Product Description

Written in his distinctive and evocative style, Paul Theroux's FRESH-AIR FIEND is a collection of his short travel writing from 1985 through 2000. From Hong Kong to Honolulu, through China and the USA, Theroux throws new light on both familiar territories and unknown corners of the earth.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #387245 in Books
• Published on: 2001-02-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
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 is a strong autobiographical streak, as well as historical perspectives and a sardonic view on ageing. "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 1960s 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 traveller 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, Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk Review
We know Paul Theroux the traveller: grumpy and cantankerous, slouching through India or China or Patagonia, drawn to the sleazy, easily annoyed, often bored. What we don't get to see in books like The Old Patagonian Express and Riding the Iron Rooster is the Theroux who has a home life (an American, he lived in England for two decades), a passion for a hobby (kayaking) and who, besides travelling, has written almost 20 novels, including The Mosquito Coast. Fresh-Air Fiend: Travel Writings,1985-2000 gives a rare glimpse of Theroux on home ground.

The essays are arranged around topics like the Pacific, writings on other people's books and time. The book takes its title from the second and strongest section of Fresh-Air Fiend. Theroux the traveller is perpetually attracted to the challenging: here he finds it kayaking on the ocean close to his childhood home of Medford, Massachusetts. In "Dead Reckoning to Nantucket" he paddles across the treacherous Muskeget Channel: "My dream of paddling through the wilderness of open water was the dream of someone who had had enough of foreign travel for a while, of places that were crowded and thoroughly tame, of the tedium and sleep-deprecation of long plane journeys and of the yappy turbulence of other travellers." Other sections revisit subjects Theroux has tackled in earlier books: there are long and interesting essays on China ("Chinese Miracles"), Hong Kong ("A Letter from Hong Kong on the Eve of the Hand-over"), Christmas Island ("Christmas Island: Bombs and Birds") and other travel writers ("Thoreau's Cape Cod").

There are standard Theroux moments here: an insomniac Theroux pacing through Amsterdam's red light district, sleeping naked on a tropical island. But what emerges is a portrait of the inward Theroux, pensive as he turns 50, pondering what made him a writer ("I remembered everything") and what makes for good travel writing ("prescient without making predictions"). Thoroux's account of his own life journey is, as it turns out, every bit as interesting as his meditations on more far-flung destinations. --Tamsin Todd

About the Author
Paul Theroux was born in Medford Massachusetts, in 1941, and published his first novel, WALDO, in 1967. His subsequent novels include PICTURE PALACE, winner of the Whitbread Prize for Fiction, THE MOSQUITO COAST, and the hugely acclaimed, KOWLOON TONG. His travel books include THE GREAT RAILWAY BAZAAR and THE PILLARS OF HERCULES.

Customer Reviews

Another winner from one of my favorite authors!
Fresh air fiend is the newest collection of travel essays and more from Paul Theroux. At first I was hesitant to buy it; I have read all his travel books and thought there would be nothing new. But although a couple of the pieces were repeats, most were not published in book form before. I particularly like the section of the book where he talks about travel writing--of his and other authors. Always a pleasure, Paul Theroux's latest again makes me wish I was on a train somewhere with pen in hand!

very Theroux but scattered with perhaps irelevant sidetracks
A good book although it is hard to get into at first. Not 100% a travel book but more a mix of factual analyses of favourite writers and personal goals and losses.
In parts very good and always well written. It is often funny and has a great deal of fantastic travel that we all look for. recommended for those who want a mix between travel and fact.

not the best from Theroux
this book turned out to be a dissapointment; the writing style is quite "flat", so even if the stories are not too appealing I couldn't even appreciate the book for the style. Some of the stories seem like an excuse to publish a book, if Theroux was unknown I wonder whether the publisher would look at these writings with interest. If you are looking for more after reading some of Theroux's most popular travel accounts you are in for dissapointment. I'd call this "a collection of unpublished writings for a good reason"; if you haven't read everything from this still amazing writer check other titles.