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 enlarge | Author: Paul Theroux
Publisher: Mariner Books
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $3.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  64 reviews
Sales Rank: 14940
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 496
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 0618446877
Dewey Decimal Number: 916.04329
EAN: 9780618446872
ASIN: 0618446877
Publication Date: April 5, 2004
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| Customer Reviews:
 Through the mud, dirt, and and indifference of Africa... November 12, 2007
This book feels like it was written by a sadist for the benefit of armchair masochists. Theroux sounds like he was a ganja-smoking hippie living and working in Africa back in the 60s, so he is taking a nostalgic bad trip down memory lane. He decides to travel from one end of the continent to another, but eschews the comfort, speed, and safety of flying to be able to go by every other grimy, stinking, dangerous conveyance imaginable. Kind of like a dirty African version of "Planes, Trains and Automobiles". The more ugly and uncomfortable the travel is, the more he seems to enjoy it. He tells us how many African countries have sunk further down into poverty, laziness, and ill health since his last visit, and he blames this deterioration in great measure to the efforts of various do-gooders, such as pious missionaries and pompous foreign aid workers. He reminds one of Rush Limbaugh's characterization of the creation of an American dependency class by ill-founded welfare programs. This may be true, but it is depressing reading for a person looking for an enjoyable travel book.
Fortunately, Thoroux doesn't take his wife or any family members on this painful, ugly journey. He seems to be following a philosophy made famous by Greta Garbo in one of her movies: "I vant to be alone!" He took great pleasure in being out of touch and unreachable during most of this trip. He succeeded in this effort, and it wouldn't be a great loss if this book received the same fate.
An Arrogant Prick Does Africa November 5, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the second book I read by Paul Theroux. "The Happy Isles of Oceania" was the first. So having come back for more, I guess you can say I knew what to expect, and wasn't completely turned off by Theroux's incredible ego and his arrogantly judgmental style. Theroux is basically an arrogant prick who is completely full of himself. He looks down upon just about everyone he encounters, from safari hunters, to aid workers and missionaries (agents of virtue, as he sarcastically calls them), politicians, diplomats, petty bureaucrats, and the poor villagers he meets along the way. Theroux routinely jabs at middle class workers who choose to fly from African city to African city, rather than risk the unpredictable, dangerous, and filthy buses, minivans, taxis, and trains to do their traveling, as he is doing. Apparently it never occurs to Theroux that these people are not writers on a month-long safari looking for a story. They're just foreign aid workers, politicians, doctors, lawyers and other professionals looking to live their life with the least amount of hassle. Ironically though, he is consistently drawn to quiet, unassuming charity workers humbly laboring in some of the most remote parts of the world, completely cut off from the amenities of modern day existence in most Western society.
But if you can get past all that, you will definitely enjoy his cynical, yet incisive and fair observations on life in the Africa of today - everything from simple life in backwoods villages, the misery of large, dirty, crime-infested urban centers, as well as the political, social, and economic situation. His observations on the effects of over forty years of foreign aid (rivaling those of colonialism in many ways), which fosters dependence and underdevelopment, are especially sharp and saddening at the same time. I will definitely be coming back for more.
 Beautiful and self-indulgent November 3, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Paul Theroux is an accomplished, savvy writer in any genre he chooses. When he is describing his experiences, his moods, his reactions to what he sees, he is enthralling and perhaps incomparable. Unfortunately, Theroux spends most of this book pounding away on the same few themes, leaving the reader with an empty sense of being excluded from a deeper understanding of the Africa he is purporting to describe.
So, here is what you need to know, according to Mr. Theroux: First of all, he is a more intrepid traveler than you are. For most of us, this doesn't take much, of course, but Theroux wishes you to know (over and over and over again) that you will never see the real Africa, because you don't have the will, the courage, the foolhardiness, or the stamina to travel as he does. Second, the Africa that currently exists is a pale simulacrum of the Africa he once knew, which means, of course, that even if you could travel like he does, you still wouldn't know the real Africa. He may well be right, of course; we don't have his experience to guide us and most of us have never set foot in Africa. But the repetition becomes merely tedious, and the perspective gloomy.
The end result of all this boasting and whining is to make Theroux seem somewhat of a bore. When he is at his best, he is entrancing, and his insights truly are those of a man who has an intimate understanding of people, and of African people in particular (at least in the lower right hand corner of Africa that he knows). His gift for chatting up just about anyone in any number of languages is unique and enables us to be privy to an understanding that is not informed only by his internal musings and assumptions. But at his worst, he leaves us on the outside looking in at a distinctly skewed picture. One would think that a travel writer's primary responsibility is to take us with him, to give us the opportunity to peer into strange and wonderful worlds we might never experience, but like to think we could. Theroux mostly achieves the opposite and, as such, does a disservice to both Africa and to his readers.
 Amazing October 27, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you don't understand why Africa is always in turmoil, the suffering of the people, why can't "we" do anything... You really need to read this. Bono? Angelina and Brad? You need to read Theroux's account of the countries he visits, the people, the bureaucracy- he travels without the private jet, bodyguard, etc- he sees and experiences far more than we want to--... then you will know there's not much anyone can do is there? It is what it is, what it has been, what it will be.... That being said, he also brings the reader close to its people and culture in a way no other author can. Bravo. (I love all his other books too, but not the novels)
Theroux Travels to Africa August 26, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Paul Theroux is, for me, an interesting and opinionated writer. His books are always tainted by his pessimism about the basic goodness n humanity. However, he is also masterful at evoking place and culture. Dark Star Safari is a prime example of both the good and the bad in Theroux's writing.
His pessimism is most pronounced in his hatred for the aid workers. Although I very much agree with his point that dependence on aid has the capacity to make people lazy and unresourceful, I very much believe that most of the people who try to deliver this aid and support the local population do so for very good and important reasons. These aid workers are not all scammers. After all Theroux looks back nostalgically at his time as a Peace Corp volunteer - and the Peace Corp was a means of delivering aid.
On the positive side, most of us have never visited eastern Africa and, most probably, never will. Theroux's writings help us to visit these places from the comfort of our own homes, which is a pure luxury. His descriptions, although sometimes a bit drawn out, are always vivid and bring the places to life for the reader.
Overall, this book is very typical of Theroux's writings. Its strengths are magnificent, but its weaknesses dull the edges and leave the reader somewhat dissatisfied.
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