| Fresh-Air Fiend: Travel Writings 1985-2000 |  | Author: Theroux
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Category: Book
Buy Used: $10.94
Used (4) from $10.94
Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 4564554
Format: Import
Media: Unbound
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.5
ISBN: 0771085044
EAN: 9780771085048
ASIN: 0771085044
Publication Date: May 1, 2000
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Amazon.com
Paul Theroux may be pompous, self-important, cynical, and grumpy. He may even be, as accused by a heckler in Australia, "a wanker." So what? The man is prolific--having penned 36 books--and when he's inspired, his insights and sparkling writing are so startling that it's easy to forgive him for his occasional crankiness. Besides, as he reminds readers frequently, he is a man who takes pen to paper for a living; as the title essay points out: "Normal, happy, well-balanced individuals seldom become imaginative writers...." In Fresh Air Fiend, Theroux's pen serves him well with astute, lively pieces that stray far beyond simple "travel essays" and reveal his self-inflicted lifestyle of compulsive travel, writing, and alienation. In this collection--containing mostly previously published magazine pieces written over the past 15 years--there's a strong autobiographical streak, as well as historical perspectives and a sardonic view on aging. "One of the more bewildering aspects of growing older," he writes in "'Memory and Creation,'" "is that people constantly remind you of things that never happened." Now nearly 60, Theroux has lived a rich, varied life: the book jumps from post-Mao China and years spent as an Africa-based Peace Corps volunteer in the '60s to turtle watching in Hawaii and kayaking on Cape Cod; the jumbled collection even includes pieces on other travel writers (Bruce Chatwin, Graham Greene, and William Least Heat-Moon) and the film adaptation of his novel The Mosquito Coast. A chronic sense of aloneness permeates all these pieces--be it the lost traveler paddling through fog, the lone writer living without a phone, or the hermetic trekker who can't speak the native language. Most touching: a short sketch of a road trip when he's lost, his wife is anxious, and the children are fighting; Theroux doesn't want the moment to end and soon enough he returns to his self-imposed alienation. It's that perpetual sense of loneliness and not fitting in that seems to motivate Theroux in many of these essays. Theroux may be getting older, even nostalgic, but as these vibrant essays show, he sure isn't getting stale. --Melissa Rossi
Product Description
Paul Theroux's first collection of essays and articles devoted entirely to travel writing, FRESH AIR FIEND touches down on five continents and floats through most seas in between to deliver a literary adventure of the first order, with the incomparable Paul Theroux as a guide. From the crisp quiet of a solitary week spent in the snowbound Maine woods to the expectant chaos of Hong Kong on the eve of the Hand-over, Theroux demonstrates how the traveling life and the writing life are intimately connected. His journeys in remote hinterlands and crowded foreign capitals provide the necessary perspective to "become a stranger" in order to discover the self. A companion volume to SUNRISE WITH SEAMONSTERS, FRESH AIR FIEND is the ultimate good read for anyone fascinated by travel in the wider world or curious about the life of one of our most passionate travelers.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 'Real' Travel September 27, 2007
Paul Theroux's travel books differ from most travel books;
he does not plop the reader down before a grand & famous site to behold it in silent and contemplative wonder. Theroux takes the reader with him on the train ride to the location which can be unbearably uncomfortable, tedious -- and delayed; and often interrupted by unpleasant if interesting men and women. This is travel as it really is not as we would wish it to be. This first-rate writer of fiction and non fiction, compulsively readable, is like the portrait painter whose portraits of the famous include 'warts and all.' Highly recommended.
 A mixed (overstuffed) (travel) bag July 6, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Tackling a 25-hour cassette book is challenging enough without this narrator, whose gasping intake of breath is audible before nearly every sentence on most of the tapes. Perhaps he had a cold. I have not heard Theroux's own voice, so I will hear Dietz in my head from henceforth when Theroux is mentioned. When reading dialog spoken by Chinese or Filipinos, Dietz affects a high-pitched sing-song voice, although he is reading English. He does not do this for other non-English speakers. As for the book itself, a collection of travel-related essays is fine. However, such a huge portion of the book deals with Theroux's travels in China that these should have been made a separate collection. The essays on other travel writers and Theroux's own writing history could have been collected in yet another volume, though they're not out of place here. The essays on Defoe, Thoreau, and the polar explorers were enjoyable surprises. The couple on Bruce Chatwin were not. One essay on unusual social practices is particularly interesting. Nonetheless, after this behemoth, I'm through with Theroux for a while.
Excellent travel/writing book December 12, 2006
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Paul Theroux is one of only a few writers for whom I will immediately buy their new hardcovers based on name only, with great anticipation. This one does not disappoint, and I'd rate it right up there with my favorites of his, "My Other Life" and "Sunrise With Seamonsters." His writing on how to travel and how to write and thus how to live one's life is outstanding and inspiring, including the fact that he wrote "The Great Railway Bazaar" in the four months that the train trip took.
Palate-Pleasing Sampler August 21, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
As someone first introduced to Mr. Theroux's works with "The Great Railway Bazaar" and who has savored a steady diet of his observations, insights and sardonicism since then, "Fresh Air Fiend" proves yet another palate-pleasing repaste. This is one you can nibble on here and there and see whether you can stop at "just one" in a single sitting.
By far the oddest, and most intriguing piece in this wonderful collection mocks a portion of the exceptional opening essay, Being a Stranger. In it, Theroux admits he has little use for the intrusion of two-way electronic communications in everyday life (revealing he lived without a phone in the English countryside for years): "Connection has made people arrogant, impatient, hasty, and presumptuous," he says, adding "... I found out much more about the world and myself by being unconnected."
This electronic aceticism (his nib pen, stolen during a burglary, he considers priceless for its memories), is a logical extension of the author's oft-stated preference for traveling solo, without a camera, choosing encounters and freezing impressions in his mind. Thus it was a bit of a shock to read the selection, "Connected in Palau," in which Theroux loaded himself up with every conceivable two-way gadget and trekked to a remote Pacific island to enact a new twist on Crusoe: would 'Friday' be his local guide, his brother Gene via uplink, or once again, Theroux himself, as he always seems to take solace in his own company?
"Connected in Palau" bounces back and forth from Theroux's monkeying with his gadgets in the midst of one of the most offbeat locations on earth to snapshot impressions of the habitat. Those impressions are interesting but not vintage Theroux. Did connectivity deaden Paul's powers of observation (I doubt it)? Did he deliberately engage in flash-in-the-pan descriptions of Palau to point up the dangers inherent in too much connectedness? And when he wraps up and talks about true silence finally descending upon this speck of territory, did he really mean from the lack of sound of water or from his own intrusive equipment? Finally, what price did the author personally pay in tethering himself to the global village for the purpose of writing this little morality tale when the odds of returning to Palau must have been remote?
"Connected in Palau" is just one of more than four dozen treats awaiting the reader of "Fresh Air Fiend". It's a great way to review Theroux's travels and musings over the period 1985-2000 and revel once more in one of the past half-century's most gifted writers and social commentators. Highly recommended.
The Raconteur July 27, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
You know that word, 'raconteur' - one who excels in telling stories and anecdotes. Paul Theroux is a raconteur. Oh, an erudite raconteur, a brainy man who has moved around the earth seeking out novel experiences.
This man sits across from you at a lunch table an begins telling of one time in China - one time on Cape Cod - one time in England - one time on Palau -
He has your attention; you become engrossed.
This book is from half-a-dozen years gone by, and more. The thought will cross your mind, "This China he is telling of - China probably is not like that now." No matter. The story is compelling; each story is compelling.
"Fresh Air Fiend,' will endure in memory.
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