Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town

Product Information

Theroux's sometimes caustic portrait of Nobel Laureate V.S. Naipaul in his memoir Sir Vidia's Shadow (1998) is at considerable odds with his earlier, gushing portrait of the same author in V.S. Naipaul, an Introduction to His Work (1972). Discuss the aspects of his trip that disturbed you most—the poverty, political or social chaos, physical decay, filth, or lawlessness. What parts of the trip delighted you?

urn:oclc:417133413 Republisher_date 20120723164317 Republisher_operator [email protected] Scandate 20120723051509 Scanner scribe28.shenzhen.archive.org Scanningcenter shenzhen Worldcat (source edition) I have just tramped down through Africa in the footsteps of Theroux, sighing and tsking, yet unable to put the book down. This man is a genius writer, yet so darn cantankerous, curmudgeonly and scathing that he made me want to throw the book on the floor and mash it. Even when he relishes a place, it often seems that it is the dirt, the stink and the squalor that inspires him. It's a kind of machismo. Proof that he isn't a tourist, but a bona fide explorer and traveller. Prostitutes also always make for good company -- though Theroux claims just to buy them food and drinks. Theroux currently resides in Hawaii and Cape Cod, Ma., U.S.A. He is currently married to Sheila Donnelly (since November 18, 1975). Previously, he was married to Anne Castle. He has two sons with his first wife—Marcel Theroux and Louis Theroux —both of whom are writers and television presenters. In his books, Theroux alludes to his ability to speak Italian, French, Spanish, Chinese, Chichewa, and Swahili. Take Ethiopia. He writes that when Mengistu Haile Mariam deposed Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, he "killed Haile Selassie and his entire family", and that the government that succeeded the Derg "revealed that Haile Selassie had been choked to death personally by the Derg's leader, Mengistu Haile Mariam".Theroux waxes poetic about the trash and filth he finds on the way. Child beggars and youth gangs follow in his wake. Officials of all kinds demand bribes. The college he taught in is ruined, the grants stolen. Everywhere are agents of virtue, known as foreign aid workers, in new white Land Rovers. The system is so entrenched it is part of the macro economy. He floats in a dugout canoe down the Zambezi. Thus the Africa described in The Last Train to Zona Verde turns out to be an even harsher, more miserable, more depressing place than the one depicted in its predecessor Dark Star Safari. There have been "few improvements, many degradations," the author notes. And in the end, it all proves too much. A common thread across almost all of Africa is the many people he meets who have spent much of their lives in jail under oppressive regimes. Early on Theroux mentions reading Conrad's Heart of Darness -- "which I was to read twelve more times before I reached Cape Town" -- but it's not a guiding text for most of the book.

A grim and fascinating journey through Africa, the "dark star" continent, with Paul Theroux. This is my fourth book by Theroux, my third of his travel diaries. I have now followed Theroux on intrepid and gripping trips in China ( Riding the Iron Rooster) and South America The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas), in addition to Africa. Theroux is older here, jaded and cantankerous, but his writing is just as sharp, his observations just as cutting, his style just as persevering and inquisitive as always.And to be fair, as often as Theroux expresses disappointment in the things he finds, he is happy to write about the positive things he encounters. He does meet aid workers and nuns that he finds sincere, and sometimes even charming, in their attempt to light a candle in the "darkness" rather than to add another chapter to the story of their lives. Theroux sets out on his journey hoping for "the picturesque." Does he find it? Talk about his reactions, for instance, to the Sudanese pryamids or the Maltese nun who cooks him a gourmet meal. Who or what else charms him?