March 2010

1. Ghost Train to the Eastern Star - Paul Theroux

*****

Sadly, for some reason this month - whether it be laziness on my part, or the fact that I've been working/writing term papers a lot more than usual - I only managed to finish one book. Happily... it was one damn good book. It was also nice to realize that I would take reading one insanely inspiring and entertaining novel over five or six half-decent slash straight shitty ones just for the numbers. Numbers aren't everything kids. Tell that to Ron Jeremy.

For the record, I am currently on a non-fiction kick since the last few fiction novels I've read have only led to headaches and manic sobbing. It's truly astonishing how some people get published whilst others do not (cough me, if I had actually written a manuscript and/or sent work in to a publisher, but no big deal). After this book in particular, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star by Paul Theroux, I am well on my way to getting through all those travel books my dad has recommended. In fact, it was him who lent me this book, and for good reason.

Paul Theroux is, apparently, a huge tool, as are most writers of the 20th century... or EVER, for that matter. His writing, however, is addictive. The book is about his trip from London, England through Hungary, the Stans, India, South East Asia, Tokyo and a train trip across the vast lands of Russia. Da? He, in his 60s if I'm correct, wanted to re-do his previous trip of the same concept from back in 1973, when he was much younger and when the world had different political issues and otherly-placed massacres of innocent civilians. In '73 he hadn't been granted permission to enter Cambodia, where the Khmer Rouge splattered blood and land mines over the soil, and this time he wasn't able to get a visa for Iran, Pakistan or Afghanistan (and for good reason).

Honestly, fuck university. I learned more history (and retained it) in this 500 page travel account than I have in 17 years of bilingual education. Who knew that Turkmenistan (at least back in 2006 when the book was written), even existed, let alone was run by an insane and egotistical maniac Niyazov who named himself Turkmenbashi, and changed the days of the week and the names of the months to the names of his parents? Or who erected huge gold statues of himself while relocating thousands of citizens in the process? Who knew that most Vietnemese have either totally disregarded any thought of their war with America, and even the older locals have absolutely no visible tension with any U.S. citizen? Maybe I just haven't been paying attention to any of those ASIA 100 and 101 lectures, but I had no idea how the numbers of innocent people killed and murdered and sent to prison camps and tortured in Cambodia and Vietnam easily outdo those of the Holocaust.

It may be biased, but many places Theroux visits are documented with such detail and emotion that I started to base my own biases on his. I now have absolutely no intention of ever setting foot in Singapore so i can be flogged for accidentally showing my breast while intoxicated, or spitting on the sidewalk while engaging in an exciting conversation. I by no means want to travel to Thailand, even if it's beautiful. I don't desire watching fourteen year old girls prostituting themselves at the hands of lecherous aged Western men on vacation. In fact, I'm going to go so far as to say Japan even lost some of its appeal. I am, however, rabid at the thought of picking my way through India, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Hell, I wouldn't mind visiting Turkmenistan. AND TURKEY. Istanbul has always fascinated me, and Theroux's account did even more.

What I loved about this book was the very human way in which it was written. It wasn't a travel guide or journal. I thought Anthony Bourdain's food-take of third-world countries was groundbreaking, and had no idea Theroux was one of the initial ground breakers from which every other travel author has been inspired. In almost every country, Paul Theroux would mention the books he read along the way, all of them extremely relevant to the places he was at. I did this in Kyoto, even though the book I read was a Westernized historical fiction of geishas (you know which one I'm talking about), and am planning on devouring Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas where I hope to venture on my 21st birthday this coming July.

Ghost Train opened new insights for me. I currently have in my possession Theroux's original travel adventure: The Great Railway Bazaar, and am excited to see how drastically all the countries have changed in the past 30 years. To see what the Stans were like back then. To see if Japan really hasn't changed, but the people have indeed gotten weirder.

I too, one day wish to be a ghost traveler scribbling notes as I watch Ashgabat and Galle and Hanoi rush by my train window. Maybe someday soon I'll grow up, leave everything behind and write my way through the Eastern Star.

10/10