Travelling with Theroux

I enjoy reading travel books and those by Paul Theroux I find most enjoyable. I was delighted to find an article about him in the Life section of Singapore's Straits Times today.

In the e-mail interview with the writer of the article, he was understandably a lot more diplomatic in his views about Singapore and Singaporeans than what I have read from his books. Theroux was a lecturer at the University of Singapore during the late sixties and he also wrote a fiction - Saint Jack - set in the Singapore of that era.

Having lived in Singapore before, Theroux is also familiar with Malaysia and has written interesting short articles and stories set in the Malaysia of the sixties and early seventies. His book, The Consul's File is a collection of related short stories about the adventures of an American consul based in - of all places - the town of Ayer Hitam in Johor! He also made some rather unflattering observations about the sultan (nicknamed "Buffles") of a particular Malaysian state. That article can be found in his book, Sunrise with Seamonsters.

In The Great Railway Bazaar, he wrote about his experiences travelling by train from his home then in England across Europe and the mainland of Asia, down to Singapore before hopping over to Japan and Russia for the Trans-Siberian Express home to the West again. That book made him well-known and established him as the leading travel writer of our time.

Diehard fans of Sir VS Naipaul will hate Theroux for his frank depiction of the Nobel prize winnning writer in his book Sir Vidia's Shadow which detailed their friendship over a period of 30 years, spanning five continents and how it finally came to a bitter end.

Having read so many of his books, I feel like I've known Theroux quite well: I've travelled together with him by train across China in Riding the Red Rooster, chugged along with him on The Old Patagonian Express in South America, hitchhiked around the British Isle in Kingdom by the Sea, island hopped on his kayak in The Happy Isles of Oceania and recently accompanied him on an inland journey down the African continent in Dark Star Safari.

His veiled semi-fictional autobiographies: My Secret History and My Other Life are also very engrossing reads. Strangely I am more attracted to his non-fiction books than some of his fictional ones - which are also highly acclaimed, like The Mosquito Coast (which was made into a successful movie starring Harrison Ford).

Paul Theroux is in his sixties now but I hope he continues travelling. He is indeed my favourite travel companion.