Product Description

Thirty years after the epic journey chronicled in his classic work The Great Railway Bazaar, the world's most acclaimed travel writer re-creates his 25,000-mile journey through eastern Europe, central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, China, Japan, and Siberia.

Half a lifetime ago, Paul Theroux virtually invented the modern travel narrative by recounting his grand tour by train through Asia. In the three decades since, the world he recorded in that book has undergone phenomenal change. The Soviet Union has collapsed and China has risen; India booms while Burma smothers under dictatorship; Vietnam flourishes in the aftermath of the havoc America was unleashing on it the last time Theroux passed through. And no one is better able to capture the texture, sights, smells, and sounds of that changing landscape than Theroux.
Theroux's odyssey takes him from eastern Europe, still hung-over from communism, through tense but thriving Turkey into the Caucasus, where Georgia limps back toward feudalism while its neighbor Azerbaijan revels in oil-fueled capitalism. Theroux is firsthand witness to it all, traveling as the locals do—by stifling train, rattletrap bus, illicit taxi, and mud-caked foot—encountering adventures only he could have: from the literary (sparring with the incisive Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk) to the dissolute (surviving a week-long bender on the Trans-Siberian Railroad). And wherever he goes, his omnivorous curiosity and unerring eye for detail never fail to inspire, enlighten, inform, and entertain.

PAUL THEROUX was born in Medford, Massachusetts, in 1941 and published his first novel, Waldo, in 1967. His fiction includes The Mosquito Coast, My Secret History, My Other Life, Kowloon Tong, Blinding Light, and most recently, The Elephanta Suite. His highly acclaimed travel books include Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, Fresh Air Fiend, and Dark Star Safari. He has been the guest editor of The Best American Travel Writing and is a frequent contributor to various magazines, including The New Yorker. He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2196 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 512 pages

Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, August 2008: Way back in the dark pre-Internet, limited-air-travel world of 1975, the way to get from Europe to Asia was by train. A young and ambitious writer named Paul Theroux made his literary mark by taking the 28,000-mile intercontinental journey via rail from London to Tokyo and back home again. His book, The Great Railway Bazaar, became a travel-lit classic. Thirty years later, an older, wiser, and even less sanguine Theroux decided to retrace his steps. The result is Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, a fascinating account of the places you vaguely knew existed (Tbilisi), probably won't ever go to (Bangalore), but definitely should know something about (Mandalay). Get on board Theroux's fast-moving travelogue, which features some of the most astute commentary on our distorted notions of time, space, and each other in the age of jet speed, broadband connections, and cultural extinction. --Lauren Nemroff

From Bookmarks Magazine
Paul Theroux has polarized critics with his latest travelogue. His sense of adventure, candid descriptions, and evocative prose notwithstanding, some critics took issue with the unbridled narcissism suffusing the narrative. Others lavished praise on the best-selling author, and the Los Angeles Times, summarizing the two sides neatly, called Theroux “a compelling writer who is essentially unlikable.” Despite this opinion and complaints of unimaginative generalizations and a tendency towards repetition, Theroux immerses readers in the alleys and shadowy corners of squalid cities that many are unlikely to see for themselves. He is a close observer of the unfamiliar and the strange while charting the simultaneous evolution and degeneration of the world itself. “Theroux’s real work is not about travel,” reveals the Rocky Mountain News, “it’s about the progress of the soul.”
Copyright 2008 Bookmarks Publishing LLC

Review
.readers will find his usual wonderfully evocative landscapes and piquant character sketches...No matter where his journey takes him, Theroux always sends back dazzling post cards." (Publishers Weekly, Starred )

"Theroux wanders to places that scarcely cross other travel writers' minds, among tham Vientiane ('a sleepy town on the banks of the muddy river, famous for its cheap beer') and Phnom Penh ('scruffy, rather beaten-up...like a scarred human face in which its violent past was evident'). He also keeps up a running argument with the books he reads along the way, to say nothing of his contemporaries )Chatwin never traveled alone, he harumphs, and neither does his bete noire Naipaul." (Kirkus Reviews )

"As thoughtful and observant as ever…this trip finds Theroux reflecting not only on changes to the landscape but also to himself…a wonderful book infused with the insights of maturity…it's a reminder that in this age of increasingly homogenous urban centers and easy air travel, those who really want to discern national differences should stay on the ground." (Booklist, ALA, Starred Review )

"Brilliant. No one writes with theroux's head-on intensity and raptness, and his descriptions made me want to jump on the next plane to Istanbul (and also, of course, to many of the other places he evokes). I particularly loved the spectral motif, the ghosts and shadows and underground presences that flit through the narrative, giving the whole a half-seen and haunting dimension that no book of travels I've ever read conjures up." --Pico Iyer

Customer Reviews

Quite a constitution and quite a writer.
Considering the number of trips on marginal trains through poor 3rd world countries Paul Theroux has taken it seems to me a tribute to his cast-iron gut that he has even survived this long, and miraculous that he has the stamina to continue going on these journeys. I really thought "Dark Star Safari" would be his last trip, although I'm glad it was not, because I've enjoyed his travel writing through the years. I enjoyed this book, although the original "Great Railway Bazaar" is in some places more amusing because the younger Paul Theroux wasn't as rich or well-connected as he is now so he had to settle for very lowly conditions sometimes, which he always wrote about entertainingly. Also the U.S.S.R. was there when he took his first trip, and that dismal place often brought out the blackly humorous best in travel writers. Some of the countries he travels through in this follow-up (for instance Uzbekistan,) don't seem to have interested him enough to do his best writing, and he is almost fulsome at times when it comes to describing Turkey, but he is amusing when it comes to describing Turkmenistan and its awful dictator the (happily) late Saparmyrat Niyazov. He is probably best when it comes to describing his travels through India, a place the he seems to like very much. He is good at describing the over-crowded although energetic Bombay, and his fame gets him an entrance into one of Bangalore's many call centers where he gently grills the managers on how much they underpay their employees. He also writes entertainingly about the sanitized speed and efficiency of Japan (although I don't think as many amusing things happened to him this time around,) and Russia. (Which sounds much nicer to travel through but isn't as much fun to read about.)

The Older the Violin, The Sweeter the Music
I have been reading Theroux's travel books for more than 30 years, and I have to say that they and he get better all the time.

This latest book is the funniest, wisest, kindest, most beautifully written of the books. What the author has lost in endurance (he goes to sleep much earlier than ever before) and appetite (he stays pretty much away from the bars), he makes up for in humanness.

Like all the great writers, he's a man on a mission, and the mission is to tell us that there are people in the world who deserve our love and admiration and there are people in the world who don't deserve anything because they are here to hurt us. He tells us this in such a way that we realize that the world isn't such a bad place and that it's a good thing to stick around a little longer.

John Guzlowski
Lightning and Ashes

Fast service - good book
The book, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, is an excellent travel book. It does go even further, however, in his many conversations with the people he meets along the way. It is informative and well as entertaining.