Synopses & Reviews
Fresh Air Fiend is Theroux's first collection devoted exclusively to travel writing, for which the author of such classics as The Great Railway Bazaar
and Riding The Iron Rooster (as well as more than twenty works of fiction, including
The Mosquito Coast) is justly famous around the globe.
Wonderfully broad in scope, thought, and feeling, the book touches down on five continents and floats through most of the seas in between. From the crisp quiet of a solitary week spent in the snow-bound Maine woods, to the expectant chaos of Hong Kong on the eve of the Hand-over, to a remote island in the Pacific where the first atomic bombs were detonated, Theroux is the perfect guide casually informative, keenly observant, wry, and entertaining. As Time has written, Theroux "serves as both the camera and the eye, and both the details and the illusions are developed with brilliance." He also reaches back into his past to tell of his earliest ventures into Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer, treats us to insightful readings of his favorite travel writing classics, and reveals the fascinating stories behind some of his own.
In this remarkable collection of essays and articles written over the last fifteen years, Paul 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.
Traveling with Theroux is a literary adventure of the first order, never a languid luxury cruise, always an insightful journey to the heart and soul of a place and its people. Fresh Air Fiend is the ultimate good read for anyone fascinated by travel and travel writing. It's a perfect introduction to the author's work and an excellent, overarching collection for longtime readers and fans.
Review
"[Paul Theroux is] one of the best English-language travel writers alive....[Fresh-Air Fiend] contains startling encounters, luminous scenes, wry insights and beautiful writing." Financial Times (U.K.)
Review
"Lively and insightful....Fresh-Air Fiend is rich with information, intelligent discourse, humour and plain old good storytelling." Globe and Mail
Synopsis
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.
About the Author
'Paul Theroux was born in Medford, Massachusetts in 1941 and published his first novel, Waldo in 1967. His subsequent novels include The Family Arsenal, Picture Palace, The Mosquito Coast, O-Zone, Millroy the Magician, My Secret History, My Other Life, and Kowloon Tong. His highly acclaimed travel books include Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, and Fresh Air Fiend. The Mosquito Coast and Dr. Slaughter have both been made into successful films. He was the guest editor of The Best American Travel Writing (Houghton Mifflin, October 2001). Theroux is a frequent contributer to magazines including Talk and Men\'s Journal. He divides his time between Cape Cod and the Hawaiian Islands, where he is a professional beekeeper.'
Table of Contents
Introduction: Being a Stranger 1
one / time travel
Memory and Creation: The View from Fifty 17
The Object of Desire 35
At the Sharp End: Being in the Peace Corps 40
Five Travel Epiphanies 46
Travel Writing: The Point of It 49
two / fresh air fiend
Fresh Air Fiend 57
The Awkward Question 62
The Moving Target 65
Dead Reckoning to Nantucket 70
Paddling to Plymouth 79
Fever Chart: Parasites I Have Known 85
three / a sense of place
Diaries of Two Cities: Amsterdam and London 93
Farewell to Britain: Look Thy Last on All Things
Lovely 102
Gravy Train: A Private Railway Car 106
The Maine Woods: Camping in the Snow 113
Trespassing in Florida 120
Down the Zambezi 126
The True Size of Cape Cod 148
German Humor 151
four / china
Down the Yangtze 157
Chinese Miracles 189
Ghost Stories: A Letter from Hong Kong on the
Eve of the Hand-over 236
five / the pacific
Hawaii 271
The Other Oahu 271
On Molokai 277
Connected in Palau 283
Tasting the Pacific 293
Palawan: Up and Down the Creek 298
Christmas Island: Bombs and Birds 312
six / books of travel
My Own 323
The Edge of the Great Rift: Three African
Novels 323
The Black House 328
The Great Railway Bazaar 330
The Old Patagonian Express 336
The Making of The Mosquito Coast 341
Kowloon Tong 347
Other People's 349
Robinson Crusoe 349
Thoreau's Cape Cod 355
The Secret Agent: A Dangerous Londoner 363
The Worst Journey in the World 372
Racers to the Pole 378
PrairyErth 384
Looking for a Ship 388
seven / escapees and exiles
Chatwin Revisited 395
Greeneland 408
V. S. Pritchett: The Foreigner as Traveler 419
William Simpson: Artist and Traveler 423
Rajat Neogy: An Indian in Uganda 432
The Exile Moritz Thomsen 435
eight / fugues
Unspeakable Rituals and Outlandish Beliefs 443
Gilstrap, the Homesick Explorer 454
The Return of Bingo Humpage 459
Bibliography 463