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The Last Train to Zona Verde: My Ultimate African Safari
Following the success of the acclaimed Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and The Great Railway Bazaar , The Last Train to Zona Verde is an ode to the last African journey of the world's most celebrated travel writer.
“Happy again, back in the kingdom of light,� writes Paul Theroux as he sets out on a new journey through the continent he knows and loves best. Theroux first came to Africa as a twenty-two-year-old Peace Corps volunteer, and the pull of the vast land never left him. Now he returns, after fifty years on the road, to explore the little-traveled territory of western Africa and to take stock both of the place and of himself.
His odyssey takes him northward from Cape Town, through South Africa and Namibia, then on into Angola, wishing to head farther still until he reaches the end of the line. Journeying alone through the greenest continent, Theroux encounters a world increasingly removed from both the itineraries of tourists and the hopes of postcolonial independence movements. Leaving the Cape Town townships, traversing the Namibian bush, passing the browsing cattle of the great sunbaked heartland of the savanna, Theroux crosses “the Red Line� into a different “the improvised, slapped-together Africa of tumbled fences and cooking fires, of mud and thatch,� of heat and poverty, and of roadblocks, mobs, and anarchy. After 2,500 arduous miles, he comes to the end of his journey in more ways than one, a decision he chronicles with typically unsparing honesty in a chapter called “What Am I Doing Here?�
Vivid, witty, and beautifully evocative, The Last Train to Zona Verde is a fitting final African adventure from the writer whose gimlet eye and effortless prose have brought the world to generations of readers.
“Happy again, back in the kingdom of light,� writes Paul Theroux as he sets out on a new journey through the continent he knows and loves best. Theroux first came to Africa as a twenty-two-year-old Peace Corps volunteer, and the pull of the vast land never left him. Now he returns, after fifty years on the road, to explore the little-traveled territory of western Africa and to take stock both of the place and of himself.
His odyssey takes him northward from Cape Town, through South Africa and Namibia, then on into Angola, wishing to head farther still until he reaches the end of the line. Journeying alone through the greenest continent, Theroux encounters a world increasingly removed from both the itineraries of tourists and the hopes of postcolonial independence movements. Leaving the Cape Town townships, traversing the Namibian bush, passing the browsing cattle of the great sunbaked heartland of the savanna, Theroux crosses “the Red Line� into a different “the improvised, slapped-together Africa of tumbled fences and cooking fires, of mud and thatch,� of heat and poverty, and of roadblocks, mobs, and anarchy. After 2,500 arduous miles, he comes to the end of his journey in more ways than one, a decision he chronicles with typically unsparing honesty in a chapter called “What Am I Doing Here?�
Vivid, witty, and beautifully evocative, The Last Train to Zona Verde is a fitting final African adventure from the writer whose gimlet eye and effortless prose have brought the world to generations of readers.
353 pages, Hardcover
First published September 4, 2012
418 people are currently reading
3,878 people want to read
About the author
Paul Theroux
223books2,522followersPaul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work is The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), a travelogue about a trip he made by train from Great Britain through Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, through South Asia, then South-East Asia, up through East Asia, as far east as Japan, and then back across Russia to his point of origin. Although perhaps best known as a travelogue writer, Theroux has also published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel The Mosquito Coast.
He is the father of Marcel and Louis Theroux, and the brother of Alexander and Peter. Justin Theroux is his nephew.
He is the father of Marcel and Louis Theroux, and the brother of Alexander and Peter. Justin Theroux is his nephew.
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June 19, 2024
”Angolans lived among garbage heaps---plastic bottles, soda cans, torn bags, broken chairs, dead dogs, rotting food, indefinable slop, their own scattered twists of excrement--and in one town a stack of dead cows, bloated from putrefaction, looking like a forgotten freight load of discarded Victorian furniture, with the sort of straight stiffened legs you see fixed to old uncomfortable chairs. This blight was not ‘darkness,� the demeaning African epithet, but a gleaming vacancy, the hollow of abandonment it by the pitiless tropical sun, appalling in its naked detail. Nothing is sadder than squalor in daylight.�
”What am I doing here?�
Yes that is the quivering question that keeps coming to the forefront of Paul Theroux’s thoughts as he travels through South Africa, Namibia and Angola. He is 70 years old and in Africa he is feeling every creaking bone and discovering a different understanding for being older.
”Someone who seems doddery is perhaps not doddery at all but only an older person absorbed in squinting concentration, as though on an ultimate trip, memorizing a scene, grateful for being alive to see it. Knowing that a return to Africa for me was probably out of the question--how much more can these bones take?--made me want to be scrupulously truthful. None of it was trivial, all of it was meaningful; everything I saw mattered much more.�
I read that paragraph and it just hit me right between the eyes. I think about how many times I’ve been irritated by befuddled older people in my way when I’ve travelled. (lashes many lashes of atonement). The other part of that paragraph punched me in the gut. I have been traveling with Paul Theroux since I first discovered his books in the mid-1980s. I started with The Great Railway Bazaar and worked my way through his traveling adventures and a good bit of his fiction as well. Even the possibility of him slowing down or Zeus forbid stop writing traveling books all together is...well...sad.
Theroux is grumpier in this book, for those that have read his other books you might find that hard to believe. He is certainly more cynical. He thinks about the billions of dollars of aid that has been sent to Africa with few successes. In Angola, oil and diamond rich, only a few are becoming wealthy and the rest live in absolute squalor.
”I ask the political economists and the moralists if they have ever calculated the number of individuals who must be condemned to misery, overwork, demoralization, childhood, rank ignorance, overwhelming misfortune and utter penury in order to produce one rich man.�
Theroux talks about the trophy hunters that pay exorbitant amounts of money to be carefully packaged into a Range Rover driven out to the animal of their choice and then allowed to gun the animal down for the obligatory BIG GAME pictures (Teddy Roosevelt knock-offs) with the fallen animal. The heads of the animals are mounted and shipped back to them in the States where they can lie to their friends about this dangerous safari they were on shooting “wild� game.
Theroux also stops by for a couple of days at an elephant safari camp where rich people can fly in and ride elephants at $4000 a day. This is the type of place that gives Theroux facial ticks, but he does enjoy the sushi and the cold beer. He is there simply because a friend of his runs the place and the program is meant to save elephants that have been hurt, orphaned, or abandoned by a zoo. He does meet a woman from New York who says something about how wonderful Africa is (from the confines of this expensive summer camp where even bugs don’t dare to fly). Paul and I snicker together because hey I’ve already been with him through Namibia so I know the people there riding those elephants are not experiencing Africa.
I always end up with a list of books, that I now must read, that Theroux likes to sprinkle through his texts. He is a writer, but he is a real reader too.
”I went to Dubbo because there’s a character in a novel with that name, Alf Dubbo, in Riders in the Chariot. I love that novel and I really like Alf Dubbo, the aboriginal painter.�
An airless awkward silence descended on us, the embarrassment of intelligent people when a book is mentioned that no one has read, as though you’ve suddenly lapsed into a foreign language. I never know in such circumstances whether to describe the book with an exhortation to read it or simply shut up.�
I’ve experienced that awkward silence more than a few times myself with books and also with historical trivia. It always irritates me when someone says how do you know that?
Because I bloody read!!!
A few of the books Theroux mentions:
SEVEN DAYS AT THE SILBERSTEINS by Etienne Leroux
THE ASIATICS BY FREDERIC PROKOSCH He was a hoax writer, but a very good one. His evocative travel books were written from the comfort of his New Haven home. Normally I wouldn’t be interested in a book like this, but it sounds like the writing is really good.
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON BY REBECCA WEST
ROOTS OF HEAVEN BY ROMAIN GARY
INSIDE AFRICA BY JOHN GUNTHER
”What a deplorable existence I lead in this absurd climate and under what frightful conditions! How boring! How stupid life is! What am I doing here?� Arthur Rimbaud from Aden in 1884
Poverty Porn has become a big business in Africa. Europeans and Americans pay a few coins to be able to tour through the shanty towns, through the desolation, so they can gape at poor people and the conditions they are forced to live in. It is similar to how people slow down on the roadways to peer at the unfortunates that have just been in a car accident hoping to see some blood or mangled metal so they can have something interesting to relate around the water cooler. It would be different if they were there to help.
Poverty is real. It isn’t a movie. I can’t even begin to explain the many reasons why it is wrong to use it for entertainment.
Paul Theroux looking dapper for the dust jacket.
Paul Theroux first came to Africa as a Peace Corp volunteer when he was 22 years old. He fell in love with the culture and the people and spent a good part of his life seeing as much of Africa as he possibly could. He has ridden the trains, the buses, the rattle trap cars, and walked many a dusty mile to see Africa and meet a wide selection of Africans of the multitude of tribes that make up that continent. There is cynicism in this book, but softened by some wonderful observations and a humbleness not normally found in a Paul Theroux travel book.
”Like the Athenians, the Angolans of the musseque acted as if doomsday was upon them: a shrieking, chaotic, reckless society on the brink of extinction. Not people in despair, but people dancing--doing the kidkuru and kizomba. The city was thick with prostitutes, many of them refugees from the Congo, snatching at men at the Pub Royal and the Zanzibar. Most people were giggling crazily because they knew their number was up. That was how the Angolan laughter sounded to me--insane and chattering and agonic, like an amplified death rattle.
Kalunga (Paul Theroux's friend) climbed on his motorcycle, but he didn’t start it. He sat and stared at the city and said. ‘This is what the world will look like when it ends.��
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit
”What am I doing here?�
Yes that is the quivering question that keeps coming to the forefront of Paul Theroux’s thoughts as he travels through South Africa, Namibia and Angola. He is 70 years old and in Africa he is feeling every creaking bone and discovering a different understanding for being older.
”Someone who seems doddery is perhaps not doddery at all but only an older person absorbed in squinting concentration, as though on an ultimate trip, memorizing a scene, grateful for being alive to see it. Knowing that a return to Africa for me was probably out of the question--how much more can these bones take?--made me want to be scrupulously truthful. None of it was trivial, all of it was meaningful; everything I saw mattered much more.�
I read that paragraph and it just hit me right between the eyes. I think about how many times I’ve been irritated by befuddled older people in my way when I’ve travelled. (lashes many lashes of atonement). The other part of that paragraph punched me in the gut. I have been traveling with Paul Theroux since I first discovered his books in the mid-1980s. I started with The Great Railway Bazaar and worked my way through his traveling adventures and a good bit of his fiction as well. Even the possibility of him slowing down or Zeus forbid stop writing traveling books all together is...well...sad.
Theroux is grumpier in this book, for those that have read his other books you might find that hard to believe. He is certainly more cynical. He thinks about the billions of dollars of aid that has been sent to Africa with few successes. In Angola, oil and diamond rich, only a few are becoming wealthy and the rest live in absolute squalor.
”I ask the political economists and the moralists if they have ever calculated the number of individuals who must be condemned to misery, overwork, demoralization, childhood, rank ignorance, overwhelming misfortune and utter penury in order to produce one rich man.�
Theroux talks about the trophy hunters that pay exorbitant amounts of money to be carefully packaged into a Range Rover driven out to the animal of their choice and then allowed to gun the animal down for the obligatory BIG GAME pictures (Teddy Roosevelt knock-offs) with the fallen animal. The heads of the animals are mounted and shipped back to them in the States where they can lie to their friends about this dangerous safari they were on shooting “wild� game.
Theroux also stops by for a couple of days at an elephant safari camp where rich people can fly in and ride elephants at $4000 a day. This is the type of place that gives Theroux facial ticks, but he does enjoy the sushi and the cold beer. He is there simply because a friend of his runs the place and the program is meant to save elephants that have been hurt, orphaned, or abandoned by a zoo. He does meet a woman from New York who says something about how wonderful Africa is (from the confines of this expensive summer camp where even bugs don’t dare to fly). Paul and I snicker together because hey I’ve already been with him through Namibia so I know the people there riding those elephants are not experiencing Africa.
I always end up with a list of books, that I now must read, that Theroux likes to sprinkle through his texts. He is a writer, but he is a real reader too.
”I went to Dubbo because there’s a character in a novel with that name, Alf Dubbo, in Riders in the Chariot. I love that novel and I really like Alf Dubbo, the aboriginal painter.�
An airless awkward silence descended on us, the embarrassment of intelligent people when a book is mentioned that no one has read, as though you’ve suddenly lapsed into a foreign language. I never know in such circumstances whether to describe the book with an exhortation to read it or simply shut up.�
I’ve experienced that awkward silence more than a few times myself with books and also with historical trivia. It always irritates me when someone says how do you know that?
Because I bloody read!!!
A few of the books Theroux mentions:
SEVEN DAYS AT THE SILBERSTEINS by Etienne Leroux
THE ASIATICS BY FREDERIC PROKOSCH He was a hoax writer, but a very good one. His evocative travel books were written from the comfort of his New Haven home. Normally I wouldn’t be interested in a book like this, but it sounds like the writing is really good.
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON BY REBECCA WEST
ROOTS OF HEAVEN BY ROMAIN GARY
INSIDE AFRICA BY JOHN GUNTHER
”What a deplorable existence I lead in this absurd climate and under what frightful conditions! How boring! How stupid life is! What am I doing here?� Arthur Rimbaud from Aden in 1884
Poverty Porn has become a big business in Africa. Europeans and Americans pay a few coins to be able to tour through the shanty towns, through the desolation, so they can gape at poor people and the conditions they are forced to live in. It is similar to how people slow down on the roadways to peer at the unfortunates that have just been in a car accident hoping to see some blood or mangled metal so they can have something interesting to relate around the water cooler. It would be different if they were there to help.
Poverty is real. It isn’t a movie. I can’t even begin to explain the many reasons why it is wrong to use it for entertainment.
Paul Theroux looking dapper for the dust jacket.
Paul Theroux first came to Africa as a Peace Corp volunteer when he was 22 years old. He fell in love with the culture and the people and spent a good part of his life seeing as much of Africa as he possibly could. He has ridden the trains, the buses, the rattle trap cars, and walked many a dusty mile to see Africa and meet a wide selection of Africans of the multitude of tribes that make up that continent. There is cynicism in this book, but softened by some wonderful observations and a humbleness not normally found in a Paul Theroux travel book.
”Like the Athenians, the Angolans of the musseque acted as if doomsday was upon them: a shrieking, chaotic, reckless society on the brink of extinction. Not people in despair, but people dancing--doing the kidkuru and kizomba. The city was thick with prostitutes, many of them refugees from the Congo, snatching at men at the Pub Royal and the Zanzibar. Most people were giggling crazily because they knew their number was up. That was how the Angolan laughter sounded to me--insane and chattering and agonic, like an amplified death rattle.
