Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11220 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-07
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Synopsis
In this title, Paul Theroux sets off for Cape Town from Cairo - the hard way. Travelling across bush and desert, down rivers and across lakes, and through country after country, he visits some of the most beautiful and dangerous landscapes on earth. It is a journey of discovery and of rediscovery - of the unknown and the unexpected - charting places unknown and those known as a young teacher 40 years before. In the Swahili language, the word "safari" simply means "journey", and this - to Theroux - is the ultimate journey. It is a trip where chance encounter is everything, where departure and arrival time are an irrelevance and where contentment can be found balancing on top of a truck in the middle of nowhere.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant
Too many reviewers here want a glowing travel brochure out of Theroux. Writing is his vocation, travelling is his muse. Travelling is a way to comment on the human condition as he experiences it, and on his own condition, as he experiences it. It doesn't matter how many people have a good time in Africa, or a bad time in Africa - Theroux has his own devil driving him in his own strange directions, and what he produces are travel books only in the most minimal sense. In the larger sense they are works of literature in which travel plays a part.

I love the complexity of his writing, his honesty in recording moods, enthusiasms, fears, vanities, moments of ill-temper, generosity, meanness. Reviewers point out moments of 'hypocrisy', or 'meanness', or curmudgeonly outbursts, as if he was too stupid to read his own text. Theroux is a writer. He wants you to see that.

I don't seek any kind of objective truth about Africa. I wouldn't believe anyone who purveyed it. What I do find is a writer using his craft to create complex and absorbing works of literature, using travel as a starting point for a succession of events, meetings, conversations, anecdotes, situations, literary digressions, bits of obscure history, polemic, and unlikely destinations.

Dark Star Safari is clever, it is brave, it is fun, it is dark, it is complex. It isn't a coincidence Theroux read Conrad a dozen times as he progressed from north to south. Please don't make the mistake of imagining this book is a variation on 'what I did on my hols'.

Cheer up mate it's only Africa
Some things bother me about this book. Firstly, the way he criticises anyone not 'doing Africa' his way, his conceited contempt of anyone holidaying in Africa (a good source of revenue for various African countries) when he himself is an outsider; a tourist. We can't all take a year off work for an all-expenses paid trip down Africa Mr Theroux. His criticism and I have to say over-dramatic account of African cities; I've lived in Nairobi and Kampala and felt perfectly safe if you're sensible and know where to go. Venturing out after dark (unlike Theroux) has never once been a problem for me and my friend (who's lived there most of his life). But he has to sell books. The book's tone was at times depressing and although most countries in sub-saharan Africa have problems many are stable, welcoming and enjoyable for foreigners to visit. The biggest problem I found was with his tone with anything concearned with improving Africa, true it often isn't easy and although his pleasure of seeing subsistance farming doesn't equate to "let's keep them in their place" it did seem apathetic and left me wondering if Mr Theroux simply desires a return to an Africa of 1840 without hospitals, education, propects and security. And 'yes' there is all these things to be found in modern-day Africa, he neglected to mention the sucessful Ugandan-run businesses, schools, infustructure and tourist industries I found in 2006. Things aren't always run perfectly but this is Africa and shouldn't be compared to catching a tube from Hype Park Corner, I'm sure he knows this. But he has to sell books. Finally, his criticism of Aid agencies was upheld in many areas but found his discussion one-sided offering no real solutions, should we stop giving Aid, stop trying to make an impact due to the governing of a predetory elite? It left me asking the question "so what do we do then?" and he supplied no real answers, not that it's his job of course; he is a writer and a very good one at that; he gets 4 out of 5, but like this review he should try to occassionally focus on the positive.

OUTSTANDING!
What a fantastic book. Will be loved by all readers and a complete must for fans of travel!