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 enlarge | Author: Paul Theroux
Creator: William Hootkins
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy Used: $6.45
You Save: $10.50 (62%)
Used (6) from $6.45
Avg. Customer Rating:  32 reviews
Sales Rank: 1398283
Format: Audiobook
Media: Audio Cassette
Number Of Items: 2
Pages: 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 20 x 20 x 20
ISBN: 0140861084
EAN: 9780140861082
ASIN: 0140861084
Publication Date: June 1, 1997
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Fast Daily Shipping - Hardcover Eddition- Very Good condition, minimal wear/cover wear, ex-libris, nice pages, fast shipping. Best Buy!
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| Customer Reviews:
 Crisp prose but disappoining observations June 27, 2005
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
When I saw the title and read the introduction on the back I thought this was the travelogue I have been waiting for. I also like to travel and enjoy the process of travel much more than collecting souvenirs or boasting material. I find walking through the main street of a strange place and observing the public behavior of the people and sometimes overhearing their conversations much more interesting than visiting museums or other tourist locations about which I can read from any book sitting at home. When I got this book I wanted a third party confirmation of my ways. But this book disappointed me.
It is about Theroux's travel from one end to the other end of Americas by train. He hardly feels anything interesting or appealing on the many trains he takes or the people he meets. He takes all in as a necessary evil so that he could write a book. When ever people offer him opportunities to get out of his self absorption he rebuffs them and if this is not enough calls them idiots. While spending a great deal of time in interpreting his enlightened reading material for us he seems content to call poor miserable and hot weather unbearable. If I believed that calling the poor miserable would make them rich I would have enjoyed the content of his descriptions much more.
Here comes the best part of the book. His clear, precise prose and his ability to work with short dialogues to give as a prejudiced but clear picture. In this sense this book is a very interesting read and you feel compelled to finish it once you start. If you are one of those people charmed by clear precise prose with a bit of exotism thrown in this is the book for you.
 Traversing the Americas September 6, 2004
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
Paul Theroux, in his introduction to THE OLD PATAGONIAN EXPRESS, states that his wish was to make this "the ultimate book about getting there." As in his other train voyage narratives, this book is about the journey rather than the destination however, as usual, we manage to glimpse quite a lot of the country and people he encounters along the way. Theroux, as always, plays the curmudgeon and misanthrope throughout. This, of course, is the main reason I enjoy coming back to Theroux time and time again. Who needs to read another travelogue of fluffy descriptions of tourist destinations and restaurant reviews?
Theroux seeks "adventure" and he finds a fair amount of it in his train travels through the Americas. Although he speaks against the novelistic approach to travel writing, his own character consistently inserts itself into the story which in my opinion reads much like a novel in a positive way. Politically, the book is dated and we must expect that much has changed in Central and South America over the last 20 years. However, THE OLD PATAGONIAN EXPRESS remains a highly entertaining read and I recommend it heartily.
Jeremy W. Forstadt
 Can we have an explorer's perspective please. February 20, 2004
13 out of 26 found this review helpful
Paul's books provide a very detailed travel account. But, it appears to be a reporter's view. His writings lack the passion of an explorer. Travelling to distant places is essentially a journey within. Great travelers wouldn't ridicule the places they visit or the people they meet. In this book he seems describing the slums and the poverty of Mexico and other countries. Trust me, not many people want to be poor by choice.
Traveling is a sublime, spiritual & learning experience. It is an opportunity to look beyond our perceptions & bias. His writings are just an account of what he saw, they lack the light of a traveler...
 Dont throw away your time or money November 3, 2003
7 out of 19 found this review helpful
When I saw this book at the bookstore I imagined it would be very good, a train ride trough the continent!, it is really about complaining on everything, he should have stayed home!, I kept reading because I was expecting it to get better, but it really did not, this was the first and last of his books that I buy, I am sorry but as a traveler I expected much more, I could not imagine a more unfriendly person writting about travels.
Lack of soul July 28, 2003
20 out of 30 found this review helpful
This is the first time I read Paul Theroux's book. Before that I heard and read that he is one of the greatest travel writers in modern times. Granted, this guy wrote well, but his attitude was insufferable. At the end of it, I wonder is this a traveller writing a book on travel or a writer writing a book on travel.This book is almost exclusively about a train journey. PT tried to take train throughout the journey for the sake of it, even though everyone told him that bus was faster etc. But of course he was going to take the train so we read about him whining about its poor condition, its delay, how pathetic the people travelling on the train, how godforsaken the towns were etc. PT had this high and mighty attitude that he scorned about comments by the common tourists (a lower and more superficial class of people on the road whom he was not associating himself with); he had condescending opinion on people reading main-stream books, books which he considered less literarily acclaimed than his own selection on the trip. Oh yes, you get to read about what he read on the trip, with some thoughts and paragraphs included. Being strictly a journey book, PT travelled from point A to point B, with lots of observations and comments on the way, but don't expect him to write a bit about some of the sights he saw along the way (not even Machu Picchu) or some snippets of the history, culture and politics of the places he passed through. He did not even demonstrate a sense of humour! Worse, he was a first-class hypocrite, saying things he thought what the person would prefer to hear instead of his own unkind opinion. PT wrote a very vivid account, a very detailed description on colours, sounds and scents of his journey. But there was something lacking. A story that scored high technically but failed in spirit.
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