Fresh Air Fiend: Travel Writings
by Paul Theroux
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Book Summary Information
Author: Paul TherouxEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-05-01
ISBN: 0618126937
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Mariner Books
Book Reviews of Fresh Air Fiend: Travel Writings
Book Review: Palate-Pleasing Sampler
Summary: 5 Stars
As someone first introduced to Mr. Theroux's works with "The Great Railway Bazaar" and who has savored a steady diet of his observations, insights and sardonicism since then, "Fresh Air Fiend" proves yet another palate-pleasing repaste. This is one you can nibble on here and there and see whether you can stop at "just one" in a single sitting.
By far the oddest, and most intriguing piece in this wonderful collection mocks a portion of the exceptional opening essay, Being a Stranger. In it, Theroux admits he has little use for the intrusion of two-way electronic communications in everyday life (revealing he lived without a phone in the English countryside for years): "Connection has made people arrogant, impatient, hasty, and presumptuous," he says, adding "... I found out much more about the world and myself by being unconnected."
This electronic aceticism (his nib pen, stolen during a burglary, he considers priceless for its memories), is a logical extension of the author's oft-stated preference for traveling solo, without a camera, choosing encounters and freezing impressions in his mind. Thus it was a bit of a shock to read the selection, "Connected in Palau," in which Theroux loaded himself up with every conceivable two-way gadget and trekked to a remote Pacific island to enact a new twist on Crusoe: would 'Friday' be his local guide, his brother Gene via uplink, or once again, Theroux himself, as he always seems to take solace in his own company?
"Connected in Palau" bounces back and forth from Theroux's monkeying with his gadgets in the midst of one of the most offbeat locations on earth to snapshot impressions of the habitat. Those impressions are interesting but not vintage Theroux. Did connectivity deaden Paul's powers of observation (I doubt it)? Did he deliberately engage in flash-in-the-pan descriptions of Palau to point up the dangers inherent in too much connectedness? And when he wraps up and talks about true silence finally descending upon this speck of territory, did he really mean from the lack of sound of water or from his own intrusive equipment? Finally, what price did the author personally pay in tethering himself to the global village for the purpose of writing this little morality tale when the odds of returning to Palau must have been remote?
"Connected in Palau" is just one of more than four dozen treats awaiting the reader of "Fresh Air Fiend". It's a great way to review Theroux's travels and musings over the period 1985-2000 and revel once more in one of the past half-century's most gifted writers and social commentators. Highly recommended.
Summary of Fresh Air Fiend: Travel Writings
Paul Theroux's first collection of essays and articles devoted entirely to travel writing, FRESH AIR FIEND touches down on five continents and floats through most seas in between to deliver a literary adventure of the first order, with the incomparable Paul Theroux as a guide. From the crisp quiet of a solitary week spent in the snowbound Maine woods to the expectant chaos of Hong Kong on the eve of the Hand-over, Theroux demonstrates how the traveling life and the writing life are intimately connected. His journeys in remote hinterlands and crowded foreign capitals provide the necessary perspective to "become a stranger" in order to discover the self. A companion volume to SUNRISE WITH SEAMONSTERS, FRESH AIR FIEND is the ultimate good read for anyone fascinated by travel in the wider world or curious about the life of one of our most passionate travelers.
Paul Theroux may be pompous, self-important, cynical, and grumpy. He may even be, as accused by a heckler in Australia, "a wanker." So what? The man is prolific--having penned 36 books--and when he's inspired, his insights and sparkling writing are so startling that it's easy to forgive him for his occasional crankiness. Besides, as he reminds readers frequently, he is a man who takes pen to paper for a living; as the title essay points out: "Normal, happy, well-balanced individuals seldom become imaginative writers...."
In Fresh Air Fiend, Theroux's pen serves him well with astute, lively pieces that stray far beyond simple "travel essays" and reveal his self-inflicted lifestyle of compulsive travel, writing, and alienation. In this collection--containing mostly previously published magazine pieces written over the past 15 years--there's a strong autobiographical streak, as well as historical perspectives and a sardonic view on aging. "One of the more bewildering aspects of growing older," he writes in "'Memory and Creation,'" "is that people constantly remind you of things that never happened."
Now nearly 60, Theroux has lived a rich, varied life: the book jumps from post-Mao China and years spent as an Africa-based Peace Corps volunteer in the '60s to turtle watching in Hawaii and kayaking on Cape Cod; the jumbled collection even includes pieces on other travel writers (Bruce Chatwin, Graham Greene, and William Least Heat-Moon) and the film adaptation of his novel The Mosquito Coast. A chronic sense of aloneness permeates all these pieces--be it the lost traveler paddling through fog, the lone writer living without a phone, or the hermetic trekker who can't speak the native language. Most touching: a short sketch of a road trip when he's lost, his wife is anxious, and the children are fighting; Theroux doesn't want the moment to end and soon enough he returns to his self-imposed alienation. It's that perpetual sense of loneliness and not fitting in that seems to motivate Theroux in many of these essays. Theroux may be getting older, even nostalgic, but as these vibrant essays show, he sure isn't getting stale. --Melissa Rossi
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