OT: Paul Theroux

oliverfennell · Post by **oliverfennell** » 11 May 2007, 05:39

I'm reading "The Happy Isles of Oceania" and Paul Theroux spends the majority of the opening part mercilessly slating Aussies.

Anybody else read it, and if so, what did you think?

(I'm a Brit, by the way, which is why I wonder what you think)

Brute · Post by **Brute** » 07 Feb 2008, 20:53

Wasn't he a fairy?

Marlin · Post by **Marlin** » 07 Feb 2008, 20:57

Brute wrote:Wasn't he a fairy?

How/why do you pull up these old threads?

Brute · Post by **Brute** » 07 Feb 2008, 21:02

Looking for something else.

oliverfennell · Post by **oliverfennell** » 08 Feb 2008, 06:01

Brute wrote:Wasn't he a fairy?

He has children, if that proves anything.

Brute · Post by **Brute** » 08 Feb 2008, 06:10

oliverfennell wrote:
Brute wrote:Wasn't he a fairy?
He has children, if that proves anything.

So did Oscar Wilde.

oliverfennell · Post by **oliverfennell** » 08 Feb 2008, 07:34

Brute wrote:
oliverfennell wrote:
Brute wrote:Wasn't he a fairy?
He has children, if that proves anything.
So did Oscar Wilde.

Well, I don't know if he was or wasn't.

Found him to be overly-critical as a travel writer, though, at least in this book. He slagged off everybody except Americans, which I found surprising from someone so worldly.

Brute · Post by **Brute** » 08 Feb 2008, 17:04

Most travel writers are nearly far enough up themselves to be inside out.

oliverfennell · Post by **oliverfennell** » 11 Feb 2008, 14:24

Brute wrote:Most travel writers are nearly far enough up themselves to be inside out.

J Maarten Troost is the antithesis to this. Self-deprectating travel writing, if you can imagine such a thing, and very good.

Brute · Post by **Brute** » 17 Feb 2008, 23:38

I may be getting Theroux confused with Jan Morris. Jan Morris was a bloke but had a cut-and-shut, a-la-Renee Richards.

Beltane · Post by **Beltane** » 18 Feb 2008, 00:43

I read this lengthy tome some years ago. Found the bits on Australia very superficial and there considered it a bit dubious in value if the other countries and their peoples were treated the same way as he did to Australia.

In fact the writer put me off reading further travelogues with his attitude.

oliverfennell · Post by **oliverfennell** » 18 Feb 2008, 07:33

Beltane wrote:I read this lengthy tome some years ago. Found the bits on Australia very superficial and there considered it a bit dubious in value if the other countries and their peoples were treated the same way as he did to Australia.

In fact the writer put me off reading further travelogues with his attitude.

I've been to many of the places he wrote about and I felt he was unfair to most of them. I suppose if you encounter the wrong kind of Australians, they might rub you up the wrong way, but even so he did seem to go over the top in his criticisms, and especially someone as well travelled as him shouldn't need to revert to generalisations. And as for the Pacific islands, in my experience these people are by a very long way the friendliest on earth, and yet he frequently complained about them, too.

In his defence, though, the travels were made in the immediate aftermath of the breakdown of his marriage, so perhaps this gave him a more negative outlook than he would normally have. I haven't read any other Theroux travel writing.