'The Old Patagonian Express'

Today I finally finished reading “The Old Patagonian Express” by Paul Theroux. It has been one of those reads that has been on and off for about the past few months actually, read a few chapters, a book in between, a few chapters, a book in between. A couple of weeks ago though I ended up picking it up again to read the last half and pretty much have not been able to put it down. I don’t think I liked it as much as The Great Railway Bazaar (Theroux’s first travel book for those not in the know), although that book does sit among my al time favourites so maybe a comparison is somewhat unfair, however it has now instilled in me even more a desire to visit Latin America (a desire first realised after reading Peter Moore’s The Full Montezuma I should point out).

In the book Paul Theroux jumps on the everyday commuter train in Boston, Massachusetts, with one destination in mind, that being Patagonia, the Southern tip of Argentina. What I love about Paul Theroux’s books is that they are not so much about the places he visits during his three-month trip through the America’s, but about his journey getting there. Travelling by train he gets to meet some of the most interesting and, one sometimes thinks, some of the most insane, people spanning two continents. He really takes the reader along with him on his journey, meeting the people he meets (to use the old cliché!) and getting on the old railway lines all the way from Boston to Patagonia.

I think the fact that Theroux made his career as a novelist before he was a travel writer really comes across in his writing as you really get the sense he is telling a story. Even the way he presents his characters and his journey it reads like an adventure rather than just one man’s travels through the America’s.
Definitely recommended reading, but pick up The Great Railway Bazaar first, otherwise concepts such as getting “Duffilled” wont make much sense (to be Duffilled is to miss your train with all your bags still in the compartment, so named after Duffill, who was a guy Theroux met while travelling by train through Italy on his way to Turkey and the Far East).