Kalunga (Paul Theroux's friend) climbed on his motorcycle, but he didn’t start it. He sat and stared at the city and said. ‘This is what the world will look like when it ends.��
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit
August 8, 2023
Theroux is no stranger to Africa, he’d lived and taught in Malawi and Uganda as young man and wrote about a journey he undertook from Cairo down the eastern side of the continent to Cape Town in 2002. Here, now in his early seventies, he decides to commence his latest trip in Cape Town and follow a route up the western side, through Namibia and Angola and hopefully finishing in Timbuktu, Mali.
His hope in South Africa was to see improvements in the ten years or so since he was last in the country. And as he took a tour through the slums of Cape Town he was pleased to see that there had been some progress, with permanent structures having replaced the self-built shacks of old, in some places at least. He was surprised (and somewhat shocked) to learn that ‘slum tourism� was a growing thing, with groups bussed in to visit townships and to witness the poverty and misfortune of those that reside on the margins of the city. But he left with a sense of hope after visiting a successful school for disadvantaged students run by an optimistic and energetic young woman.
In Namibia he rode elephants at a luxury safari resort and made a cute observation in comparing the orderly and respectful way multiple breeds of animal behaved around a small but crowded watering hole to the chaotic gathering he witnessed amongst a group of tourists waiting in line for their turn at a buffet table. He also visited the delightful Ju/’hoansi tribe and spoke to an elder who whispered the belief that a praying mantis can kill anything and that all humans come from animals and all animals come from humans. But everywhere he went he was warned about his intention to travel overland into Angola, ‘it’s a nightmare� said one and shortly after arriving in the country the author described it as a ‘hell hole� run by thieves�.
His border experience was an illustration in rudeness and the contempt officialdom held for tourists. His journey from the border to the municipality of Lubango was even worse, in a crowded car driven by a drunken driver. By this point he was already asking himself the question ‘why am I here?�. The country, he concludes, is unhappy and inhospitable. Angola’s wealth comes from the rich natural resources of the land: oil, gold and diamonds. But Theroux states that the government is ‘utterly uninterested in its people�, the vast majority of whom live in abject poverty. Having made his way to the capital city of Luanda (known at that time as the most expensive city in Africa) he reflected on his journey:
- Three men he’d befriended along the way had since died, two in violent circumstances: one murdered in his own home by an invader and another trampled to death by an elephant he was caring for.
- His credit card had been cloned somewhere along his route and $48,000 in expenditure had been debited to his account.
- The political landscape was unpromising in respect of his forward path and would he learn anything new, see anything he hadn’t already witnessed in the other countries he planned to travel through: isn't every city in this western part of Africa equally as squalid and isn't every shanty town just like the last?
Theroux is a serial traveller, a man who lives for or the chance experience or unanticipated discovery. His trips have a degree of planning � he’ll have committed to a meeting here or a lecture there � but he is never in a hurry, his travel arrangements are loose and fluid. He always moves overland, often using the path less trodden. But on this trip his resolve was tested early on and he quickly began to question himself on the reason for this trip. It was, to all intents, an unhappy experience. And yet it’s a fascinating journey to observe � he has a keen eye, his descriptive skills are peerless and he’s stoically outspoken regarding his contempt for aid givers and for Irish musician Bono in particular. Theroux is a man who is easy to travel with, wise and fun and sometimes able to make you feel that you’re there with him. I’m hooked and I’m off to look out another account of one of his many trips.
His hope in South Africa was to see improvements in the ten years or so since he was last in the country. And as he took a tour through the slums of Cape Town he was pleased to see that there had been some progress, with permanent structures having replaced the self-built shacks of old, in some places at least. He was surprised (and somewhat shocked) to learn that ‘slum tourism� was a growing thing, with groups bussed in to visit townships and to witness the poverty and misfortune of those that reside on the margins of the city. But he left with a sense of hope after visiting a successful school for disadvantaged students run by an optimistic and energetic young woman.
In Namibia he rode elephants at a luxury safari resort and made a cute observation in comparing the orderly and respectful way multiple breeds of animal behaved around a small but crowded watering hole to the chaotic gathering he witnessed amongst a group of tourists waiting in line for their turn at a buffet table. He also visited the delightful Ju/’hoansi tribe and spoke to an elder who whispered the belief that a praying mantis can kill anything and that all humans come from animals and all animals come from humans. But everywhere he went he was warned about his intention to travel overland into Angola, ‘it’s a nightmare� said one and shortly after arriving in the country the author described it as a ‘hell hole� run by thieves�.
His border experience was an illustration in rudeness and the contempt officialdom held for tourists. His journey from the border to the municipality of Lubango was even worse, in a crowded car driven by a drunken driver. By this point he was already asking himself the question ‘why am I here?�. The country, he concludes, is unhappy and inhospitable. Angola’s wealth comes from the rich natural resources of the land: oil, gold and diamonds. But Theroux states that the government is ‘utterly uninterested in its people�, the vast majority of whom live in abject poverty. Having made his way to the capital city of Luanda (known at that time as the most expensive city in Africa) he reflected on his journey:
- Three men he’d befriended along the way had since died, two in violent circumstances: one murdered in his own home by an invader and another trampled to death by an elephant he was caring for.
- His credit card had been cloned somewhere along his route and $48,000 in expenditure had been debited to his account.
- The political landscape was unpromising in respect of his forward path and would he learn anything new, see anything he hadn’t already witnessed in the other countries he planned to travel through: isn't every city in this western part of Africa equally as squalid and isn't every shanty town just like the last?
Theroux is a serial traveller, a man who lives for or the chance experience or unanticipated discovery. His trips have a degree of planning � he’ll have committed to a meeting here or a lecture there � but he is never in a hurry, his travel arrangements are loose and fluid. He always moves overland, often using the path less trodden. But on this trip his resolve was tested early on and he quickly began to question himself on the reason for this trip. It was, to all intents, an unhappy experience. And yet it’s a fascinating journey to observe � he has a keen eye, his descriptive skills are peerless and he’s stoically outspoken regarding his contempt for aid givers and for Irish musician Bono in particular. Theroux is a man who is easy to travel with, wise and fun and sometimes able to make you feel that you’re there with him. I’m hooked and I’m off to look out another account of one of his many trips.
April 20, 2013
To me, the publication of a travel book by Paul Theroux is a literary event. He is not just my favorite travel writer...he is one of my favorite writers period. He is a keenly intelligent observer of people and places. I like that he when he travels, he avoids big cities and common tourist destinations. He gets around by foot (Kingdom by the Sea); by train or bus (Riding the Iron Rooster); or even by kayak (The Happy Isles of Oceania). I also like that he has no qualms about occasionally getting cranky when he travels - most world travelers know how wonderful the experience can be...but also how tiring and trying it can be as well.
The continent that Theroux has returned to time and again is Africa. As a young man in the 1960s, he spent several years as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching school children in Malawi and fell in love with Africa. As a traveler and writer, he has come back to Africa a number of times to observe and chronicle the radical changes the continent has experienced as it emerged from the colonial period and embraced independence. In "The Last Train to Zona Verde" Theroux travels by bus and car through South Africa, Namibia and Angola...and where he encounters teeming slums, crushing poverty, greedy dictators and disappearing wildlife. Along the way, though, Theroux gets to know a number of eloquent and kind people who help him better understand the enigma that Africa has become.
This is Theroux's most reflective book. He was 70 years old when he took this trip across Africa two years ago. He writes frankly about getting older, his own mortality and whether this might be his last big adventure. Although I thoroughly enjoyed "Last Train to Zona Verde" I have to admit that I felt a sense of melancholy when I finished it. Although he will surely continue to write, this may well be the last of Theroux's brilliant travelogues. As someone who has read every one of his travel books, that is a thought that greatly saddens me.
The continent that Theroux has returned to time and again is Africa. As a young man in the 1960s, he spent several years as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching school children in Malawi and fell in love with Africa. As a traveler and writer, he has come back to Africa a number of times to observe and chronicle the radical changes the continent has experienced as it emerged from the colonial period and embraced independence. In "The Last Train to Zona Verde" Theroux travels by bus and car through South Africa, Namibia and Angola...and where he encounters teeming slums, crushing poverty, greedy dictators and disappearing wildlife. Along the way, though, Theroux gets to know a number of eloquent and kind people who help him better understand the enigma that Africa has become.
This is Theroux's most reflective book. He was 70 years old when he took this trip across Africa two years ago. He writes frankly about getting older, his own mortality and whether this might be his last big adventure. Although I thoroughly enjoyed "Last Train to Zona Verde" I have to admit that I felt a sense of melancholy when I finished it. Although he will surely continue to write, this may well be the last of Theroux's brilliant travelogues. As someone who has read every one of his travel books, that is a thought that greatly saddens me.
August 4, 2018
In 2011 Paul Theroux traveled from Cape Town, South Africa, through Namibia to Angola, also taking a side trip to visit a luxury game park in Botswana. He writes of this journey in . Having traveled a decade earlier, southward along the eastern side of Africa in , now he travels northward along the western side of the continent. He would revisit places in South Africa and Namibia and observe how they had changed. What was the state of Africa a decade after the earlier trip?
Just as gives us a second view of Africa after a passage of ten years, revisits Asia after traveling there in his book thirty years earlier.
Theroux was seventy when he undertook the second African trip. He would travel alone across the hinterland, by bus and beat-up Land Rover. He avoids large cities, seeking out bushlands and ordinary people. He does however, on this trip, pamper himself; he starts and concludes his travels at a luxury hotel!
Look at the title: . What’s up? He did NOT travel by train! The trip exhausted him. What he saw and experienced in Angola filled him with utter despair. The title refers to a planned excursion to where wild antelope were to be found. That excursion never occurs. A friend, the planned excursion companion, was to die. Two more friends on the trip die too. “What am I doing here?� he asks himself over and over again. He recognizes his vulnerability. He feels his age. He ponders mortality. He acknowledges that he just might not come out of this trip alive; he shortens his trip and returns to Cape Town. Zona Verde is an euphemism for “the bush�, that which is not of the urban landscape. It sums up that which he loves. Knowing all this, it is interesting to rethink the title.
Theroux is so disillusioned; the book displays little of his usual barbed wit.
I hesitate to call this a travel book. It is certainly not a book that will entice one to visit most of the places Theroux visits. It does draw an in-depth picture of the state of the countries in 2011. It provides information about the political situation at the time of his travels and the years before.
I particularly enjoyed learning about the San / “Jutwatsi� people, the indigenous hunter-gatherers of the region. We learn of their unique physical attributes, way of moving and temperament. Their traditions, their arts and crafts, bead work, storytelling, ornamenting and carving too. Were they or were they not satisfied with their traditional way of life? What were they seeking from the future, and how had modern times affected them?
The book is not merely filled with interesting and thought-provoking information, it also has lines of lyrical beauty. Theroux describes landscapes and people so you see them. He has the ability to capture both that which will make you cringe and draw back in disgust, the beauty of rolling hills and the humor of a crowd of travelers peeing.
The author speaks Chinyanja. It is spoken in Central Africa. He learned it when he lived there. He can also get along in Swahili. He acknowledges the importance of language as a key to culture. He took notes but did not use a tape recorder.
Theroux is well read. He takes the thoughts and views of other authors and interweaves these into his own text. This is tremendously well done because he has such a thorough understanding of each. He does not just drop names. On completion of the book, one ends up with a long list of other books to explore.
John McDonough narrates the audiobook. His performance is wonderful. You have to remind yourself that it is not the author himself sitting across a table speaking to us. He does not rush. He speaks clearly. You hear what is meant under the surface of what is said. Theroux does not aggressively criticize what he does not approve of, but a sense of what is meant is abundantly clear. The narrator carries this off with aplomb. I have given the narration performance five stars.
The end of the book turns into a rant with Theroux criticizing politics, foreign aid and generally the whole state of the world. He is repetitive, but because of the value of the major part of the book, I am still giving the book four stars.
Non-fiction books I have read by
in order of preference:
* 4 stars
* 4 stars
* 4 stars
* TBR
Just as gives us a second view of Africa after a passage of ten years, revisits Asia after traveling there in his book thirty years earlier.
Theroux was seventy when he undertook the second African trip. He would travel alone across the hinterland, by bus and beat-up Land Rover. He avoids large cities, seeking out bushlands and ordinary people. He does however, on this trip, pamper himself; he starts and concludes his travels at a luxury hotel!
Look at the title: . What’s up? He did NOT travel by train! The trip exhausted him. What he saw and experienced in Angola filled him with utter despair. The title refers to a planned excursion to where wild antelope were to be found. That excursion never occurs. A friend, the planned excursion companion, was to die. Two more friends on the trip die too. “What am I doing here?� he asks himself over and over again. He recognizes his vulnerability. He feels his age. He ponders mortality. He acknowledges that he just might not come out of this trip alive; he shortens his trip and returns to Cape Town. Zona Verde is an euphemism for “the bush�, that which is not of the urban landscape. It sums up that which he loves. Knowing all this, it is interesting to rethink the title.
Theroux is so disillusioned; the book displays little of his usual barbed wit.
I hesitate to call this a travel book. It is certainly not a book that will entice one to visit most of the places Theroux visits. It does draw an in-depth picture of the state of the countries in 2011. It provides information about the political situation at the time of his travels and the years before.
I particularly enjoyed learning about the San / “Jutwatsi� people, the indigenous hunter-gatherers of the region. We learn of their unique physical attributes, way of moving and temperament. Their traditions, their arts and crafts, bead work, storytelling, ornamenting and carving too. Were they or were they not satisfied with their traditional way of life? What were they seeking from the future, and how had modern times affected them?
The book is not merely filled with interesting and thought-provoking information, it also has lines of lyrical beauty. Theroux describes landscapes and people so you see them. He has the ability to capture both that which will make you cringe and draw back in disgust, the beauty of rolling hills and the humor of a crowd of travelers peeing.
The author speaks Chinyanja. It is spoken in Central Africa. He learned it when he lived there. He can also get along in Swahili. He acknowledges the importance of language as a key to culture. He took notes but did not use a tape recorder.
Theroux is well read. He takes the thoughts and views of other authors and interweaves these into his own text. This is tremendously well done because he has such a thorough understanding of each. He does not just drop names. On completion of the book, one ends up with a long list of other books to explore.
John McDonough narrates the audiobook. His performance is wonderful. You have to remind yourself that it is not the author himself sitting across a table speaking to us. He does not rush. He speaks clearly. You hear what is meant under the surface of what is said. Theroux does not aggressively criticize what he does not approve of, but a sense of what is meant is abundantly clear. The narrator carries this off with aplomb. I have given the narration performance five stars.
