| Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar |  | Author: Paul Theroux
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Category: eBooks
This item is no longer available
Rating:  75 reviews
Sales Rank: 26,334
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Pages: 512
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 915.04425092
ASIN: B0017SWRU0
Publication Date: August 18, 2008
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Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, August 2008: Way back in the dark pre-Internet, limited-air-travel world of 1975, the way to get from Europe to Asia was by train. A young and ambitious writer named Paul Theroux made his literary mark by taking the 28,000-mile intercontinental journey via rail from London to Tokyo and back home again. His book, The Great Railway Bazaar, became a travel-lit classic. Thirty years later, an older, wiser, and even less sanguine Theroux decided to retrace his steps. The result is Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, a fascinating account of the places you vaguely knew existed (Tbilisi), probably won't ever go to (Bangalore), but definitely should know something about (Mandalay). Get on board Theroux's fast-moving travelogue, which features some of the most astute commentary on our distorted notions of time, space, and each other in the age of jet speed, broadband connections, and cultural extinction. --Lauren Nemroff
Product Description
Thirty years after the epic journey chronicled in his classic work The Great Railway Bazaar, the world-s most acclaimed travel writer re-creates his 25,000-mile journey through eastern Europe, central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, China, Japan, and Siberia. Half a lifetime ago, Paul Theroux virtually invented the modern travel narrative by recounting his grand tour by train through Asia. In the three decades since, the world he recorded in that book has undergone phenomenal change. The Soviet Union has collapsed and China has risen; India booms while Burma smothers under dictatorship; Vietnam flourishes in the aftermath of the havoc America was unleashing on it the last time Theroux passed through. And no one is better able to capture the texture, sights, smells, and sounds of that changing landscape than Theroux. Theroux-s odyssey takes him from eastern Europe, still hung-over from communism, through tense but thriving Turkey into the Caucasus, where Georgia limps back toward feudalism while its neighbor Azerbaijan revels in oil-fueled capitalism. Theroux is firsthand witness to it all, traveling as the locals do-by stifling train, rattletrap bus, illicit taxi, and mud-caked foot-encountering adventures only he could have: from the literary (sparring with the incisive Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk) to the dissolute (surviving a week-long bender on the Trans-Siberian Railroad). And wherever he goes, his omnivorous curiosity and unerring eye for detail never fail to inspire, enlighten, inform, and entertain. PAUL THEROUX was born in Medford, Massachusetts, in 1941 and published his first novel, Waldo, in 1967. His fiction includes The Mosquito Coast, My Secret History, My Other Life, Kowloon Tong, Blinding Light, and most recently, The Elephanta Suite. His highly acclaimed travel books include Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, Fresh Air Fiend, and Dark Star Safari. He has been the guest editor of The Best American Travel Writing and is a frequent contributor to various magazines, including The New Yorker. He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 75
 Too old to Rock n Roll, Too Young to Die August 22, 2010
John Byk (Planet Earth)
Poor Mr. Theroux. After all these years, he still hasn't found himself. I read all his travel books when I was in my expatriate stage and found them a good read. You cannot deny his eye for detail and his determination to chronicle mundane events and transform them into something larger than life but I'm surprised the author hasn't just hung himself by now. He makes fun of Christian missionaries in Asia, tells a Russian that on the Trans-Siberian express that he likes Obama (insinuating his favoritism towards socialism) yet painfully describes the demoralization that Socialism has brought to the countries he travels through. In my youth, I thought he was simply a curmudgeon with an eye for detail and a wicked sense of sarcasm and humor but after finishing this book, I have come to the conclusion that he is a lost soul and a hypocrite, subtly praising the exoticness of faraway lands stuck in third world time yet living the good life in a successful, Christian country. Still, his prose is invigorating and some of his personal insights into the life of a writer are noteworthy but he's certainly no Mark Twain. At least he's consistent in his inconsistency.
 Theroux's Authority and Experience Make Ghost Train a Strong Account June 21, 2010
Daily Reckoning (Baltimore, MD, USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In Theroux's new book, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, he retraces a route he took 33 years ago, when he was 33 years old. Part of that trip goes through India. And so Theroux, now 67, is in a good position to judge the changes in India. He is mostly unimpressed. "We drove through the streets of Mumbai, past the slums, the sidewalk sleepers, the lame and the halt. Was the miracle, I wonder, just an illusion?"
Theroux writes about the constant presence of the poor. "Unlike the poor in Europe or America or even China, the poor in India are a constant presence. Where else do people put up with plastic huts on the sidewalk of a main road - not one or two, but an entire subdivision of humpies and pup tents? They inhabit train stations, sleep in doorways, crouch under bridges and railway trestles."
