The Rooster

[sixty12365@aol.com]

I enjoy Theroux’s travel writing immensely and will tell you why. It isn’t his lush descriptive prose that sometime can transport you to these distant places he is traveling through. It isn’t his poignant perceptiveness in the political and sociological underbelly of these places either. What makes me come back to his travel books time and again is his sharp character studies and his interactions with the people he meets that really bring his writing to life - sometimes making me laugh out loud or shake my head in disgust. In some of his books (Kingdom by the Sea, The Patagonian Express, The Pillars Of Hercules) he gets lost in his writing and you think that you have heard enough about these wayward little shanty villages in the middle of nowhere, when he meets someone and the narrative comes to life. This is the case in Riding the Iron Roster. Some of the best scenes of the book take place in his railcar while he sits on the perch of his berth and secretly scribbles notes about the characters around him. The book really excels towards the end when he has his near death accident with his driver Mr. Fu. His description of himself driving this beat-up car (Mr. Fu was to shook-up after the accident to drive) while listening to Beethoven’s 6th with Mr. Fu and his hissing girlfriend groaning in the back seat is priceless. In this book, as with all of Theroux’s writing, Theroux proves himself to be a discreet observer wandering from one spot to the next. His insight into not just the cultures on a whole, but the individuals that make up these cultures are what make his writing valuable and enduring.

[Jon D. Evers]

I agree in whole. ...well said. his 'traveloge' is a large portion for my return to several of his books also. ....over and over...