The end of the book turns into a rant with Theroux criticizing politics, foreign aid and generally the whole state of the world. He is repetitive, but because of the value of the major part of the book, I am still giving the book four stars.
Non-fiction books I have read by
in order of preference:
* 4 stars
* 4 stars
* 4 stars
* TBR
April 8, 2022
Not so long ago, I did a review of a book by Julian Barnes at this site where one of the key passages within the novel struck me as fundamentally important, i.e. that to understand any historian's commentary, one had first to understand the history or life of the historian whose account we are attempting to evaluate.
This seems simple enough but such a preliminary step can be elusive and in reading a few reviews of Paul Theroux's recent & perhaps final travel adventure, The Last Train to Zona Verde, I sense once again that some readers long for Paul Theroux to view the world as Rick Steves or Bill Bryson might, even though neither of them travels in any way similar to Theroux.
Over 35+ years, those who have followed Theroux's travel books, many of them based on trains, have gained a sense of an author growing older, even mellowing somewhat and always coloring his travel accounts with his own particular and occasionally peculiar approach to travel, much of it to destinations that would be considered "exotic" by many.
Theroux has never embraced group tours where the itinerary is composed months in advance, almost nothing is left to chance and even the photo opportunities are choreographed by the tour guides.
I suspect that for those who have never traveled in the manner that Theroux does, dealing with the multiple & often confounding uncertainties of his journeys, such a journey is beyond their comprehension. As the author once phrased it, "The tourist is certain, the traveler is vague." On the surface, this phrasing sounds rather smug but it points to an approach to travel that involves considerable muddling through the barriers of language, the complexities of irregular transport in Third World countries and a veritable cauldron of other potential frustrations.
His approach to travel is the polar opposite of the way in which many of us might approach a place as distant & as difficult to navigate as Angola, as is the case with the few business types he spots at hotels in Angola, the author's stopping point, while hoping to eventually follow an overland path en route to the fabled city of Timbuktu.
For as Theroux puts it:
Additionally, there is the commentary about the Portuguese Prime Minister, representing the country that had so denuded Angola's mineral riches, now coming to beg for a loan to help bail out the former colonizing country.
Meanwhile, Theroux presents China as an example of a new & very different form of colonization of the African continent & elsewhere around the world.
There has always been more of the personal memoir than explicitly detailed travel information in Theroux's travel memoirs and this quality has been accentuated in this book, perhaps in the last several from the author, most certainly including Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. With this latest travel narrative, there is an enhanced list of required medication, an imminent sense of waning travel days & increasing frailty in general, a lessening of resilience.
As always there is Theroux's brand of dark humor as when in thinking about Angola, he invokes a friend consulted for advice during the author's first extended rail journey, chronicled in The Great Railway Bazaar, who when asked about visiting Basra, responds: "It's not the asshole of the world, it's 80 miles up it!"
In that case, Theroux altered his itinerary & mentions that he has spent his traveling life avoiding such places. The author then comments: "What had I learned? That proctology pretty much describes the experience of traveling from one African city to another, especially the horror cities of urbanized West Africa."
Paul is not alone in his despondency about the future of much of the African continent, for when he went off to Malawi in the first Peace Corps program of volunteers to serve in that country, there was great hope for the continent full of newly independent nations and perhaps a greater sense of optimism for the rest of the world as well.
At this point, there are still aid programs aplenty in Africa but there is a much-heightened sense of risk and the Peace Corps has recently withdrawn its volunteers from several African countries, including Kenya where I served in the late 1960s, not to mention the long-ago withdrawal from other places around the globe like Pakistan, Afghanistan & Iran.
However, the author does take pains to demonstrate that many remain hopeful, including the former Mozambique Peace Corps volunteer he encounters teaching in an isolated village school in Angola, someone who has vowed to spend further time teaching in that seemingly desperate country.
There comes a time in any long journey, particularly when traveling solo, when one begins to feel "homeward bound", even if the scheduled departure date is still some time away. With this latest travel tale, Paul Theroux looks at the map of West Africa, reads about the horrors of anti-Western activity in Nigeria & Mali, the latter having represented the final destination & embarkation point on his intended itinerary.
Ultimately, having already endured an abundance of squalor, slow & potentially dangerous travel conditions and the absence of 3 friends he had shared happy times with while traveling in Namibia & Angola, he decides to hand off his travel togs to a villager, reserving only the clothes he will need for the flight & to become homeward bound. Theroux has been asking himself for quite some time "What am I doing here?" Now, he reaches the conclusion that nothing of value can come from a further exploration of West Africa.
The author's style and quirky personality are certainly not to everyone's taste but I have always enjoyed the descriptive power of Theroux's travel commentary and while reading and rereading his books, I have continued to have a sense of being much more than a bystander on his journeys.
*Among the images within my review are: Paul Theroux & quote from the author; children in rural Angola, an oil-rich land.
This seems simple enough but such a preliminary step can be elusive and in reading a few reviews of Paul Theroux's recent & perhaps final travel adventure, The Last Train to Zona Verde, I sense once again that some readers long for Paul Theroux to view the world as Rick Steves or Bill Bryson might, even though neither of them travels in any way similar to Theroux.
Over 35+ years, those who have followed Theroux's travel books, many of them based on trains, have gained a sense of an author growing older, even mellowing somewhat and always coloring his travel accounts with his own particular and occasionally peculiar approach to travel, much of it to destinations that would be considered "exotic" by many.
Theroux has never embraced group tours where the itinerary is composed months in advance, almost nothing is left to chance and even the photo opportunities are choreographed by the tour guides.
I suspect that for those who have never traveled in the manner that Theroux does, dealing with the multiple & often confounding uncertainties of his journeys, such a journey is beyond their comprehension. As the author once phrased it, "The tourist is certain, the traveler is vague." On the surface, this phrasing sounds rather smug but it points to an approach to travel that involves considerable muddling through the barriers of language, the complexities of irregular transport in Third World countries and a veritable cauldron of other potential frustrations.
His approach to travel is the polar opposite of the way in which many of us might approach a place as distant & as difficult to navigate as Angola, as is the case with the few business types he spots at hotels in Angola, the author's stopping point, while hoping to eventually follow an overland path en route to the fabled city of Timbuktu.
For as Theroux puts it:
A frontier represents the life of most people. It's a thrill to go on foot from one country to another--a mere pedestrian exchanging countries, treading the theoretical links or inked lines shown on maps. Reading & restlessness + the feeling that the real world was elsewhere made me a traveler.The way in which Theroux's skepticism prevails within his writing and the manner in which his sense of irony reveals itself have always been facets of his many travel books and in The Last Train to Zona Verde, there are countless examples, including a litany of failed attempts by international organizations to assist or elevate Africans, comparing the herds of pampered German tourists coming to view herds of elephants & oryx in Namibia.
If the Internet were all that it is cracked up to be (rather than filled with contradictory information), we would all stay home and be brilliantly witty & insightful.
Yet, there is more reason than ever to travel; to look deeper, to sort the authentic from the fake; to verify, to smell, to touch, to taste, to hear and sometimes--importantly--to suffer the effects of this curiosity. This is what compelled me to travel through the desiccated landscape from Tsumkwe to the Ju'hoansi village on this very hot day.
Additionally, there is the commentary about the Portuguese Prime Minister, representing the country that had so denuded Angola's mineral riches, now coming to beg for a loan to help bail out the former colonizing country.
Meanwhile, Theroux presents China as an example of a new & very different form of colonization of the African continent & elsewhere around the world.
There has always been more of the personal memoir than explicitly detailed travel information in Theroux's travel memoirs and this quality has been accentuated in this book, perhaps in the last several from the author, most certainly including Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. With this latest travel narrative, there is an enhanced list of required medication, an imminent sense of waning travel days & increasing frailty in general, a lessening of resilience.
As always there is Theroux's brand of dark humor as when in thinking about Angola, he invokes a friend consulted for advice during the author's first extended rail journey, chronicled in The Great Railway Bazaar, who when asked about visiting Basra, responds: "It's not the asshole of the world, it's 80 miles up it!"
In that case, Theroux altered his itinerary & mentions that he has spent his traveling life avoiding such places. The author then comments: "What had I learned? That proctology pretty much describes the experience of traveling from one African city to another, especially the horror cities of urbanized West Africa."
Paul is not alone in his despondency about the future of much of the African continent, for when he went off to Malawi in the first Peace Corps program of volunteers to serve in that country, there was great hope for the continent full of newly independent nations and perhaps a greater sense of optimism for the rest of the world as well.
At this point, there are still aid programs aplenty in Africa but there is a much-heightened sense of risk and the Peace Corps has recently withdrawn its volunteers from several African countries, including Kenya where I served in the late 1960s, not to mention the long-ago withdrawal from other places around the globe like Pakistan, Afghanistan & Iran.
However, the author does take pains to demonstrate that many remain hopeful, including the former Mozambique Peace Corps volunteer he encounters teaching in an isolated village school in Angola, someone who has vowed to spend further time teaching in that seemingly desperate country.
There comes a time in any long journey, particularly when traveling solo, when one begins to feel "homeward bound", even if the scheduled departure date is still some time away. With this latest travel tale, Paul Theroux looks at the map of West Africa, reads about the horrors of anti-Western activity in Nigeria & Mali, the latter having represented the final destination & embarkation point on his intended itinerary.
Ultimately, having already endured an abundance of squalor, slow & potentially dangerous travel conditions and the absence of 3 friends he had shared happy times with while traveling in Namibia & Angola, he decides to hand off his travel togs to a villager, reserving only the clothes he will need for the flight & to become homeward bound. Theroux has been asking himself for quite some time "What am I doing here?" Now, he reaches the conclusion that nothing of value can come from a further exploration of West Africa.
The author's style and quirky personality are certainly not to everyone's taste but I have always enjoyed the descriptive power of Theroux's travel commentary and while reading and rereading his books, I have continued to have a sense of being much more than a bystander on his journeys.
*Among the images within my review are: Paul Theroux & quote from the author; children in rural Angola, an oil-rich land.
September 17, 2013
It seems that Paul Theroux does have a breaking point. It is Angola. Angola was the place that finally made him throw down his pack and say, "F- this." Wow. If Paul Theroux can't hack it, I know I'm never, never, never going there.
I was in the audience when Paul Theroux gave a talk about this book recently, and he's exactly as I imagined he would be. The great, gruff travel writer is a man who speaks his mind, has strong and often unpopular opinions, and is afraid of very little in this world. You should have heard him dress down a young woman who asked a naive (bordering on stupid) question about the safety of modern travel. Paul Theroux ain't got time for that! Frankly, that's what I like about him. He's not out there writing about luxury resorts and pretty waterfalls. He's taking a busted Land Cruiser over land mine-infested roads through freaking Angola. He's taking on corrupt dictators and short-sighted NGOs. However, it seems that advancing age and the overall craptasticness of West Africa come together on this trip in a way that throws everything for a loop. Theroux repeats often, "What am I doing here?"
I read and loved Dark Star Safari, and was excited to read about Theroux's return to Africa. In Cape Town, he is able to revisit locations from Dark Star Safari and see how they've changed. He seems to be enjoying himself. Once he gets into Namibia and finally Angola, the mood changes. I will spoil nothing. While, overall, I enjoyed this book less than some of his others, I think the blistering final chapters have something really valid and important to say about Africa and the nature of travel writing. I learned a lot, and I continue to respect the hell out of Paul Theroux.
I was in the audience when Paul Theroux gave a talk about this book recently, and he's exactly as I imagined he would be. The great, gruff travel writer is a man who speaks his mind, has strong and often unpopular opinions, and is afraid of very little in this world. You should have heard him dress down a young woman who asked a naive (bordering on stupid) question about the safety of modern travel. Paul Theroux ain't got time for that! Frankly, that's what I like about him. He's not out there writing about luxury resorts and pretty waterfalls. He's taking a busted Land Cruiser over land mine-infested roads through freaking Angola. He's taking on corrupt dictators and short-sighted NGOs. However, it seems that advancing age and the overall craptasticness of West Africa come together on this trip in a way that throws everything for a loop. Theroux repeats often, "What am I doing here?"
I read and loved Dark Star Safari, and was excited to read about Theroux's return to Africa. In Cape Town, he is able to revisit locations from Dark Star Safari and see how they've changed. He seems to be enjoying himself. Once he gets into Namibia and finally Angola, the mood changes. I will spoil nothing. While, overall, I enjoyed this book less than some of his others, I think the blistering final chapters have something really valid and important to say about Africa and the nature of travel writing. I learned a lot, and I continue to respect the hell out of Paul Theroux.
May 11, 2013
This book was dismal. Paul Theroux struggles with what he says will be his last trip to Africa because of his advancing age. He also struggles with the life he finds in South Africa, Namibia and Angola, countries rife with poverty, graft, crime and miserable human conditions. It's as if the things he sees and the people he meets reflect his own dark mood. And few good things come out of either. I've read most of Theroux's travel books and always felt as though I learned something and was enthused. Much like Theroux abandons his hope to get to Timbuktu after some really bad experiences in Angola, I wanted to abandon this book. What a disappointment.
July 23, 2017
Paul Theroux was a bit lost on this one. I know because he complained about it every other page. 'Why am I here?' is a constant question that pads the text, just as often substituted with, 'What's the point?'
It's fair to say that doubt, both in himself and civilisation as a whole, is a theme that occupies the majority of the book, and though he paws around the dirt to find some answers, in most cases he can only come up with half-hearted justifications for why he would suffer a journey in which he seems to have absolutely no interest. It doesn't make for a compelling read.
Then he arrives in Angola.
I imagine any travelogue requires a certain balance between the writer's subjective experience and a more objective outline of what was seen. Paul Theroux has always been happy to tip that balance towards his personal views, a quality that was rather mundane on this occasion, but in Angola, a country that's rife with injustice, landmines, social inequality, corruption, Chinese opportunists, colonial scars, outrageous characters and decades of war torn misery, in Angola he manages to get out of his own way to create a lucid portrait of madness that makes it a necessary purchase for anybody interested in the refuse of global capitalism.
Just remember, if you do pick up a copy, I don't think you'll be missing out on much by skipping ahead to Chapter 10.
It's fair to say that doubt, both in himself and civilisation as a whole, is a theme that occupies the majority of the book, and though he paws around the dirt to find some answers, in most cases he can only come up with half-hearted justifications for why he would suffer a journey in which he seems to have absolutely no interest. It doesn't make for a compelling read.
Then he arrives in Angola.
