Just thought I’d alert you to an interview with Paul Theroux in the Guardian today. He was one of my biggest influences when I was starting out – particularly his book The Great Railway Bazaar. In the piece he talks about the genesis of that book and his views in general on the travel writing genre. You’ll find it here.
I particular like his thought at the end of the article.
‘I think travellers are essentially optimists, or else they would never go anywhere,’ he says. ‘A travel book ought to reflect that optimism.’
I couldn’t agree more.
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Thank you, it’s an interesting article.
I couldn’t help but ponder upon how little has changed since Theroux started out. Most “travel writers” even today are either just citing the highlights of a small region or a city, or they write more about themselves than about the traveling they do, usually making it sound as if they are great, heroic explorers. And this in an age where anyone with a few weeks to spare can walk up to the Everest Base Camp, space tourism is getting started, and on any given day in January, there are almost as many people on the beaches of Antarctica as there are penguins…
Travellers going off the beaten path are of course optimists by nature. Still, I find it difficult to visit places like, say, Siberia, and remain an optimist on behalf of the locals…
Optimism expressed in writing…
Peter or Paul? Paul or Peter?
Optimism is best expressed by Peter Moore in his writing, however there is some Textbook Travel knowledge that Paul Theroux illuminates that worth the read.
Thanks for the notice from Andy of HoboTraveler.com now in Acapulco, and heading south towards Guatemala, Honduras before on to Europe, Africa, etc.
I seem to recall a passage in one of Paul Theroux’s books, quite possibly ‘Great Railway Bazaar’ (or maybe ‘Riding the Iron Rooster’) where he waxed lyrical about Eric Newby’s ‘Big Red Train Ride’. Which, I must say, was not so good…