity is not that the book isn't like his previous work, or wasn't what I expected. It's just that there wasn't enough "New Theroux" to justify what is being sold as Theroux's new book. It really IS a compilation book, and a lot of it didn't interest me that much. I would have far preferred a new book of Theroux's reflections on his travels and commentary about the joys, perils, pitfalls, unexpected pleasures, etc. of travel. Maybe there's still time for that, but this felt like Theroux's career re-cap. Now about that cheap, unnecessary, crinkly plastic sticker ruining the back of the book... Read more ›

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Accumulated Wisdom of Travelers... April 3, 2011

By D. S. Thurlow TOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

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In 2011's "The Tao of Travel", veteran travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux offers a fascinating collection of observations, anecdotes and small wisdoms from his many years on the road and from the experiences of other travel writers.

This collection includes selections from a variety of travelers, such as Samuel Johnson, Henry David Thoreau, Robert Louis Stevenson, Peter Matthiessen, and Freya Stark, to mention just a few. The book explores, in intriguing ways, how and especially why travelers leave home, and why they write about their experiences. "The Tao of Travel" samples centuries of travel books, including unique captures of persons, places, times, and more than a few instances of fiction.

On display is Paul Theroux's superbly enjoyable prose and his keen but wry sense of observation. He includes, naturally, some essential lists for his fellow travelers to argue over, such as the most dangerous, alluring, and happy places he has visited, and the ten items that constitute his personal tao of travel.

"The Tao of Travel" is very highly recommended as an entertaining reading experience for fans of Paul Theroux, and for those who themselves feel compelled to travel; they will understand the tao.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A treasure April 7, 2011

By Doctor.Generosity TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

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Serious readers know Paul Theroux, who is highly regarded for his sophisticated, precise writing, honesty and clear thinking. His numerous books are divided between fiction and nonfiction, much of the latter loosely in the category of travel essays. In this volume Theroux collects passages from many of his own favorite travel authors, and adds his insightful commentaries. Many of his sources we know - Nabokov, V. S. Pritchett, Waugh, Marco Polo - but others are obscure - Dervla Murphy. Theroux is not above a bit of gossip, including outing writers who wrote travel logs as if alone but actually had their moms (or gay lovers) with them the whole time. The collection is dense with delights, a treasure. Travel of course means many things, but in Theroux's hands it is coherent enough a theme that he has been able to organize a big chunk of English literature around it.

Packed with gem-like passages from many sources. Best to appreciate slowly, one chapter at a time.