I imagine any travelogue requires a certain balance between the writer's subjective experience and a more objective outline of what was seen. Paul Theroux has always been happy to tip that balance towards his personal views, a quality that was rather mundane on this occasion, but in Angola, a country that's rife with injustice, landmines, social inequality, corruption, Chinese opportunists, colonial scars, outrageous characters and decades of war torn misery, in Angola he manages to get out of his own way to create a lucid portrait of madness that makes it a necessary purchase for anybody interested in the refuse of global capitalism.
Just remember, if you do pick up a copy, I don't think you'll be missing out on much by skipping ahead to Chapter 10.
January 9, 2020
Paul Theroux is a keen observer of people and places. He writes with insight and compassion, carefully choosing his words to describe whom he meets and what he sees. He is not a cynic, and always looks for hopeful signs and positive developments, but his decades of travel have left him world weary. In this book he constantly asks himself why is he there and what is he doing.
In Africa there is much to be depressed about, where squalor and corruption and hopelessness abound, but the abandoned people and failed governments he describes are not limited to that continent. His next book was Deep South, about life, and especially rural life, in the southern United States. In it he writes “Many Americans were just as poor as many Africans, or as confined in rural communities as many Indians; they were as remote from anyone caring about them, too, without access to decent housing or medical care; and there were portions of America, especially in the rural South, that resembled what is often thought of as the Third World.� That statement takes on added impact and significance when you read his descriptions of actual African poverty in Last Train to Zona Verde.
He originally thought he might travel up the west coast of Africa from Cape Town all the way to Timbuktu in Mali, but the trip wore him down and he only made it from South Africa to Namibia and then Angola before calling it quits. His decision was made partly because insurrections in Nigeria and Mali would have made traveling there foolhardy, but also because he knew that he would only see more of what he had seen everywhere else, more slums and shantytowns and corrupt policemen and politicians, more crowds of desperately poor people living in filth who saw every white man as an easy mark.
In many places the situation seems genuinely hopeless, even when some progress manages to get made. In the ten years since he had last been in Cape Town the government had made good on a promise and converted a shanty town into a township, with real houses, electricity, and access to clean water. This certainly helped the people living there, but it also encouraged further migration to the area, so beyond the township the slums and shantytowns are larger than ever, and always growing. Any further improvements to the lives of some of them would bring even more people and the cycle would repeat itself endlessly.
Theroux has a dim view of most of the well-intentioned but ineffective programs paid for by government foreign aid and private charities, and the well compensated, well fed people who run them and bask in their own self-righteousness, spouting “the jargonized gabbling about plans that would never amount to anything more than words on the wind. You think: What’s the use?� (p. 91). He is especially critical of the movie stars and business moguls who show up, smile for the cameras, spread some money around that will do little if any real good, and quickly depart. “A great deal of aid is plainly political, and much is pure theater, something that comes naturally to the performers and public figures who involve themselves in these efforts at African improvement, which, when you look closely, are often efforts to improve the irregularities in their own public image.� (p. 74)
He has a similarly low opinion of the tourists who flock to the continent to see “wild Africa� from the windows of their comfortable buses and from behind sturdy fences at watering holes, then go back to their hotels for supper and entertainment. Even worse are the despicable low-lifes playing out their “great white hunter� fantasies who are coddled along by guides to make can’t-miss shots at animals in private game parks.
From Cape Town Theroux traveled by bus to Namibia, a surreal place of a few prosperous, orderly, well guarded towns surrounded by a vast hinterland of people ignored by their government and left to fend for themselves. He also explores the idea of the noble savage, contentedly living off the land following the ancient ways. Those ancient ways were hard and the life was precarious; what they want today is money to buy Western food and clothes. The ones pretending to live traditional lives are doing so for the benefit of tourists.
As he travels further north in Namibia the government presence fades to nothing and chaos increases. Angola itself is a nightmarish failed state run by incompetent thieves, a land of endless filth, squalor, and desperate, hopeless poverty. “From the immensity of the slums, the disrepair of the roads, and the randomness of the buildings, I could tell that the government was corrupt, predatory, tyrannical, unjust, and utterly uninterested in its people � fearing them for what they saw, hating them for what they said or wrote.� (p. 258)
Even there he manages to meet smart, competent people who offer insights into the lives of Angolans, but they are a tiny minority, hidden away behind guards and high walls as the chaos outside spreads. He sees his surroundings as a exemplar of most of the continent, “The classic African failed state is composed of a busy capital city where politicians on large salaries hold court and drive big cars; dense and hopeless slums surrounding the capital; and the great empty hinterland, ignored by the government and more or less managed by foreign charities, which in many cases are big businesses run by highly paid executives.� (p. 165)
In all three countries the slums had a terrible, miserable sameness of dirt and neglect. Another constant were the groups of hostile, predatory young men wearing castoff clothing from America or Europe, and the ever-present soundtrack of booming rap music. Theroux makes an insightful comment about this: “Rap is the howl of the underclass, the music of menace, of hostility, of aggression. Intentionally offensive, much of the language is so obscene that it is unplayable on radio stations.� (p. 106) The music adds a beat to the seething anger of the dispossessed, and a feeling that an explosion is coming. Even the well off can sense it, and have developed escape plans for when the storm breaks.
Angola was a Portuguese colony founded on slavery and exploitation, where an estimated four million captives were shipped from just one of its towns to slave markets in North and South America. It was a dangerous, pestilential place, to which Portugal sent its worst criminals to oversee the natives. It is no surprise that the whole enterprise was marked by violence, incompetence, and failure, summed up with “the entire Portuguese adventure in Angola � hopeless, shiftless, horny Europeans exploiting Africans who they believed to be even more hopeless and shiftless.� (p. 246)
Since 2006 a new kind of colonist has arrived. The Chinese first sent prisoners to work off their sentences in Angola, and more and more of them have come. They build bridges, dredge harbors, construct buildings, and do other infrastructure projects, but they use their own workers, leaving the natives once again shut out from opportunities. They form their own communities, interacting infrequently and uneasily with the Angolans.
The Chinese presence in Africa is often cited as a good thing, bringing progress and modernization, but nothing is free when it comes to foreign policy and in the end the projects will probably benefit only China itself.
It is hard to imagine where all of this is leading, but there do not seem to be any plausible good scenarios. It seems far more likely that war, pestilence, environmental collapse, or complete social breakdown will result than that any of these countries will pull themselves up by their bootstraps and find a way to provide education, healthcare, infrastructure, and jobs for their growing populations.
What Theroux saw in these three countries can be found in many places in Africa. “I seemed to be traveling into greater misery � the misery of Africa, the awful, poisoned, populous Africa; the Africa of cheated, despised, unaccommodated people; of the seemingly unfixable blight: so hideous, really, it is unrecognizable as Africa at all. But it is, of course � the new Africa.� (p. 252) And not just Africa, but Asia, and South America, and, as his next book would show, even the United States. A storm is coming.
In Africa there is much to be depressed about, where squalor and corruption and hopelessness abound, but the abandoned people and failed governments he describes are not limited to that continent. His next book was Deep South, about life, and especially rural life, in the southern United States. In it he writes “Many Americans were just as poor as many Africans, or as confined in rural communities as many Indians; they were as remote from anyone caring about them, too, without access to decent housing or medical care; and there were portions of America, especially in the rural South, that resembled what is often thought of as the Third World.� That statement takes on added impact and significance when you read his descriptions of actual African poverty in Last Train to Zona Verde.
He originally thought he might travel up the west coast of Africa from Cape Town all the way to Timbuktu in Mali, but the trip wore him down and he only made it from South Africa to Namibia and then Angola before calling it quits. His decision was made partly because insurrections in Nigeria and Mali would have made traveling there foolhardy, but also because he knew that he would only see more of what he had seen everywhere else, more slums and shantytowns and corrupt policemen and politicians, more crowds of desperately poor people living in filth who saw every white man as an easy mark.
In many places the situation seems genuinely hopeless, even when some progress manages to get made. In the ten years since he had last been in Cape Town the government had made good on a promise and converted a shanty town into a township, with real houses, electricity, and access to clean water. This certainly helped the people living there, but it also encouraged further migration to the area, so beyond the township the slums and shantytowns are larger than ever, and always growing. Any further improvements to the lives of some of them would bring even more people and the cycle would repeat itself endlessly.
Theroux has a dim view of most of the well-intentioned but ineffective programs paid for by government foreign aid and private charities, and the well compensated, well fed people who run them and bask in their own self-righteousness, spouting “the jargonized gabbling about plans that would never amount to anything more than words on the wind. You think: What’s the use?� (p. 91). He is especially critical of the movie stars and business moguls who show up, smile for the cameras, spread some money around that will do little if any real good, and quickly depart. “A great deal of aid is plainly political, and much is pure theater, something that comes naturally to the performers and public figures who involve themselves in these efforts at African improvement, which, when you look closely, are often efforts to improve the irregularities in their own public image.� (p. 74)
He has a similarly low opinion of the tourists who flock to the continent to see “wild Africa� from the windows of their comfortable buses and from behind sturdy fences at watering holes, then go back to their hotels for supper and entertainment. Even worse are the despicable low-lifes playing out their “great white hunter� fantasies who are coddled along by guides to make can’t-miss shots at animals in private game parks.
From Cape Town Theroux traveled by bus to Namibia, a surreal place of a few prosperous, orderly, well guarded towns surrounded by a vast hinterland of people ignored by their government and left to fend for themselves. He also explores the idea of the noble savage, contentedly living off the land following the ancient ways. Those ancient ways were hard and the life was precarious; what they want today is money to buy Western food and clothes. The ones pretending to live traditional lives are doing so for the benefit of tourists.
As he travels further north in Namibia the government presence fades to nothing and chaos increases. Angola itself is a nightmarish failed state run by incompetent thieves, a land of endless filth, squalor, and desperate, hopeless poverty. “From the immensity of the slums, the disrepair of the roads, and the randomness of the buildings, I could tell that the government was corrupt, predatory, tyrannical, unjust, and utterly uninterested in its people � fearing them for what they saw, hating them for what they said or wrote.� (p. 258)
Even there he manages to meet smart, competent people who offer insights into the lives of Angolans, but they are a tiny minority, hidden away behind guards and high walls as the chaos outside spreads. He sees his surroundings as a exemplar of most of the continent, “The classic African failed state is composed of a busy capital city where politicians on large salaries hold court and drive big cars; dense and hopeless slums surrounding the capital; and the great empty hinterland, ignored by the government and more or less managed by foreign charities, which in many cases are big businesses run by highly paid executives.� (p. 165)
In all three countries the slums had a terrible, miserable sameness of dirt and neglect. Another constant were the groups of hostile, predatory young men wearing castoff clothing from America or Europe, and the ever-present soundtrack of booming rap music. Theroux makes an insightful comment about this: “Rap is the howl of the underclass, the music of menace, of hostility, of aggression. Intentionally offensive, much of the language is so obscene that it is unplayable on radio stations.� (p. 106) The music adds a beat to the seething anger of the dispossessed, and a feeling that an explosion is coming. Even the well off can sense it, and have developed escape plans for when the storm breaks.
Angola was a Portuguese colony founded on slavery and exploitation, where an estimated four million captives were shipped from just one of its towns to slave markets in North and South America. It was a dangerous, pestilential place, to which Portugal sent its worst criminals to oversee the natives. It is no surprise that the whole enterprise was marked by violence, incompetence, and failure, summed up with “the entire Portuguese adventure in Angola � hopeless, shiftless, horny Europeans exploiting Africans who they believed to be even more hopeless and shiftless.� (p. 246)
Since 2006 a new kind of colonist has arrived. The Chinese first sent prisoners to work off their sentences in Angola, and more and more of them have come. They build bridges, dredge harbors, construct buildings, and do other infrastructure projects, but they use their own workers, leaving the natives once again shut out from opportunities. They form their own communities, interacting infrequently and uneasily with the Angolans.
Possibly, again like the Portuguese convicts, the Chinese would become the loudest racists, and for the same reason. ‘The inferiority complex of the uneducated criminal settler population contributed to a virulent form of white racism among the Portuguese, which affected all classes from top to bottom,� the political historian Lawrence Henderson wrote of the early settlers. The Portuguese convicts became the most brutal employers and the laziest farmers, and a sizable number turned furiously respectable, in the way atoning whores become sermonizing and pitiless nuns.�(p. 240)
The Chinese presence in Africa is often cited as a good thing, bringing progress and modernization, but nothing is free when it comes to foreign policy and in the end the projects will probably benefit only China itself.
Some African watchers and Western economists have observed that the Chinese presence in Africa � a sudden intrusion � is salutary and will result in greater development and more opportunities for Africans. Seeing Chinese digging into Africa, isolated in their enterprises, offhand with Africans to the point of rudeness, and deaf to any suggestion that they moderate their self-serving ways, I tend to regard this positive view as a crock. My own feeling is that like the other adventurers in Africa, the Chinese are exploiters. They have no compact or agreement or involvement with the African people; there is an alliance with the dictators and bureaucrats whom they pay off and allow to govern abusively � a conspiracy. Theirs is a racket like those of all the previous colonizers, and it will end badly—maybe worse, because the Chinese are tenacious, richer, and heavily invested, and for them there is no going back and no surrender. As they walked into Tibet and took over...they are walking into the continent and, outspending any other adventurer, subverting Africans, with a mission to plunder. (p. 225-6)
It is hard to imagine where all of this is leading, but there do not seem to be any plausible good scenarios. It seems far more likely that war, pestilence, environmental collapse, or complete social breakdown will result than that any of these countries will pull themselves up by their bootstraps and find a way to provide education, healthcare, infrastructure, and jobs for their growing populations.
What Theroux saw in these three countries can be found in many places in Africa. “I seemed to be traveling into greater misery � the misery of Africa, the awful, poisoned, populous Africa; the Africa of cheated, despised, unaccommodated people; of the seemingly unfixable blight: so hideous, really, it is unrecognizable as Africa at all. But it is, of course � the new Africa.� (p. 252) And not just Africa, but Asia, and South America, and, as his next book would show, even the United States. A storm is coming.
June 15, 2018
An interesting travelogue comparing journeys fifty years apart.
‘The Last Train to Zona Verde� is one of those books one wishes had been better written. Unfortunately, there was annoying emotional moaning about the state of African cities in almost every chapter. It degraded my reading experience. I agree with author Paul Theroux’s opinions, however. But Theroux spent a little too much time telling, not showing, because of his disappointment and shock.
I have never traveled in Africa so I cannot add any personal observations about Africa, but poverty is poverty is poverty, some of which I have experienced. Plus, many other media sources that I have seen or read for the last fifty years make clear how economically mismanaged and poor the countries of Africa are.
