Not
everything worth reading is hot off the press. In this section, we recommend "something old" that is still well worth
reading. "Something Old" can mean anything from a venerable and antique
classic to a good book first published four or more years ago.
“THE OLD PATAGONIAN EXPRESS”
by Paul Theroux (first published in 1979)
As I remarked once before on this blog (see review of Ray
Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451), you may
assume when I review a book that I have literally read it from cover to cover,
held it in my hands and methodically deciphered all those black marks on the
pages. But in my recent dark period, when my eyesight was (for some months)
severely impaired, I could neither read nor write in the conventional sense and
spent many hours listening to talking books, podcasts and the like. Thus it was
that, through 14 CDs, making about 15-and-a-half hours of reading by a very
good American reader, I experienced one of Paul Theroux’s earlier travel books The Old Patagonian Express.
The American novelist Paul Theroux (born 1941) has had
many successes with his fiction, most notably his novel The Mosquito Coast. But I think for many readers he is better known
for his travel books, most of which involve his taking long train journeys. His
first bestseller was The Great Railway
Bazaar (by train across Europe and through Asia) and he later wrote Dark Star Express (the length of Africa
by train), Riding the Iron Rooster
(across China by train) and his most recent (reviewed on this blog) Last Train to Zona Verde, a very
dispiriting return train journey in Africa. At the time he wrote Last Train to Zona Verde. Theroux seemed
to be saying that this would be his last travel book.
Published in 1979, The
Old Patagonian Express was Theroux’s second travel book. It recounts the
two months or so he spent travelling by train from his home in Massachusetts to
the deepest south of Argentina – in other words southwards through the United
States and the length of Central and South America.
Of
course there is no direct rail link from Boston to Patagonia so, as he always
does, Theroux began by conning railway timetables and seeing where and how he
could make (often perilous and uncertain) connections. He also seems to have
prepared himself by reading older and more venerable travel books about the
areas he was to pass through. At least he every so often quotes from such books
to compare his impressions with those of earlier travellers. He appears to have
packed a little library of books to read en
route. Interestingly, none of these have anything to do with the countries
he is passing through. He mentions reading Edgar Allen Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, Mark
Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson (which he
rates more highly than I did when I reviewed it on this blog) and Boswell’s
Johnson.
Theroux’s
rationale for taking the train is a good one. As he correctly says, air travel
is no journey at all, but an instantaneous dumping of the traveller from one
environment into another. You see nothing of the slow transformation of
landscapes that a train journey permits. Theroux deliberately takes no camera
with him. His aim is to record in detailed descriptions what his eyes have seen
– not to piece together his journey from snapshots. Every so often he also
makes it clear that he writes a detailed diary every day, which will later be
worked up into this book.
In
reading The Old Patagonian Express,
it is wise to remember that it was written 40 years ago, and some of the
political situations to which it refers have passed away. (For example, Theroux
conspicuously avoids visiting Nicaragua, because a civil war was then raging
there, and the Argentina he visits was still the Argentina of the junta).
So
what are the pleasures of reading (or listening to) this book?
Much is the simple pleasure of decription as the various trains pass through
barren deserts, or have Theroux gasping in the thin air as they cross the
Andes, or allow him to see the wide reaches of the pampas. Much is the pleasure
or surprise of the unexpected spectacular event, such as the football match in
El Salvador which turns into a full-scale riot. In terms of human habitation,
it is not always a pretty world that Theroux observes. From Mexico to
Patagonia, there are many descriptions of urban slums, sprawling squatter camps
outside the cities, naked and unwashed children begging and an indifferent (but
much smaller) affluent class often living in what amount to gated communities.
Nor does Theroux stint on recording the run-down quality of most Latin American
trains and their discomfort, or the type of accommodation provided by
rat-infested or flea-infested hotels. In short, there is much human squalor in
this book.
Like all good travel writers, however, Theroux is aware
that a worthwhile travel book does not run on descriptions alone. (Leave the
pretty descriptions of the damned obvious to tourist brochures, guidebooks and
most travel blogs I’ve seen). The lifeblood of a good travel book is the human
encounter, usually meaning conversations with strangers whom the writer meets.
Theroux (fluent in Spanish and in many other languages) has no difficulty
buttonholing locals or fellow-travellers and chatting with them. And here, I’m
afraid, I encounter an element of this book which arouses my scepticism, as it
does with all memoirs which purport to give remembered conversations verbatim.
Doubtless Theroux scribbled up versions of his conversations in his diary as
soon as he could, but even so, it strikes me as odd that he always comes out
best in any argument or quarrel he has with others. I cannot help suspecting
that in at least some cases he has used his literary skills to tidy up the
conversations he had, or to sway things his way.
More than one critic has noted Theroux’s tendency in his
travel books to adopt a haughty or sardonic tone towards his fellow human
beings. He is the superior, literate, civilised traveller taking the measure of
those he encounters and often finding that they do not measure up. Indeed he
often comes close to sneering. But I give him credit for being an equal
opportunity sneerer. Bolivians, Peruvians and Argentinians boasting about their
country come in for his flak. (According to Theroux such nationalistic boasting
is endemic in Latin America). Corrupt or bribe-accepting officials and
complacent railway staff are the subject of his righteous scorn. But he is as
hard on his fellow-Americans.
