There are very few travel books by Paul Theroux that remain unread for me, and for a while I considered holding some back to look forward to reading. Sort of a delayed gratification thing. But now and then these books pop up and I just can’t resist.
Unlike the exotic destinations in many of his travel books, a trip around the coasts of the United Kingdom is pretty tame. In the beginning of the book he comes up with his image of the journey, and the criteria and restrictions for the trip. This book was different because for the most part language wasn’t a barrier, and he was walking through mostly safe places (with the exception of parts of Northern Ireland in the 1980s).
Because of this, in my opinion the book was a little less compelling than his others. The good news here is that he is traveling while in his early 40s, so there is still plenty of salty comments and criticisms of the people he encounters. I really enjoy his reading of people and situations. He does in this book have a tendency to imagine names for people that he passes, and later this makes things confusing – did he really interview these people or not?
And he does have a lot of negative comments. Maybe that was the state of the world at the time, but he isn’t holding out much hope for the people and places he encounters.
One genuine surprise was that he passes the hometown of Mr. Duffill – someone who he traveled with back in his most famous book. In that book he had even made Duffill into a verb after the poor gentleman was left behind while buying snacks on the platform – the train rolled away without him. Theroux passed Duffill’s bags to the conductor, and in this book he finds out more about the man and his history.
This book most likely exists as sort of an obituary for many small branch lines in the UK that were in danger of closing down in the 1980s. I doubt they survive today, so the author’s musings and observations of these train trips may add to their memories.
Overall it wasn’t my favorite travel book by Theroux – if it was the first book of his that I read I likely wouldn’t read more – but I enjoyed the journey all the same.
Next I am reading The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed.