Whatever the deficiencies in the text that a good editor may have fixed, there is nothing wrong with Theroux’s eyes. Also, I DO believe he is an extraordinarily incautious, even a foolhardy, traveler. This is the first Theroux travelogue I have read, but I am certain even long-time fans must have blanched a bit at seeing how Theroux made this journey (train, bus, hired car) from South Africa to Namibia to Angola alone at age seventy.
What caused Theroux’s angst, understandably, is not that African cities are modernizing (they are), but that there is a growing class-based economic chasm between the rich and poor; that the cities are full of large slums with shacks that are basically horrible outdoor latrine pits made of scrap plastics where many millions of poor people live, sleep, eat and forage for any garbage tossed outside the enclaves where the wealthy have walled themselves in; that the people living in the country are either degraded or shattered emotionally and economically by the occasional driveby meetings with modern society.
As Theroux mentions, it is not a lack of resources or marketable skills pulling these African nations down. Primarily, it is a governing class of ex-military psychopaths. No, psychopath is not what Theroux called these monsters - that is my expression. Whatever else could it be if seeing the children of their nation, the future, living in filth without clean water or food, unable to attend school because there are none, forced to beg or worse, while the wealthy and politically connected grow fat with excess? Theroux mentions the colonialism rape and civil wars of South Africa, Namibia and Angola, which may be still affecting these nations, but to me, this does not change the fact many of today’s African elite have attended elite European and American colleges as well as vacation and shop in the developed world (have done so for decades). Many of the companies doing business with the upper classes are European and American companies who have requested that locals be educated enough to save money on hiring imported workers.
Elite Africans cannot claim ignorance of their perfidy towards their own people. Instead Angola, for example, has signed construction contracts with the Chinese government whose companies are building infrastructure entirely with Chinese laborers. They are gladly and happily padding their payrolls with Chinese citizens and criminals expelled from Chinese prisons and sent to Africa.
Anyway. The book is a record of the current state of southwestern African governance (infrastructure, wildlife, schools, medical facilities, food scarcity, jobs), and the effects of elite malfeasance and cruelty as experienced by the common people as witnessed by Paul Theroux. Some readers may be surprised by what is told, and others may attribute the author’s sour gloom as a malady of old age, but I believe this was a completely honest and True narrative. The writing is vivid and interesting. I feared for Theroux’s life (irrationally, obviously) as he met people in townships, train and bus depots, and at dangerous crossings into other countries. Alcohol is FAR too available everywhere even when meat, water and vegetables are difficult to acquire.
Normally I would be extremely outraged, but I feel tired, like Theroux. The malfeasance of African leaders and their elite classes appears to be unsolvable. The African elite have had many opportunities to fix this, and they haven’t much tried. Instead they fill their bank accounts with stolen funds, salaries, grants and bribes meant to help their people.
‘The Last Train to Zona Verde� is one of those books one wishes had been better written. Unfortunately, there was annoying emotional moaning about the state of African cities in almost every chapter. It degraded my reading experience. I agree with author Paul Theroux’s opinions, however. But Theroux spent a little too much time telling, not showing, because of his disappointment and shock.
I have never traveled in Africa so I cannot add any personal observations about Africa, but poverty is poverty is poverty, some of which I have experienced. Plus, many other media sources that I have seen or read for the last fifty years make clear how economically mismanaged and poor the countries of Africa are.
Whatever the deficiencies in the text that a good editor may have fixed, there is nothing wrong with Theroux’s eyes. Also, I DO believe he is an extraordinarily incautious, even a foolhardy, traveler. This is the first Theroux travelogue I have read, but I am certain even long-time fans must have blanched a bit at seeing how Theroux made this journey (train, bus, hired car) from South Africa to Namibia to Angola alone at age seventy.
What caused Theroux’s angst, understandably, is not that African cities are modernizing (they are), but that there is a growing class-based economic chasm between the rich and poor; that the cities are full of large slums with shacks that are basically horrible outdoor latrine pits made of scrap plastics where many millions of poor people live, sleep, eat and forage for any garbage tossed outside the enclaves where the wealthy have walled themselves in; that the people living in the country are either degraded or shattered emotionally and economically by the occasional driveby meetings with modern society.
As Theroux mentions, it is not a lack of resources or marketable skills pulling these African nations down. Primarily, it is a governing class of ex-military psychopaths. No, psychopath is not what Theroux called these monsters - that is my expression. Whatever else could it be if seeing the children of their nation, the future, living in filth without clean water or food, unable to attend school because there are none, forced to beg or worse, while the wealthy and politically connected grow fat with excess? Theroux mentions the colonialism rape and civil wars of South Africa, Namibia and Angola, which may be still affecting these nations, but to me, this does not change the fact many of today’s African elite have attended elite European and American colleges as well as vacation and shop in the developed world (have done so for decades). Many of the companies doing business with the upper classes are European and American companies who have requested that locals be educated enough to save money on hiring imported workers.
Elite Africans cannot claim ignorance of their perfidy towards their own people. Instead Angola, for example, has signed construction contracts with the Chinese government whose companies are building infrastructure entirely with Chinese laborers. They are gladly and happily padding their payrolls with Chinese citizens and criminals expelled from Chinese prisons and sent to Africa.
Anyway. The book is a record of the current state of southwestern African governance (infrastructure, wildlife, schools, medical facilities, food scarcity, jobs), and the effects of elite malfeasance and cruelty as experienced by the common people as witnessed by Paul Theroux. Some readers may be surprised by what is told, and others may attribute the author’s sour gloom as a malady of old age, but I believe this was a completely honest and True narrative. The writing is vivid and interesting. I feared for Theroux’s life (irrationally, obviously) as he met people in townships, train and bus depots, and at dangerous crossings into other countries. Alcohol is FAR too available everywhere even when meat, water and vegetables are difficult to acquire.
Normally I would be extremely outraged, but I feel tired, like Theroux. The malfeasance of African leaders and their elite classes appears to be unsolvable. The African elite have had many opportunities to fix this, and they haven’t much tried. Instead they fill their bank accounts with stolen funds, salaries, grants and bribes meant to help their people.
December 27, 2021
Big disclaimer, since I first read “The Pillars of Hercules�, more than 10 years ago, I am a big fan of Theroux� works. Be it “couch travel� or his own “fiction� genres, I have enjoyed several of his books, many of them read in an airport lounge or in a cross-continent business flight.
The thing is, I started reading Theroux right in the beginning of more than a decade I spent working across several countries, living out of my trolley for weeks in a tow, then another flight and so on. Reading Theroux’s travels, many of them across the same countries I was working in, namely in Africa, it provided me with an alternative view of the reality I lived in. I wish I could have spent more time getting to know the places, the people and the costumes, instead of just flying in, straight to business hotel, 3 days workshop and meetings without leaving the same hotel and off you go, another tick in the map, 33 countries and counting.
Anyway, I read “The last train to Zona Verde� 4 years after I had moved from South Africa to Angola. I had taken the same trip, from Cape Town to Luanda, in a notably easier, much more comfortable and remark less way of course, but still I was eager to read about his way of doing things. I loved the book, obviously, and it struck me that, this man who had crossed entire continents in the back of a truck or in a third class train ticket, would give up and interrupt the trip ( initially planned to continue much further south) right there, in Luanda. This says a lot about how hard life can be, for anyone in Luanda, even for Paul Theroux.
I thought I was a resistant, I was stronger, given I had lived there for almost 5 years. However, I was still not aware when I finished this reading, but I would be leaving Luanda for good in less than 6 months. By the way, just as Paul promises in his book, this would be my last foreign relocation - so far, I have stuck to my promise, unlike Theroux, in spite of his seventies and counting.
I love and admire this man!
The thing is, I started reading Theroux right in the beginning of more than a decade I spent working across several countries, living out of my trolley for weeks in a tow, then another flight and so on. Reading Theroux’s travels, many of them across the same countries I was working in, namely in Africa, it provided me with an alternative view of the reality I lived in. I wish I could have spent more time getting to know the places, the people and the costumes, instead of just flying in, straight to business hotel, 3 days workshop and meetings without leaving the same hotel and off you go, another tick in the map, 33 countries and counting.
Anyway, I read “The last train to Zona Verde� 4 years after I had moved from South Africa to Angola. I had taken the same trip, from Cape Town to Luanda, in a notably easier, much more comfortable and remark less way of course, but still I was eager to read about his way of doing things. I loved the book, obviously, and it struck me that, this man who had crossed entire continents in the back of a truck or in a third class train ticket, would give up and interrupt the trip ( initially planned to continue much further south) right there, in Luanda. This says a lot about how hard life can be, for anyone in Luanda, even for Paul Theroux.
I thought I was a resistant, I was stronger, given I had lived there for almost 5 years. However, I was still not aware when I finished this reading, but I would be leaving Luanda for good in less than 6 months. By the way, just as Paul promises in his book, this would be my last foreign relocation - so far, I have stuck to my promise, unlike Theroux, in spite of his seventies and counting.
I love and admire this man!
October 19, 2013
The best travel writers - most of them long gone, like Freya Stark - are people who live life fully, love their lives, and infect us with their passion. They travel for some reason other than just writing a book, immersing themselves physically in exotic cultures and describing exotic places with lyricism and exotic people with respect and compassion. Theroux, however, like other ironic post-modernists, doesn't really seem to have a life outside traveling and writing, and he clearly doesn't love what he does. His travel seems motivated either by masochistic compulsion or simply by the need for another book subject, and he typically despises the people and places he visits. Yet he has somehow found an audience by relentlessly, peevishly complaining and condescending.
He doesn't lack courage or fortitude, but despite the effort he makes and the risks he takes, he's never able to truly engage with the interesting places and people he visits. He's self-absorbed, and he just doesn't seem to be a well-rounded person with interests and activities other than writing, so he always ends up a detached observer.
I think "Last Train" is the most useless of all his misanthropic narratives. Suffering his way through the slums of southwestern Africa, he despises almost everything and everyone he sees. Like the naive Victorians, he makes sweeping, authoritative judgements of nations, societies and cultures based on brief incidents and random people he glimpses along the way, while selectively pilfering from other writers to justify his reactions. Caught up in his self-absorption and disgust, we can't figure out what these places and people are really like, we can't extract truth from his clearly biased opinions.
He doesn't lack courage or fortitude, but despite the effort he makes and the risks he takes, he's never able to truly engage with the interesting places and people he visits. He's self-absorbed, and he just doesn't seem to be a well-rounded person with interests and activities other than writing, so he always ends up a detached observer.
I think "Last Train" is the most useless of all his misanthropic narratives. Suffering his way through the slums of southwestern Africa, he despises almost everything and everyone he sees. Like the naive Victorians, he makes sweeping, authoritative judgements of nations, societies and cultures based on brief incidents and random people he glimpses along the way, while selectively pilfering from other writers to justify his reactions. Caught up in his self-absorption and disgust, we can't figure out what these places and people are really like, we can't extract truth from his clearly biased opinions.
February 1, 2018
I found Paul Theroux's "The Last Train to Zona Verde" a thoroughly enjoyable ride. Some brilliant insights into the lives and appalling living conditions of the populations inhabiting South Africa, Namibia and Angola. There are some side-effect history lessons along the way, including a fascinating bit about Bono from U2 supporting a horrible political figure and his campaign song to "Kill the Boer". Who knew?
I'm not a big reader of travel literature (I did read "The Songlines" by Bruce Chatwin many years ago, but not sure that strictly qualifies since it's a combination of fact and fiction), however I won this one along with some other books as a prize at a quiz night (really!) and thought I'd give it a go. Moreover, I am a big fan of film-maker Louis Theroux and I had to see what his dad was capable of. I'm glad I read it and will check out the books he wrote when he was a younger man.
I'm not a big reader of travel literature (I did read "The Songlines" by Bruce Chatwin many years ago, but not sure that strictly qualifies since it's a combination of fact and fiction), however I won this one along with some other books as a prize at a quiz night (really!) and thought I'd give it a go. Moreover, I am a big fan of film-maker Louis Theroux and I had to see what his dad was capable of. I'm glad I read it and will check out the books he wrote when he was a younger man.
October 12, 2013
Now in his early 70s, Paul Theroux sees and writes with the caustic, hard earned eye of this weary world wayfarer. Theroux loves Africa, delights in each rumination, each across-the-room view of well fed sassy tourists, each tirade of another corrupt African government.
I have read all of Theroux's travel books, starting with his 1975 smash "The Great Railway Bazaar". I devoured each page as if I were riding in the carriage of The Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur next to him. Now, whenever I am on a train, say... the Acela to New York City... I harken back to the great train routes of the world -- it makes me a better traveler. That train carrying me becomes a railed argosy to adventure.
But, whoa baby, this is not a delightful, fun filled account of train rides. Are you expecting breathlessly written postcards from poster like beautiful exotic travel destinations teeming with wildlife and drumming villagers?
No way. If you want that, get out your back issues of National Geographic or Junior Scholastic.
Theroux really lets fly at the extreme inequality of African society. In each nation, South Africa, Namibia and then...ready for this?...he travels through the agony of Angola, in crowded vans with screeching kids, arguing natives and do-looping rap music on one (only one) pirated cassette tape. I cringed and thanked myself for not being seated next to him.
So many of the governments of African nations have failed their people. As Theroux describes, the heads of states are "murderous, self-elected, megalomaniacal... with the morals of a fruit fly...and shopaholic wives."
Theroux feels that foreign aid by do-gooders makes this worse. Billions of "rogue aid" money goes unaccounted for. Pocketed by a trail of corrupt racketeers, these well meaning, well marketed airdrops of money has an instant, yet long lasting corrosive effect, rather than any therapeutic social redeeming benefit.
In turn, he takes shots at Madonna, Angelina Jolie, Oprah Winfrey, and, of course, Bono for their self-aggrandizing, globally televised interventions.
This trip fills Paul Theroux with despair. In the decade since his last African journey, he sees scant advancement in health, literacy and basic human rights. More often he cries at the regression.
I found this work a challenging album of descriptive mortal strangeness. Three nations of people describing for themselves what makes us human.
I have read all of Theroux's travel books, starting with his 1975 smash "The Great Railway Bazaar". I devoured each page as if I were riding in the carriage of The Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur next to him. Now, whenever I am on a train, say... the Acela to New York City... I harken back to the great train routes of the world -- it makes me a better traveler. That train carrying me becomes a railed argosy to adventure.
But, whoa baby, this is not a delightful, fun filled account of train rides. Are you expecting breathlessly written postcards from poster like beautiful exotic travel destinations teeming with wildlife and drumming villagers?
