| The Old Patagonian Express |  | Author: Paul Theroux
Publisher: Books on Tape
Category: Book
List Price: $96.00
Buy Used: $76.78
You Save: $19.22 (20%)
Used (2) from $76.78
Avg. Customer Rating:  31 reviews
Format: Import
Media: Audio Cassette
Number Of Items: 12
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
ISBN: 5557077839
EAN: 9785557077835
ASIN: 5557077839
Publication Date: January 1979
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Ex-library copy w/ usual stamps and markings. Some shelf wear on clamshell case, but cassettes in good condition. Ships promptly in a padded mailer w/ delivery confirmation.
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Product Description
Starting with a rush-hour subway ride to South Station in Boston to catch the Lake Shore Limited to Chicago, Theroux winds up on the poky, wandering Old Patagonian Express steam engine, which comes to a halt in a desolate land of cracked hills and thorn bushes. But with Theroux the view along the way is what matters: the monologuing Mr. Thornberry in Costa Rica, the bogus priest of Cali, and the blind Jorge Luis Borges, who delights in having Theroux read Robert Louis Stevenson to him.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 26 more reviews...
 From Boston to Patagonia by Train June 12, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Note: I made some immature Mormon angry because of my negative reviews of books that attempted to prove the Book of Mormon, and that person has been slamming my reviews almost as fast as they are posted.
So, your "helpful" votes are appreciated. Thanks, and note that a short review is not necessarily a bad review if it leads you to a great book.
From Boston to Patagonia by train. What an adventure. As I wrote in my review of the "Great Railway Bazaar," treat yourself to traveling the easy way and read one of Paul Theroux's books.
Peter Mathiessen described the "Old Patagonian Express" perfectly: "Sharp-eyed, honest, and exceptionally well-written...an implacable landscape, conveyed through a series of marvelous encounters."
Another Wonderful Travel Expose by the Inimitable Theroux! May 25, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Terrific in every way, as all of Theroux's travel books are! Not a word too many, and not an insight overlooked in this adventure through the Americas. Wonderful, beautiful, and a treasured book in my library.
Take a trip December 18, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
One of Theroux's best train trips. You can really feel the shifting landscapes as he moves through the latitudes...
"The journey, not the arrival, matters; the voyage, not the landing." June 22, 2006
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
In 1979, Paul Theroux departed from his childhood home in Medford, Massachusetts, and began his train journey from the East Coast of the United States to Patagonia, on the southern tip of Argentina. A seasoned traveler, fluent in Spanish, Theroux brings to life his trip through the northern and southern hemispheres, traveling without a schedule and observing his fellow passengers on the train and people at stops along the way.
In Texas he is astonished at the contrasts between Laredo on the Texas side of the Rio Grande and Nuevo Laredo across the border in Mexico, commenting on society and governments. Traveling through Mexico and Guatemala, he observes the poverty of the Indians and their lack of opportunities. In El Salvador he attends a soccer game and gets caught up in the melee and riots which follow it. In Costa Rica, the cleanest country he has visited, he finds himself stuck on the train with Mr. Thornberry, a New Hampshire tourist so boring that Theroux cannot wait to escape him--only to have Mr. Thornberry "save his life" by offering him a place to stay upon his arrival in Limon. In Panama he meets the "Zonians," from the Canal Zone, and in Cali, Colombia, he meets a married "priest" who cannot tell his devout mother in Belfast that he has "left" the church to marry and have children.
Throughout his trip, Theroux reads classics, particularly enjoying Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson and Edgar Allen Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, both of which provide ironic reference points for his own journey. For literature lovers, the most fascinating section occurs in Buenos Aires, where Theroux spends many days visiting blind writer Jorge Luis Borges, who persuades Theroux to read to him. Ironically, one of Borges's favorite novels is The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. As Theroux takes notes on his meetings with Borges, he becomes Borges's Boswell.
More an observer than a participant, Theroux has an unfortunate air of superiority about what he sees and hears. Sparing little sympathy for American and German tourists, he rarely gets excited about his surroundings, expressing genuine emotion only when he talks with three boys, ages ten to twelve, who live in a doorway and scavenge for food because their rural families have abandoned them. Theroux's self-congratulatory attitude gets a bit wearisome, but the picture of Central and South America, thirty years ago, and the section with Borges are unparalleled. With beautiful, carefully observed prose and a great ear for dialogue, Theroux's Patagonia Express is a landmark travel memoir. n Mary Whipple
you can forgive Paul Theroux February 9, 2006
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
A remark that one reads often about Paul Theroux is that he is grouchy, critical of the people he meets, and generally unpleasant. Some readers seem to suggest that this makes him a worse traveller, not being pure-of-heart or sufficiently open-minded. On the other hand, some others suggest he is worth reading as a travel writer precisely because he's not afraid to tell-it-like-it-is. I think it is likely that both of these ideas are wrong.
When Paul Theroux writes a travel book, he is not a journalist writing simply to produce a faithful depicition of the places he visits. He is not a social crusader writing in order educate the reader about the lives of the poor or to stimulate the reader to see the richness of life outside of North American. He certainly not an egotist like Thomas Friedman who writes in order to put himself in a positive light. He is simply an intelligent man who has enough humility to try to write down what he has experienced without drawing too many clumsy conclusions or false symmetries. When he writes that he didn't like a certain person sleeping in his train compartment, he doesn't expect the reader to sympathize with either him or the unpleasant companion. I don't think he means to argue that his dislike has any special significance beyond the fact that it was part of the travel story that he is telling. I like the fact that when Theroux narrates an encounter with someone in his travels he doesn't smooth out the details to make the encounter unambiguously positive or negative. For example, when he describes meeting Jorge Borges, the Argentine writer, he clearly admires Borges' memory and sensitivity and yet he doesn't avoid commenting on Borges' stuttering and his clowning smile. And yet again I don't think Theroux's remarks are meant to be cynical or knowing. When he tells-it-like-it-is he is not trying to steer an intellectual or moral high road and he is not valiantly trying to see past illusions. I believe that when he writes down a conversation or encounter he intends only to include his side as one of the characters in his story.
Theroux has the patience to travel by train across a hemisphere and, thankfully for this reader, he has the patience to delay the moment when the mind can no longer calmly observe and rashly commits itself to streamlined answers and silly pet theories about what one sees and what it 'really' means. His books are, to me, humble because in them he shows us moments when he feels superior and they are wise because he doesn't try to step outside of his story to engage in falsely-wise pronoucements.
It doesn't matter whether Paul Therous is a 'good' traveller or not. Few travellers have the writing ability to produce any sort of record of their travels anyway, whatever their nature. The reason one ought to read Paul Theroux is be reminded of what the world and oneself can look like through the eyes of an ardent traveller who just happens to love books a bit more than he loves people.
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