Review by a writer for Agora Financial, publisher of economic and financial analysis including Financial Reckoning Day Fallout: Surviving Today's Global Depression, The New Empire of Debt: The Rise and Fall of an Epic Financial Bubble, and I.O.U.S.A.: One Nation. Under Stress. In Debt.
 ********DID NOT RECEIVE ITEM******** June 12, 2010
Ryan Mcdevitt (USA)
0 out of 5 found this review helpful
I order three books from this seller. I ordered them all from the same seller thinking they would be shipped together, however I read that the seller does not do this. I decided to go with this seller anyway since they had all three books that I wanted and were located in the same state. I chose USPS Media Mail as my shipping method. I waited a month for the books to arrive. After three weeks, I contacted the seller and informed them that my order had not arrived. They explained to me that it could take up to 21 business days when using the shipping method I had selected and to contact them again after that time period if I had yet to receive the order. Almost exactly as that period elapsed, I received and email from amazon stating that my order had been cancelled because the post office had returned my shipment and I would be receiving a refund shortly. I did receive the refund, however, I was not refunded for the shipping I paid which was $11+ (quite abosorbant for three books sent via media mail). I never had any notification from the USPS that I had a shipment waiting for me at the post office or else I would have simply went and picked it up. Further, when I contacted the seller asking if I could have the books reshipped or my shipping amount refunded to which they responded with:
"As the cost of shipping your items as wells as the return shipping fees
were still incurred, we are unable to refund the shipping cost. The
order has already been cancelled and refunded so we are unable to reship
the order. "
I then explained that I had no idea the USPS tried to deliver my order, as there was never any notification left at my post box. To this, the seller responed with
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This information would have been a lot more helpful had it been provided to me by the seller when I inquired as to my shipment wherabouts at the three week point. Further, I ordered a product and a shipping service from the seller so I do not feel the complaint should go to the post office. I am quite dissatisfied with my purchase and have been left with a bill for no product and no service. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS SELLER TO ANYONE simply because of the way in which they have handled my dispute and the lack of information provided to me throughout the process.
Great Adventure worth reading about. June 3, 2010
J. Reeves (Chicago, Illinois United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I travel as often as I can and read this while taking a trip to Belarus so it felt a bit like a companion while spurring my desire for more travel. His fearlessness (in most places) is quite admirable and inspiring. This is the first book I've read from Paul Theroux though, and I feel like I've got lots of catching up to do as I thoroughly enjoyed this. I wonder if it makes sense to read 'The Great Railway Bazaar'? Anyway, I found this book very humorous, with many very funny parts. His astute sense of people and cultures, keen eye for nuance and beneath the surface observations gave me insight to certain countries and people and traditions which added to the enjoyment of reading this. The writing is very high quality with a nice flow making the book seem much shorter than it is (I read the kindle version and was surprised to see afterwards that the paper version is about 500 pages). I had some preconceived ideas about the author being cranky, arrogant, misanthropic, and a bit misogynist from several reviews here and things I had heard previously. I didn't find any of this (maybe a slight crankiness towards the end). He's just not very politically correct which I appreciate, has some strong opinions and seems comfortable with who he is, warts and all. He seems like he knows himself quite well and since he is a central character of the book that adds depth and cohesiveness for me. More than anything I felt his compassion for most of the people he met and the citizens of the country. His theory about the connection between a country's sex industry/trade and the general emotional health, and values and outlook of the country is an interesting one. I particularly enjoyed the sections on Vietnam, Central Asia, Thailand, Burma and Russia. Highly recommended.
 boring May 26, 2010
CA mom (Santa Barbara, CA)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I like to read travel non-fiction in order to travel vicariously, but this trip was boring, and by the end, I was ready to escape from my travel companion, Theroux. (I did not read the Great Railway Bazaar). My first criticism is that the book is boring, in particular the long & detailed conversations with his author-friends. Other conversations - those with people he encounters, are also often boring, as is description of what he sees. My second criticism, less concrete, is that I ended up feeling irritation rather than rapport with the author & traveler, Theroux. He came across to me as pretentious, for example making fun of the appearance of people at whos behavior he took offense (eg, the Indian woman on the train who spoke too loudly on her cell phone), and, in a later chapter of the book, for congratulating the literary high-mindedness of the reader for making it this far. I was also irritated at his describing most young women he encounters in terms of their sexual attractiveness. I did however learn something about many places I previously knew nearly nothing about; so I give it 2 stars.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 75
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