No way. If you want that, get out your back issues of National Geographic or Junior Scholastic.
Theroux really lets fly at the extreme inequality of African society. In each nation, South Africa, Namibia and then...ready for this?...he travels through the agony of Angola, in crowded vans with screeching kids, arguing natives and do-looping rap music on one (only one) pirated cassette tape. I cringed and thanked myself for not being seated next to him.
So many of the governments of African nations have failed their people. As Theroux describes, the heads of states are "murderous, self-elected, megalomaniacal... with the morals of a fruit fly...and shopaholic wives."
Theroux feels that foreign aid by do-gooders makes this worse. Billions of "rogue aid" money goes unaccounted for. Pocketed by a trail of corrupt racketeers, these well meaning, well marketed airdrops of money has an instant, yet long lasting corrosive effect, rather than any therapeutic social redeeming benefit.
In turn, he takes shots at Madonna, Angelina Jolie, Oprah Winfrey, and, of course, Bono for their self-aggrandizing, globally televised interventions.
This trip fills Paul Theroux with despair. In the decade since his last African journey, he sees scant advancement in health, literacy and basic human rights. More often he cries at the regression.
I found this work a challenging album of descriptive mortal strangeness. Three nations of people describing for themselves what makes us human.
June 14, 2013
No iron roosters or express trains here. A very misleading title and not the book he intended to write when he started his trip. Probably one of his best books and it's not a happy book. You have to admire him, a 70 year old, taking on a trip alone like this. No trains in this one despite the title-it's the trip not taken-it's all by bus and car. Theroux is quite opinionated, some would say elitist at times-loathes foreign aid, noble Bushmen image, etc... He stays in opulent digs occasionally while mocking himself and others who experience Africa through luxury safaris. But he's more than capable of holding his own in the shanty towns. Lots of soulful reflections on travel, Africa, and himself. He meets some great people, three of whom die during the course of his trip and during the writing of the book. He covers three countries (four if you count the sliver of time and land he was in Botswana): South Africa, Namibia, and Angola. The Zona Verde is the bush-the jungle-the rural Africa. He has a plan but he loves circumstance too and revels in those unforeseen moments of travel when he meets an astonishing person or sees something extraordinary. So many great insightful lines in this book and some are candid and frank, especially about the country of Angola. He's probably persona non grata for life there now. I just watched Anthony Bourdain's CNN show on the Congo. You get a feel for how much parts of Africa are so messed up. The bush is a hard life but it's better than living in a city and that's
the problem with Africa and the world-the exodus of the rural have-nots to mega cities where they have even less-only hope. However, Theroux in his book paints an even better picture with words. In his chapter, "This is What the World Will Look Like When It Ends" the dystopia is alive and well and flourishing in Luanda, Angola. Another chapter has the title, "The Frontier of Bad Karma." Circumstances like terrorism prevented Theroux from finishing his trip to his planned destination, Timbuktu, and it is an experienced traveler who knows when to say when. Even though this trip might be considered a disappointment by some it was another life affirming experience for a guy who had seen everything and done everything but always knows there's something new over the horizon.
the problem with Africa and the world-the exodus of the rural have-nots to mega cities where they have even less-only hope. However, Theroux in his book paints an even better picture with words. In his chapter, "This is What the World Will Look Like When It Ends" the dystopia is alive and well and flourishing in Luanda, Angola. Another chapter has the title, "The Frontier of Bad Karma." Circumstances like terrorism prevented Theroux from finishing his trip to his planned destination, Timbuktu, and it is an experienced traveler who knows when to say when. Even though this trip might be considered a disappointment by some it was another life affirming experience for a guy who had seen everything and done everything but always knows there's something new over the horizon.
May 25, 2013
Something has happened to Mr. Theroux's writing. Whereas early travel books seemed to exaggerate his personal dislikes (bordering on arrogance) while hiding some painful truth (like his impending divorce in The Old Patagonian Express), this book gives the impression of honesty, humility and even kindness. He paints a brutal picture but then again, based upon his almost constant travel to Africa over decades, maybe it is an accurate depiction.
I drove three hours to hear him speak at a book signing in Corte Madera. I have listened to many authors over the years. Aside from Jose Emilio Pacheco, Mexico's premier poet and novelist, Theroux was the most polished. His presentation was liberally sweetened with the word "kind." At one point, he spoke about young authors and asked the audience to be supportive without condition since one never knows where an interest will take someone.
Afterwards, I met him and exchanged a few words about La Ceiba, Honduras where I served part of my Peace Corps experience. Mosquito Coast mentions La Ceiba in passing. Since the book was released in 1981, I always wondered if we had crossed paths. He was very patient with my silly question, "1979. I was there in 1979 and you?" and equally generous with candid comments about Honduras.
I am on a second reading of this book and recommend it for anyone willing to look at unairbrushed African images.
I drove three hours to hear him speak at a book signing in Corte Madera. I have listened to many authors over the years. Aside from Jose Emilio Pacheco, Mexico's premier poet and novelist, Theroux was the most polished. His presentation was liberally sweetened with the word "kind." At one point, he spoke about young authors and asked the audience to be supportive without condition since one never knows where an interest will take someone.
Afterwards, I met him and exchanged a few words about La Ceiba, Honduras where I served part of my Peace Corps experience. Mosquito Coast mentions La Ceiba in passing. Since the book was released in 1981, I always wondered if we had crossed paths. He was very patient with my silly question, "1979. I was there in 1979 and you?" and equally generous with candid comments about Honduras.
I am on a second reading of this book and recommend it for anyone willing to look at unairbrushed African images.
October 5, 2021
‘Happy again, back in Africa, the kingdom of light…�
In Dark Star Safari, Theroux ‘had traveled overland from Cairo to Cape Town down the right-hand side of Africa�. He continues, ‘This time, liking the symmetry of the enterprise, I wanted to resume my trip at Cape Town and, after seeing how that city had changed in ten years, travel north in a new direction, up the left-hand side until I found the end of the line, either on the road or in my mind�.
I loved ‘Dark Star Safari�. I am really looking forward to reading this. In true Theroux fashion he will go to places that people tell him not to and he begins in a black township called New Rest. Theroux is not a dark tourist. He wants to see if improvements are happening from the last time he was there.
This is not a travel book in the normal sense of relating every single stop on the journey. He spends a lot of time talking about specific places in Namibia and especially the Ju/’hoansi people. Unfortunately, this is not happy travels. He sees a lot of things that are disheartening and just damn right miserable but you learn so much from this. Take for example, Angola. Theroux says, ‘…that the country earned billions of dollars a year from its oil, diamond, and gold exports.� In an Angolan border town called Santa Clara he saw one of the worst slums he had ever seen. Now that is saying something considering his travels.
The Angola part of the book is particularly interesting as I certainly did not know much about the country. My word Theroux provides a thorough lesson via research and observation and the fact he was there travelling seeing and meeting people. He was also teaching English in a couple of the places. When this book came out it got a huge amount of press due to the way it ended. It is not a spoiler to say that he stopped in Angola as it is part of the book’s title. He did have a kind of itinerary and it was his expectation that he would go on from Angola but things turned out not to be. He provides a really elucidating conclusion for this.
This is not a book that you would say you enjoyed just due to all of the factors of the trip. Theroux really brings you in with his writing. I learned a lot as I normally do reading his books.
In Dark Star Safari, Theroux ‘had traveled overland from Cairo to Cape Town down the right-hand side of Africa�. He continues, ‘This time, liking the symmetry of the enterprise, I wanted to resume my trip at Cape Town and, after seeing how that city had changed in ten years, travel north in a new direction, up the left-hand side until I found the end of the line, either on the road or in my mind�.
I loved ‘Dark Star Safari�. I am really looking forward to reading this. In true Theroux fashion he will go to places that people tell him not to and he begins in a black township called New Rest. Theroux is not a dark tourist. He wants to see if improvements are happening from the last time he was there.
This is not a travel book in the normal sense of relating every single stop on the journey. He spends a lot of time talking about specific places in Namibia and especially the Ju/’hoansi people. Unfortunately, this is not happy travels. He sees a lot of things that are disheartening and just damn right miserable but you learn so much from this. Take for example, Angola. Theroux says, ‘…that the country earned billions of dollars a year from its oil, diamond, and gold exports.� In an Angolan border town called Santa Clara he saw one of the worst slums he had ever seen. Now that is saying something considering his travels.
The Angola part of the book is particularly interesting as I certainly did not know much about the country. My word Theroux provides a thorough lesson via research and observation and the fact he was there travelling seeing and meeting people. He was also teaching English in a couple of the places. When this book came out it got a huge amount of press due to the way it ended. It is not a spoiler to say that he stopped in Angola as it is part of the book’s title. He did have a kind of itinerary and it was his expectation that he would go on from Angola but things turned out not to be. He provides a really elucidating conclusion for this.
This is not a book that you would say you enjoyed just due to all of the factors of the trip. Theroux really brings you in with his writing. I learned a lot as I normally do reading his books.
June 19, 2013
Last Train...is a very sad book. As a former Africanist, I weep for the continent and Theroux's brilliant exegesis . I am also saddened when I respond to Theroux's comments upon his aging and his future travels. Sadly, there is no hope, no future for this West Africa. His final chapter rivals any version of hell, be it Nathaniel West's or Dante, that I have ever read. Theroux is simply the greatest travel writer of our time.
January 6, 2014
Paul Theroux must be my favorite travel writer, as have read all his books. However he is a grumpy traveler displaying none of the joy in visiting exotic places or encountering people of cultures unlike our own.
One gets the impression that at age 70, this may be his last journey. He travels from South Africa to Namibia, and then into Angola. He is even crankier than in previous books. He usually dislikes fellow travelers, people on organized tours, many of the natives of countries he visits, certain celebrity do-gooders, foundations and charities trying to help. Some of his dislikes are well deserved, such as tourists spending $4000 a day to ride elephants at a posh camp in Namibia, and think Africa is marvelous based on this experience. Also tourists who spend a couple of dollars to visit shanty town slums and gape at the poverty, although that is what Theroux does.
He comes across as very self-absorbed and not enjoying his himself. He states several times that he travels to escape being home. He must also make a very good living from his travel books.His description of Angola is the stuff of nightmares, a country rich in resources but the wealth all going to the corrupt people in power.
He does enjoy an experience with Bushmen, tracking, hunting gathering, dressed in animal hides, until he finds out to his disillusionment that this was a show put on for his benefit when he sees them wearing cast-off Western clothes.
I hope that Theroux will go somewhere wonderful for a final trip, with lots of fine food and champagne. I hope he stays at a grand resort, but will probably complain about the hotel, staff, meals and the other tourists.
One gets the impression that at age 70, this may be his last journey. He travels from South Africa to Namibia, and then into Angola. He is even crankier than in previous books. He usually dislikes fellow travelers, people on organized tours, many of the natives of countries he visits, certain celebrity do-gooders, foundations and charities trying to help. Some of his dislikes are well deserved, such as tourists spending $4000 a day to ride elephants at a posh camp in Namibia, and think Africa is marvelous based on this experience. Also tourists who spend a couple of dollars to visit shanty town slums and gape at the poverty, although that is what Theroux does.
He comes across as very self-absorbed and not enjoying his himself. He states several times that he travels to escape being home. He must also make a very good living from his travel books.His description of Angola is the stuff of nightmares, a country rich in resources but the wealth all going to the corrupt people in power.
He does enjoy an experience with Bushmen, tracking, hunting gathering, dressed in animal hides, until he finds out to his disillusionment that this was a show put on for his benefit when he sees them wearing cast-off Western clothes.
I hope that Theroux will go somewhere wonderful for a final trip, with lots of fine food and champagne. I hope he stays at a grand resort, but will probably complain about the hotel, staff, meals and the other tourists.
December 20, 2013
About 1/3 the book was quotes and research from other writers, explorers, etc. Tedious details and statistics of local organizations were another 1/3. The rest was Theroux's usual pessimistic comments and observations. Angola is NOT a place anyone should think of visiting.
December 1, 2016
If you want to be taken into the heart of darkness, to perhaps the vilest country on the face of the planet, then Paul Theroux is your man. Why, in doing so we'll even find the modern day Mr Kurtz waiting.
The question has to be asked as to why, at age 70, would anyone want to travel alone to somewhere he knew full well was a foul and foetid country? It would be beyond my comprehension. Surely, after eight travel books (as well as a goodly number number of novels), all, to varying degrees, successful, you would be putting your feet up to enjoy a well earned retirement. Many of us have been armchair travellers with him on his adventures to parts of the world it is increasingly unlikely that we ourselves will now ever undertake a visit to. But Theroux is not the type to break out the carpet slippers and port, so instead he heads to one of Africa's hell-holes. As he writes at the commencement of this book, it wasn't because he - '...was seeking something. I was not seeking anything. I was hurrying away from my routine and my responsibilities and my general disgust with fatuous talk, money talk, money stories, the donkey laughter at dinner parties...Most of all I wanted to go back to Africa to pick up where I'd left off.'
He'd done the other side of the continent for an earlier travelogue and pre-fame had actually survived a stint of teaching in Malawi. He has a certain fondness for the place � or at least for the place it once had been. Now it was time, he figured, to work his way up the other side � although, in the end, he knew when to call it quits and abort what he planned, due to Congolese unrest and extremist Muslin outrages. He's not a complete fool. But before he did so, he saw the 'lower depths' of life in a godforsaken land that few visit of their own volition.
At least, though, he eased his way into it by visiting South Africa and Namibia first. Within his disembarkation country Cape Town was the stepping off point. He was interested to see what had happened to the squatter camps he had visited a decade or so back for another book � squatter camps these days being a blight around all cities in the RSA. He was pleasantly surprised that they seemed so much more liveable these days, a credit to the powers to be, outside aid and the resilience, as well as the ingenuity, of their people. It was only later he realised that, although the camps of his previous time in the Rainbow Nation were now quite reasonable, the problem had only extended outward. When he visited the fringes of cities he found a repetition of what had existed before as more and more South Africans gave up their hardscrabble rural existence for the promise of the big smoke. But, according to Theroux, for most, they had even less hope in these ramshackle, dirty urban eyesores. But, now, believe it or not, they have become part of the nation's tourist industry � us Westerners are attracted to so called 'poverty porn'. At least this provides a few souls with gainful employment, guiding bus loads of tourists to see how awfully the 'other half' exist. In a few isolated cases it has also had a beneficial effect via some guilt-ridden visitors sinking large sums of money into these places to improve conditions. Largely, though, once the gawkers are returned to their luxury accommodations, the squalor they've witnessed is quickly forgotten about as more hedonistic pleasures await. I wonder, this feasting on the misfortune of others, is it, well, ethical?
