| |  | Author: Paul Theroux
Publisher: Random House Value Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $2.99
Buy Used: $2.70
You Save: $0.29 (10%)
Used (6) Collectible (2) from $2.70
Avg. Customer Rating:  39 reviews
Sales Rank: 920430
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 480
ISBN: 0517030322
EAN: 9780517030325
ASIN: 0517030322
Publication Date: February 14, 1990
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: No dust jacket
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| Customer Reviews:
 What a trip! April 26, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I promise you will live this journey! It is incredible how Theroux describes the people, the places. A rail journey through China was nothing short of heroic back then, and I am sure would be nothing short of heroic now. I met the people, sat on the train, ate the strange foods, could taste the strange foods, slept on floors, in what is kindly described as inns. The rail stations, the villages, the towns. And the weather. I cannot imagine freezing like that, or sweating like that. Or can I???
All I know is that I want to make that journey. I was near there not too many years ago, shortly after I read the book for the first time. I was on a boat on the Amur River in the Russian Far East, and looked down toward China and thought of Theroux and his journey.
Riding the Iron Rooster is great literature for anyone who loves adventure travel.
Feels like I was there in China November 7, 2005
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have become hooked on Theroux travel narratives. This is the third and the best of his narratives I have read so far. And this one is also the most funniest and engaging of them all.
The book deals with Theroux's travels through China in the late 80's. He decided to travel the bredth of the country by trains and in the process comes to appreciate the birth of a new mighty industrialized China. He was able to interact freely with the Chinese and his conversations are funny, insightful and engaging. The Chinese comes across as a rational people who knows what they want from life, even though the goals presented by Theroux deals exclusively with consumer goods. A slight annoyance is Theroux's attempt to define all the Chinese by how they responded to cultural revolution.
 Notes from a Jaded Traveler October 21, 2005
17 out of 18 found this review helpful
This book relates the experiences of train enthusiast Paul Theroux when he set out to write a book about train travel in China. Theroux has traveled many thousands of miles by train, perhaps more than he would care to remember. In this book, he decides to visit China by train. As he sets out from London in the spring of 1986, he joins a package tour, which takes him across Europe through Poland and Moscow and continues on to China via the Siberian Express. Theroux was fortunate in that his train cleared Eastern Europe before the radiation cloud from Chernobyl blanketed the area with radiation. After a long journey across Russia, he arrives in Beijing and begins his explorations of the Chinese train system. At first, he is saddled with a Chinese escort, (who he demanded be non-English speaking so that he could practice his Chinese), but later he manages to travel independently. Theroux ends his journey with an expedition (by road) to Tibet.
From the very beginning of the book, Theroux comes across as a burnt-out traveler, whose primary goal seems to be completing the journey so that he can write about it. He can't seem to find a single positive trait of his fellow travelers to remark about. He dismisses others he observed along the way with negative terms such as "fatties" or "simians." With this negative attitude, much of the book is a grind to get through, although some readers may see humor in Theroux's attitude, and others may find the information about travel conditions worthwhile. Theroux is a very experienced traveler, and he makes a point not to mention minor ailments such as belly-aches, although he must have had quite a few, considering the food he ate. The text finally comes alive in the last chapter, where Theroux gets off the trains at last and has a real adventure. Die-hard Theroux fans may get a kick out of this book, but others may find Theroux's negative attitude simply dreary.
Another Masterpiece by the Irritating American March 11, 2005
16 out of 18 found this review helpful
I am great fan of Thoreaux, and have read ALL of his travelogues. It is rare for someone of his literary genius to risk his life and reputation to travel to remote places in the most inconvenient manner to report his candid observations and penetrating insights into the characters and cultures of the place. We the readers are the beneficiary of his extraordinary ability to take the least traveled road and report back the very essence of the experience in a most vivid and often impolitic manner.
That said, I found Thoreaux's relentless questioning of every local he meets about Cultural Revolution irritating as well. Thoreaux seems to find curious or amusing the Chinese' reticence about discussing their haunted past. However, Thoreaux's own behavior is inconsistent and rather curious, since when he was in South Africa ('Dark Star Safari'), he did not interrogates the locals there about the Apartheid. When he was in Russia ('Great Railway Bazaar'), he did not interrogate them about the Stalinist purges. When he was in Australia ('Happy Isles of Oceania'), he did not press the locals about the Australians' long hisory of mistreatment of the Aboriginals.
Every country - especially those with history as a Colonial power - has its own haunted history of violence that it'd prefer not to revisit in depth. America has its own share, including slavery, lynchings, and violence against the native Americans. If a foreign writer travels solo through the American Deep South questioning the locals about these topics, s/he may receive a response more hostile than an uncomfortable 'Haha'. It's a tribute to the civility of the Chinese culture that Thoreaux did not suffer violence at the hand of the locals for his deliberate provocation.
Thoreaux admits that he is an equal opportunity offender, that his writings have alienated or offended his publishers, his business contacts, foreign governments, etc. Yes, his writings are very often politically incorrect, but overall he is a brilliant writer of exceptional courage and singularity of vision. There is no one like him, and I admire him greatly as one of my favorite writers of all time.
Ha! ha! ha! We're screwed! January 12, 2005
13 out of 17 found this review helpful
First off, let's just accept that this is a great book. Maybe it's about a China that's now gone, but it's a great read nonetheless.
For me, well, I once worked with a bunch of Chinese guys, in the US and in Japan. Personally, I think Theroux's observations of ordinary Chinese people are right on the mark. What struck me most was the Chinese laugh. It's true what he says, that the laugh usually means anything but mirth. Sometimes it's to cover embarrassment, sometimes to cover pain, but rarely is it the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind.
Talking to buddies of mine who've traveled in China, mostly by train, and in the last couple of years, I'm struck that not all that much has changed. Maybe for the top 0.25%, but that's about it.
Anyway, a good read.
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