While
he is still chugging through the USA he meets a ridiculous, weedy, pasty-faced
health-food fanatic who believes all ailments will be cured if only people
stuck to a diet of nuts. In the Texas border town of Laredo he sees American
men and college boys routinely crossing the border to make use of the brothels
on the Mexican side. Theroux makes some ripe comments on the hypocrisy of the
American townspeople who pretend there is no vice on the American side of the
border while ignoring the fact that it is the American clientele that keeps the
Mexican brothels in business. He saves buckets of satirical venom for the small
expatriate American community which then controlled the Canal Zone in Panama (this was shortly before
control of the canal was handed over to Panama). Despite years of residence,
most of these expatriates haven’t bothered learning Spanish, are
inward-turning, regard the Panamanians as an inferior species, pay them lower
wages for the work they do, and generally have the mentality of colonial
overlords.
Theroux’s
most surprising attack on fellow-Americans comes late in the book. It is clear
that Theroux has a fairly sceptical attitude towards religion, although he does
take a lively artistic and historical interest in all the Spanish churches and
cathedrals. But in Argentina he meets a bunch of American tourists spouting the
standard (predominantly Protestant) prejudices againct South American Catholic
church art. Look at all those excessive images of the naked Christ suffering,
with depictions of open wounds and blood. Look at all those detailed images of
saints and martyrs being tortured. It’s sheer masochism or sadism! Look at all
those golden altars and gold leaf decorations in countries that suffer dire
poverty. It’s exploitation of course! Etc. etc. etc. In response, Theroux
lectures them by noting that where people are already suffering greatly, they
take great comfort from learning that the sufferings of Christ and the saints
for them were even greater. And to clothe such images in gold reassures them
that this suffering and this belief really are precious. In other words, the
religious art is a true reflection of the culture. If, argues Theroux, North
American churches are decorated with more restraint and sobriety, and if their
images of the suffering Christ show him barely bruised, it is because well-fed
North American Christians are complacent and hardly know what real physical
suffering is.
In
Theroux’s account at least, this riposte effectively silences his
interlocutors.
For
some readers, the highlight of this book will be Theroux’s long conversations,
in Buenos Aires, with the famed Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (then in
his 80th year). At this point I have to confess a prejudice of my
own. I am no expert on Borges, but the little I have read of his work has not
warmed me to him. It seems to me that he was preoccupied with leaping into
unreal fantasy worlds and word-games, a sort of higher whimsy. Once again
admitting my limited knowledge of the man’s work, I do wonder how much this was
the product of trying to maintain a literary career in a country that was too
often ruled by oppressive dictators – in other words, an evasion of dangerous
everyday social realities. Be all this as it may, Theroux entertains the blind
Borges by reading him selections from Poe and Kipling and other writers whom
Borges admired and the two of them exchange literary banter, some of it
sounding (on Borges’ side) very much like grumpy old man talk, with Borges
having nothing positive to say about any living writer and clearly hankering
for his favourite late 19th or early 20th century
authors.
By
the way, Theroux himself rates this meeting as the highpoint of his trip and
says he looked forward to seeing Borges in the same way that the 19th
century travel writer Kinglake, in his classic travel book Eothen, looked forward to meeting the eccentric Lady Hester
Stanhope in the Middle East. While this may be so, I beg to note, as you will
see from my review of Eothen on this
blog, that when he actually met Lady Hester, the portrait Kinglake painted of
her was one of gentle mockery, quite unlike Theroux’s affectionate view of
Borges.
For
all its unevenness, and for all its haughty scorn, The Old Patagonian Express is a very entertaining book. But I must
conclude with one element that greatly amuses me, as it does in many other
travel books by Theroux and others. Theroux is desperately eager to tell us
that he is not a tourist. Other Americans or Europeans who share train
carriages with him are mere tourists, but he himself is a serious traveller and
therefore a different species. This approach may well be justified when Theroux
is dealing with people on a five-day package tour to see Machu Picchu. But it
becomes snobbish imposture when he is belittling German or French backpackers
who have clearly been in South America for longer than he has, have seen more
and seem to know some local customs better. Theroux presents them as
monosyllabic and ignorant. At which point I feel like saying “Listen mush, you’re an intelligent,
perceptive, well-read and entertaining writer, but your whole long Americas
trip was only two months. It’s not as if you’re the great expert on all the
lands you visited. Frankly, you’re a tourist, so stop pushing the other
tourists around.” It was this strain in Theroux’s writing that angered a
very nice woman I know when she compared her own tourism in Africa with
Theroux’s snobby comments on tourists in Last
Train to Zona Verde. In fairness to
Theroux, I do have to note that in that later travel book he himself berates
his own tourist status and questions the whole validity of travel books based on
short visits.
In
spite of which moaning I still recommend The
Old Patagonian Express as a good read (or listen).
Just started on this and immediately got turned off with his attitude towards people around him. Gonna struggle through it though.
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