Crossing into Namibia, the author is at first impressed with the tidiness of some of the townships there, such as Windhoek and Swakopmund, with their Germanic origins and still a noteworthy ex-pat population. And although here the tourist dollar seemingly trickles down a tad, he soon encounters the same ghastly camps, as in RSA, on their outskirts.
At one stage he was delighted to be taken to a bushman's camp and at last he felt he was seeing the real Africa � the way it used to be before the atrocities of colonisation. There were bare-breasted maidens and he was taken out in the scrub hunting and gathering. After he left he was, for the first time on the trip, relatively content with the state of affairs. Unfortunately his guides took him back to the encampment unannounced and to his dismay he found the previously unencumbered inhabitants to be dressed in western cast-offs, the lads with their caps on backwards, listening to rap emanating from hand held digital devices. What he had witnessed was a show for gullible tourists � like him.
But if this was disillusionment, it was nothing to what he felt coming to Angola. I'll let PT take it from here for a while - 'The look of Angola was not just the ugly little town and the slum of shacks, but also the ruin of a brutalised landscape, of the stumps of deforestation and the fields littered with burnt out tanks, of rivers and streams that seemed poisoned � black and toxic. And not the slightest glimpse of any animal but a cow or a cringing dog. In most parts of the southern African bush you at least saw small antelopes or gazelles tittuping in the distance on slender legs. The impala was everywhere, and it was almost impossible to imagine a stretch of savanna without the movement of such creatures. And, wherever there were villages, there were always scavengers, hyenas or intrusive baboons.
But no wild animals existed in the whole of Angola. One effect of the decades long civil war here has been that the animals that had not been eaten by starving people had been blown up by old land mines. The extermination of wild game had been complete. Now and then cows in pastures were shredded by exploding mines, and so were children playing and people taking short cuts through fields'
And it just goes on and on, the listing of Angola's woes. It doesn't appear so, but this nation is one of the continent's wealthiest, with bountiful deposits of oil, gold and precious gems. But nothing, absolutely nothing, trickles down. All income from these riches lines the pockets of the small ruling elite class which uses goon squads to stamp out any opposition to their avarice. José Eduardo dos Santos rules his country with an iron fist, having done so since 1979. Wikipedia states 'Dos Santos has been accused of leading one of the most corrupt regimes in Africa by ignoring the economic and social needs of Angola and focusing his efforts on amassing wealth for his family and silencing his opposition, while, nearly 70% of the population lives on less than $2 a day.' As head of a craven, abominable regime, he is the modern day Mr Kurtz � fundamentally evil. It's not pretty reading.
Theroux realises that, although the concentration of wealth may not be so starkly centred on the self-serving few further north, he reasons to travel on in his mission would be pointless � he'd only depressingly encounter more of the same, so he pulls up stumps and retreats home.
Between the writing and publication of this tome, three friends he made on this excursion ended up meeting their end. One, an Australian, was killed by a beloved elephant he worked with; another was murdered for his relative wealth and the last, a worldly and realistic Angolan, died on a dive. Sums it all up actually.
In the end, for PT, there were only glimmers of hope emerging from his journey into darkness, but hope nonetheless. The Rainbow Nation has made great advances, even if there's a way to go. Namibia has a thriving tourism industry to build something worthwhile around. As for Angola, there is potential if someone can get in there and distribute the squillions it earns from its resources in a more equable manner, but, for the foreseeable future, it will remain a basket case.
Whist the reader cannot be unaffected by all this dire reality Theroux feeds us about the overall situation in this part of Africa, as, with all his books, it always remains interesting. The author is more curmudgeonly these days as one would expect, especially given his destination. His latest, 'Deep South', based around travelling the back roads of that part of his own nation, is his tenth travel book and awaits on my shelves. Maybe that one will be less doom and gloom.
There will come a time when his meanderings around the world will cease, given he's now 75. Pity, he's taken me on some great rides as I have reclined in my armchair or snuggled under the doona.
The question has to be asked as to why, at age 70, would anyone want to travel alone to somewhere he knew full well was a foul and foetid country? It would be beyond my comprehension. Surely, after eight travel books (as well as a goodly number number of novels), all, to varying degrees, successful, you would be putting your feet up to enjoy a well earned retirement. Many of us have been armchair travellers with him on his adventures to parts of the world it is increasingly unlikely that we ourselves will now ever undertake a visit to. But Theroux is not the type to break out the carpet slippers and port, so instead he heads to one of Africa's hell-holes. As he writes at the commencement of this book, it wasn't because he - '...was seeking something. I was not seeking anything. I was hurrying away from my routine and my responsibilities and my general disgust with fatuous talk, money talk, money stories, the donkey laughter at dinner parties...Most of all I wanted to go back to Africa to pick up where I'd left off.'
He'd done the other side of the continent for an earlier travelogue and pre-fame had actually survived a stint of teaching in Malawi. He has a certain fondness for the place � or at least for the place it once had been. Now it was time, he figured, to work his way up the other side � although, in the end, he knew when to call it quits and abort what he planned, due to Congolese unrest and extremist Muslin outrages. He's not a complete fool. But before he did so, he saw the 'lower depths' of life in a godforsaken land that few visit of their own volition.
At least, though, he eased his way into it by visiting South Africa and Namibia first. Within his disembarkation country Cape Town was the stepping off point. He was interested to see what had happened to the squatter camps he had visited a decade or so back for another book � squatter camps these days being a blight around all cities in the RSA. He was pleasantly surprised that they seemed so much more liveable these days, a credit to the powers to be, outside aid and the resilience, as well as the ingenuity, of their people. It was only later he realised that, although the camps of his previous time in the Rainbow Nation were now quite reasonable, the problem had only extended outward. When he visited the fringes of cities he found a repetition of what had existed before as more and more South Africans gave up their hardscrabble rural existence for the promise of the big smoke. But, according to Theroux, for most, they had even less hope in these ramshackle, dirty urban eyesores. But, now, believe it or not, they have become part of the nation's tourist industry � us Westerners are attracted to so called 'poverty porn'. At least this provides a few souls with gainful employment, guiding bus loads of tourists to see how awfully the 'other half' exist. In a few isolated cases it has also had a beneficial effect via some guilt-ridden visitors sinking large sums of money into these places to improve conditions. Largely, though, once the gawkers are returned to their luxury accommodations, the squalor they've witnessed is quickly forgotten about as more hedonistic pleasures await. I wonder, this feasting on the misfortune of others, is it, well, ethical?
Crossing into Namibia, the author is at first impressed with the tidiness of some of the townships there, such as Windhoek and Swakopmund, with their Germanic origins and still a noteworthy ex-pat population. And although here the tourist dollar seemingly trickles down a tad, he soon encounters the same ghastly camps, as in RSA, on their outskirts.
At one stage he was delighted to be taken to a bushman's camp and at last he felt he was seeing the real Africa � the way it used to be before the atrocities of colonisation. There were bare-breasted maidens and he was taken out in the scrub hunting and gathering. After he left he was, for the first time on the trip, relatively content with the state of affairs. Unfortunately his guides took him back to the encampment unannounced and to his dismay he found the previously unencumbered inhabitants to be dressed in western cast-offs, the lads with their caps on backwards, listening to rap emanating from hand held digital devices. What he had witnessed was a show for gullible tourists � like him.
But if this was disillusionment, it was nothing to what he felt coming to Angola. I'll let PT take it from here for a while - 'The look of Angola was not just the ugly little town and the slum of shacks, but also the ruin of a brutalised landscape, of the stumps of deforestation and the fields littered with burnt out tanks, of rivers and streams that seemed poisoned � black and toxic. And not the slightest glimpse of any animal but a cow or a cringing dog. In most parts of the southern African bush you at least saw small antelopes or gazelles tittuping in the distance on slender legs. The impala was everywhere, and it was almost impossible to imagine a stretch of savanna without the movement of such creatures. And, wherever there were villages, there were always scavengers, hyenas or intrusive baboons.
But no wild animals existed in the whole of Angola. One effect of the decades long civil war here has been that the animals that had not been eaten by starving people had been blown up by old land mines. The extermination of wild game had been complete. Now and then cows in pastures were shredded by exploding mines, and so were children playing and people taking short cuts through fields'
And it just goes on and on, the listing of Angola's woes. It doesn't appear so, but this nation is one of the continent's wealthiest, with bountiful deposits of oil, gold and precious gems. But nothing, absolutely nothing, trickles down. All income from these riches lines the pockets of the small ruling elite class which uses goon squads to stamp out any opposition to their avarice. José Eduardo dos Santos rules his country with an iron fist, having done so since 1979. Wikipedia states 'Dos Santos has been accused of leading one of the most corrupt regimes in Africa by ignoring the economic and social needs of Angola and focusing his efforts on amassing wealth for his family and silencing his opposition, while, nearly 70% of the population lives on less than $2 a day.' As head of a craven, abominable regime, he is the modern day Mr Kurtz � fundamentally evil. It's not pretty reading.
Theroux realises that, although the concentration of wealth may not be so starkly centred on the self-serving few further north, he reasons to travel on in his mission would be pointless � he'd only depressingly encounter more of the same, so he pulls up stumps and retreats home.
Between the writing and publication of this tome, three friends he made on this excursion ended up meeting their end. One, an Australian, was killed by a beloved elephant he worked with; another was murdered for his relative wealth and the last, a worldly and realistic Angolan, died on a dive. Sums it all up actually.
In the end, for PT, there were only glimmers of hope emerging from his journey into darkness, but hope nonetheless. The Rainbow Nation has made great advances, even if there's a way to go. Namibia has a thriving tourism industry to build something worthwhile around. As for Angola, there is potential if someone can get in there and distribute the squillions it earns from its resources in a more equable manner, but, for the foreseeable future, it will remain a basket case.
Whist the reader cannot be unaffected by all this dire reality Theroux feeds us about the overall situation in this part of Africa, as, with all his books, it always remains interesting. The author is more curmudgeonly these days as one would expect, especially given his destination. His latest, 'Deep South', based around travelling the back roads of that part of his own nation, is his tenth travel book and awaits on my shelves. Maybe that one will be less doom and gloom.
There will come a time when his meanderings around the world will cease, given he's now 75. Pity, he's taken me on some great rides as I have reclined in my armchair or snuggled under the doona.
March 2, 2025
This is rather more reflective and melancholy than Theroux’s earlier travel writings. It’s an account of his journey northwards from Cape Town through South Africa, Namibia and Angola, and which he thought of as a kind of mirror to his earlier south through Africa.
He was happy to see how South Africa had developed since he had last visited ten years earlier; charmed by Namibia (initially, though later repelled somewhat by its Germanic orderliness and sterility); and excited that he would finally encounter the !Kung people in northern Namibia. Theroux is no stranger to extremes of wealth and poverty, but what he found in Angola was another matter. He had intended to travel further north, perhaps as far as Timbuktu but Angola, ultimately, defeated him.
In his earlier works, Theroux has often come across as a grump, perpetually annoyed with his fellow travellers; I never really saw him that way, and I always liked his pithy observations. Here though it’s not grumpiness but fury � and directed not at locals or other travellers but kleptocratic and corrupt autocracy. Angola in particular, is awash with oil and mineral riches yet, as Theroux describes it, virtually everyone except for a tiny ultra-rich segment lives in abject squalor, poverty and hopelessness.
Two other things that disturbed him were the glaring incongruities of China’s recent colonization of African economies, and the phenomenon of the Western world doing “charitable works� for Africa; both of these having the effect of making Africans themselves irrelevant.
It’s almost as difficult to read about as it was for Theroux to endure living and travelling in it, and he began to wonder what the point of his safari was. There were some personal tragedies too � unexpected deaths of friends that he had made � and in the end the traveller who never saw a train he didn’t want to take, couldn’t even face riding the newly-Chinese-renovated railway to Angola’s Zona Verde.
So yes, there is a lot to be depressed about here but I actually found the book totally absorbing, and Theroux’s writing is as perceptive � maybe even more so � as any of his previous books.
He was happy to see how South Africa had developed since he had last visited ten years earlier; charmed by Namibia (initially, though later repelled somewhat by its Germanic orderliness and sterility); and excited that he would finally encounter the !Kung people in northern Namibia. Theroux is no stranger to extremes of wealth and poverty, but what he found in Angola was another matter. He had intended to travel further north, perhaps as far as Timbuktu but Angola, ultimately, defeated him.
In his earlier works, Theroux has often come across as a grump, perpetually annoyed with his fellow travellers; I never really saw him that way, and I always liked his pithy observations. Here though it’s not grumpiness but fury � and directed not at locals or other travellers but kleptocratic and corrupt autocracy. Angola in particular, is awash with oil and mineral riches yet, as Theroux describes it, virtually everyone except for a tiny ultra-rich segment lives in abject squalor, poverty and hopelessness.
Two other things that disturbed him were the glaring incongruities of China’s recent colonization of African economies, and the phenomenon of the Western world doing “charitable works� for Africa; both of these having the effect of making Africans themselves irrelevant.
It’s almost as difficult to read about as it was for Theroux to endure living and travelling in it, and he began to wonder what the point of his safari was. There were some personal tragedies too � unexpected deaths of friends that he had made � and in the end the traveller who never saw a train he didn’t want to take, couldn’t even face riding the newly-Chinese-renovated railway to Angola’s Zona Verde.
So yes, there is a lot to be depressed about here but I actually found the book totally absorbing, and Theroux’s writing is as perceptive � maybe even more so � as any of his previous books.
March 13, 2018
To sum up, Paul Theroux hates the following:
Africa, America, white people, people of color, heat, cities, children, busses, rap music, actors, musicians, NGOs, planes, government, anarchy, old people, traveling, not traveling, rich people, poor people, women, slums, the bush, men, SUVs, pop music, zoos, expensive meals, modernization, Chinese immigrants, Portugal, Afghanistan, entrepreneurs, routine, unpredictability, & basically everything else (see below for exclusions).
He enjoys the following:
Himself, & pretentiously telling a story about Africa that has barely anything to do with Africa.
If it wasn’t for book club, I never would’ve finished this monstrosity. Honestly, do not waste your life reading this book.
Africa, America, white people, people of color, heat, cities, children, busses, rap music, actors, musicians, NGOs, planes, government, anarchy, old people, traveling, not traveling, rich people, poor people, women, slums, the bush, men, SUVs, pop music, zoos, expensive meals, modernization, Chinese immigrants, Portugal, Afghanistan, entrepreneurs, routine, unpredictability, & basically everything else (see below for exclusions).
He enjoys the following:
Himself, & pretentiously telling a story about Africa that has barely anything to do with Africa.
If it wasn’t for book club, I never would’ve finished this monstrosity. Honestly, do not waste your life reading this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 10, 2024
Some ŷ reviewers have been disappointed, wondering why veteran train-traveller Theroux decided not to continue his journey north from Cape Town to Timbuktu. But he explains his rationales, which make as much sense to me as to him. He's getting old. That increases his vulnerability in his solitary journeys, often to less salubrious and more menacing parts than other visitors from faraway would frequent, let alone know of. This isolation heightens, given the xenophobic reactions he faces in Angola to his white skin. He's tempting prey for the denizens of vast urban slums inexorably expanding as rural dwellers, enticed by Western-dominated media and cheap Chinese plastic, flock only to flounder.
Theroux keeps in check, however, much of his trademark grouchiness. After forty years, he can look with equanimity at the despots, the do-gooders, the foreign aid scammers, and the often feckless natives. They collude to keep much of Africa's increasingly citified population in thrall to help from the other side of the world. For, as in Angola, tens of billions in oil revenue have never been earmarked for over forty million of its poor. He justifiably holds post-colonial dependency accountable. Yet after more than half a century of independence, few nations can show progress that's in the hands of the locals, is self-sustaining, is ethically responsible, and directed towards a fair livelihood at grassroots level.
I found this travelogue valuable for two reasons. First, his pleasure at finding sincere cooperation in Namibia between its inhabitants and its supporters abroad as in environmental and conservation endeavors, a tourist infrastructure that appears in harmony and offers dignified employment. Second, who knew that Chinese convicts comprise a growing if still small-numbers spearhead to extend PRC clout into Angola?
It's inevitably an elegiac series of reflection on the fates of an overpopulated, exhausted, and exploited continent. As he says, almost nobody writes about Angola outside of war or geopolitical strategy. For Namibia, while a few may recall Pynchon's V with its exposure of the German massacres of the Herero, it's probably the first time that this country gets solid attention in a mass-market book. After first coming to Africa for the Peace Corps fifty years before, his ultimate African journey, halted as the Boko Haram terrorized Christians in Nigeria, a civil war burst out in Mali, the endless conflict in the Congo prevented Theroux from going north and the weariness of a soul-draining route into filthy cities all combined to indicate that, for maybe the first and last time in his world travels, the journey wasn't worth the physical risk or the psychic toll.
Theroux keeps in check, however, much of his trademark grouchiness. After forty years, he can look with equanimity at the despots, the do-gooders, the foreign aid scammers, and the often feckless natives. They collude to keep much of Africa's increasingly citified population in thrall to help from the other side of the world. For, as in Angola, tens of billions in oil revenue have never been earmarked for over forty million of its poor. He justifiably holds post-colonial dependency accountable. Yet after more than half a century of independence, few nations can show progress that's in the hands of the locals, is self-sustaining, is ethically responsible, and directed towards a fair livelihood at grassroots level.
I found this travelogue valuable for two reasons. First, his pleasure at finding sincere cooperation in Namibia between its inhabitants and its supporters abroad as in environmental and conservation endeavors, a tourist infrastructure that appears in harmony and offers dignified employment. Second, who knew that Chinese convicts comprise a growing if still small-numbers spearhead to extend PRC clout into Angola?
It's inevitably an elegiac series of reflection on the fates of an overpopulated, exhausted, and exploited continent. As he says, almost nobody writes about Angola outside of war or geopolitical strategy. For Namibia, while a few may recall Pynchon's V with its exposure of the German massacres of the Herero, it's probably the first time that this country gets solid attention in a mass-market book. After first coming to Africa for the Peace Corps fifty years before, his ultimate African journey, halted as the Boko Haram terrorized Christians in Nigeria, a civil war burst out in Mali, the endless conflict in the Congo prevented Theroux from going north and the weariness of a soul-draining route into filthy cities all combined to indicate that, for maybe the first and last time in his world travels, the journey wasn't worth the physical risk or the psychic toll.
April 17, 2017
I haven't read any Theroux for a long time, probably since his paddle around the Pacific. I hadn't missed his grumpy, misanthropic tone, but this book reminded me what a great writer and observer he is. It's hardly a bundle of laughs -- returning to his beloved Africa he finds that almost everything has got worse, and he gets increasingly weary and cynical during a very difficult journey. But each chapter is a beautifully constructed piece in its own right: the chapter about the Ju'/Hoansi bushmen is masterly in its progression from joy to disillusionment. And Three pieces of chicken could be a short story. You don't have to agree with his trenchant views on aid to Africa to appreciate his work and the breadth of experience he brings to it.
The end of his journey, in Angola, is apocalyptic: "This is what the world will look like when it ends", says a recently-met Angolan friend who will die within a couple of weeks. Theroux gives up hope of reaching Timbuktu and returns home. I felt both sympathy and admiration for him, undertaking such a trip alone at 70, relying on the kindness of strangers in places where life is nasty, brutish and short for most people.
Some striking images: in Angola, "a shrieking, chaotic, reckless society on the brink of extinction", an American teacher recounts meeting a Portuguese couple who had emigrated to Mozambique forty years earlier. It must have been hard to adjust, she said. Not really, they replied: "We came from a poor village in Portugal ... in Mozambique we had electricity and running water for the first time." What a comment on the colonial power! While Theroux was there, the Portuguese prime minister visited Angola, run by billionaires and home to some of the most destitute people on the planet, to beg for a loan for his bankrupt country.
Imagining being killed in a car crash in the zona verde (a high probability), Theroux laughs bitterly at the phrase "He died doing what he loved" -- said of someone he'd met weeks earlier, trampled to death by an elephant. He knows he will not return to Africa.
The end of his journey, in Angola, is apocalyptic: "This is what the world will look like when it ends", says a recently-met Angolan friend who will die within a couple of weeks. Theroux gives up hope of reaching Timbuktu and returns home. I felt both sympathy and admiration for him, undertaking such a trip alone at 70, relying on the kindness of strangers in places where life is nasty, brutish and short for most people.
Some striking images: in Angola, "a shrieking, chaotic, reckless society on the brink of extinction", an American teacher recounts meeting a Portuguese couple who had emigrated to Mozambique forty years earlier. It must have been hard to adjust, she said. Not really, they replied: "We came from a poor village in Portugal ... in Mozambique we had electricity and running water for the first time." What a comment on the colonial power! While Theroux was there, the Portuguese prime minister visited Angola, run by billionaires and home to some of the most destitute people on the planet, to beg for a loan for his bankrupt country.
Imagining being killed in a car crash in the zona verde (a high probability), Theroux laughs bitterly at the phrase "He died doing what he loved" -- said of someone he'd met weeks earlier, trampled to death by an elephant. He knows he will not return to Africa.
January 1, 2015
Renowned travel writer Paul Theroux returns for one last trip through Africa, where he worked as a young man as a Peace Corp teacher and where he traveled in middle age as described in Dark Star Safari. Theroux is a highly critical and cynical observer, but it is clear he has a special attachment to Africa and his observations, while unromantic, seem quite fair in most cases. He finds a great deal of frustration, unfulfilled promise and personal danger in this trip, but concedes that optimism is generally the territory of the young. He also points out quite reasonably that the urban and environmental problems of Africa are only more accelerated there but are certainly similar to problems all over the world. The view is very focused and you want learn a lot of new information about African history or culture in general from this book. It is, however, a pretty accurate picture of urban Africa.
October 25, 2013
A solid book about some aspects of the present and future of southern Africa.
First, Theroux is a skeptic almost to the point of cynicism about First World charities' efforts in Africa. He says much of the money goes to lining the pockets of corrupt governments and cronies, which we all know. He goes on to note that some countries, like Angola (oil and heavy metals) and Congo (heavy metals, gems) have plenty of money from natural resources that less corrupt governments would be able to take care of much more of their citizenry's needs on their own. (And, some native African intellectuals agree.)
Second, he's somewhat similar in curmudgeonly thoughts about a lot of celebrity charity/"awareness efforts" in Africa. In one telling paragraph, without naming names, you know who he means by his list. He does, in one point, call out U2's Bono for talking up a radical black South African song that promotes killing, in another charity issue.
Third, he's again a bit curmudgeonly about most First World tourism to Africa.
Finally ... he says China will be in Africa for the long haul. Not just the government and big construction and mining businesses on major projects, but smaller businesses. Chinese restaurants. The Chinese version of dime stores or dollar stores. And "everyday" Chinese that go along with that. He said it will be just as exploitative as the old colonial powers were, but with more staying power.
At the same time, Theroux still finds much to love about southern Africa without overly romancing it. And, he reflects on his on aging, and mortality, as it intertwines with the world of travel.
A good read overall.
First, Theroux is a skeptic almost to the point of cynicism about First World charities' efforts in Africa. He says much of the money goes to lining the pockets of corrupt governments and cronies, which we all know. He goes on to note that some countries, like Angola (oil and heavy metals) and Congo (heavy metals, gems) have plenty of money from natural resources that less corrupt governments would be able to take care of much more of their citizenry's needs on their own. (And, some native African intellectuals agree.)
Second, he's somewhat similar in curmudgeonly thoughts about a lot of celebrity charity/"awareness efforts" in Africa. In one telling paragraph, without naming names, you know who he means by his list. He does, in one point, call out U2's Bono for talking up a radical black South African song that promotes killing, in another charity issue.
Third, he's again a bit curmudgeonly about most First World tourism to Africa.
Finally ... he says China will be in Africa for the long haul. Not just the government and big construction and mining businesses on major projects, but smaller businesses. Chinese restaurants. The Chinese version of dime stores or dollar stores. And "everyday" Chinese that go along with that. He said it will be just as exploitative as the old colonial powers were, but with more staying power.
At the same time, Theroux still finds much to love about southern Africa without overly romancing it. And, he reflects on his on aging, and mortality, as it intertwines with the world of travel.
A good read overall.
December 16, 2020
I hate to say it, but yeah, this one ended up a slog; never "got better" unfortunately. Audio narration great, but didn't help enough given the underlying material. This book I found unrelentingly grim, with the itinerary going from bad (South Africa) - - > worse (Namibia) - - > worst (Angola).
For a truly experienced travel writer, Theroux came off as a naive fool here. The journey appears to have been made roughly a decade ago, when internet searches for information could have prevented a lot of his frustration. But, he consulted some (paper) maps, deciding that an overland route from Cape Town to Timbuktu was do-able. I've never been to Africa, but know that a trip down through largely former British East Africa, as he did earlier, is a far cry from what he proposed for this trip. It's as though he did little or no research on current conditions, just trusting his own brilliance and/or luck. Hubris?
He reports that his credit card was shut down by the issuer after $48,000 (not a typo) in fraudulent claims were posted. Granted he's a famous writer, but I've never heard of a Visa/MC with anywhere near that limit (doubt it was an AMEX). Obvious that he had someone back home paying the statement for him as he was to be away infintely. Perhaps they should have queried it with him before things got out of hand? It's hoped that in the end it was the crooked African merchants who ended up holding the bag for the charges, if not prosecuted. There's something missing from that part of the story.
Honestly wish I'd skipped this one, though the narrative itself does give his usual outstanding sense of place.
For a truly experienced travel writer, Theroux came off as a naive fool here. The journey appears to have been made roughly a decade ago, when internet searches for information could have prevented a lot of his frustration. But, he consulted some (paper) maps, deciding that an overland route from Cape Town to Timbuktu was do-able. I've never been to Africa, but know that a trip down through largely former British East Africa, as he did earlier, is a far cry from what he proposed for this trip. It's as though he did little or no research on current conditions, just trusting his own brilliance and/or luck. Hubris?
He reports that his credit card was shut down by the issuer after $48,000 (not a typo) in fraudulent claims were posted. Granted he's a famous writer, but I've never heard of a Visa/MC with anywhere near that limit (doubt it was an AMEX). Obvious that he had someone back home paying the statement for him as he was to be away infintely. Perhaps they should have queried it with him before things got out of hand? It's hoped that in the end it was the crooked African merchants who ended up holding the bag for the charges, if not prosecuted. There's something missing from that part of the story.
Honestly wish I'd skipped this one, though the narrative itself does give his usual outstanding sense of place.
February 9, 2015
Paul Theroux makes it through the west of South Africa, Namibia and Angola. Then he abandons ship, quite rightly. Theroux's experiences, especially in Angola with the squalor and hopelessness of its cities kills his desire to go any further. Shanty towns, squatter camps, predatory youth, filth, garbage, loud rap music and a constant din, Theroux had no desire to continue on to Brazzaville, Kinshasha etc.
For fans of Theroux's many travel books, each one is a must read. Yet one can see him just killing time in various places here, looking for some kind of revelation, and rarely finding one. Now 70, there is less daring and adventure in the man, although riding a packed mini-bus with a drunken driver through southern Angola is more adventure than I could put up with. Mortality is always in the air, including the writer, who mentions how easily he could wind up dead on a trip like this.
Perhaps it would be nice to reread The Old Patagonian Express but as Theroux writes, the settings of his older books have all changed. His books are all of a time, as is this one, set in present day south and west Africa.
For fans of Theroux's many travel books, each one is a must read. Yet one can see him just killing time in various places here, looking for some kind of revelation, and rarely finding one. Now 70, there is less daring and adventure in the man, although riding a packed mini-bus with a drunken driver through southern Angola is more adventure than I could put up with. Mortality is always in the air, including the writer, who mentions how easily he could wind up dead on a trip like this.
Perhaps it would be nice to reread The Old Patagonian Express but as Theroux writes, the settings of his older books have all changed. His books are all of a time, as is this one, set in present day south and west Africa.
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November 13, 2019Theroux plans to travel from south to north up the west side of Africa starting in Capetown (the mirror image of a previous trip he made from the north to south down the eastern side). The early days of the trip in South Africa and Namibia see him visit shantytowns and game parks plus pull off a teaching gig but what looms for him is Angola which he knows is dangerous and chaotic-practically every African he meets suggests he rethink his plan to travel alone in this country. But he goes ahead anyway-crossing the border by bus. Everything he's been told about Angola is true-it's chaotic, barely functioning, food poor and overpopulated. His mucking about here though is the best part of the book- he finds great people to talk to, blunders into an ancient female initiation rite and witnesses the Chinese invasion of investment and workers. Luanda however defeats him and it's here he decides to forego the rest of his trip. His twenty page screed near the end of the book against cities is something of a turnoff. Too bad at age 70 perhaps the greatest travel writer ever has turned in his card.
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