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The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around Great Britain
Provides a profile of Britain and her people in a collection of interviews with citizens during the time of the papal visit, the Falklands crisis, a great railway strike, spiraling unemployment, and the birth of Prince William
353 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1983
326 people are currently reading
3632 people want to read
About the author
Paul Theroux
237 books2,602 followersPaul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work is The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), a travelogue about a trip he made by train from Great Britain through Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, through South Asia, then South-East Asia, up through East Asia, as far east as Japan, and then back across Russia to his point of origin. Although perhaps best known as a travelogue writer, Theroux has also published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel The Mosquito Coast.
He is the father of Marcel and Louis Theroux, and the brother of Alexander and Peter. Justin Theroux is his nephew.
He is the father of Marcel and Louis Theroux, and the brother of Alexander and Peter. Justin Theroux is his nephew.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 305 reviews
March 3, 2017
Oh Paul Theroux, why must you be so grouchy? I mean, you're traveling around England, one of the best countries on earth! Where's the joy? Where's the love? Where's the gratitude?
OK, so I now realize that I had unrealistic expectations for this book. I liked Theroux's memoir of his travels around the coast of Great Britain, but I didn't love it as I had hoped.
Theroux, who was born in America, had good fish-out-of-water stories about living and traveling in England, but for some reason it was a challenge for me to finish this book. I had gravitated to The Kingdom by the Sea because I always like a good travelogue, and I especially love reading about England. (Hello, my name is Diane and I'm an Anglophile. / Group: Hi, Diane.)
So, I had hoped to escape into this book and temporarily avoid thinking about the current disaster of American politics. However, something was off -- my mood or the tone of the writing, but whatever it was, I didn't mesh with this memoir as I had wanted. I think part of it was that Theroux comes across as really grouchy, which made my reading less escapist and enjoyable.
Another factor is that Theroux spent a lot of time discussing and writing about the 1982 Falklands War, which was happening during his trip. While I found it interesting to hear what the locals were saying about the military developments, it also made me uneasy and reminded me of current wars and strife and the fearmongering going on right now. In short, this wasn't the reading escape I had hoped.
I think this is a book I'll need to reread at a different point, when I'm less edgy and can better appreciate Theroux's travel narrative. One suggestion I'd make for the publisher is to add a map showing his route -- as it was I was constantly googling the names of towns to figure out where Theroux was in his journey.
Overall, I'd still recommend this book to those who like reading travelogues about England. Just brace yourself for some grouchiness.
Opening Paragraph
"Everyone seemed to be going to China that year, or else writing rude things about the Arabs, or being frank about Africa. I had other things on my mind. After eleven years in London I still had not been much in Britain. I had not set foot in Wales or even East Anglia. People joked about Bognor Regis. I had never been to Bognor Regis. but I joked about it too! And where was Porlock? And was Northern Ireland a nightmare and Scotland breathtaking? And what exactly were the Lincolnshire Wolds? What I knew of Britain I had got from books. Britain was the most written-about country in the world. That was the problem, really. You read one book about China and you think you've got a good idea of the place; you read twenty books about Britain, even English Traits and Rural Rides, and you know you haven't got the slightest."
Favorite Quote
"One of the few boasts the British risked was that their country was changeless. In some trivial ways it was, but to an alien it seemed entirely irregular and unpredictable, changing from day to day. It was not a question of seismic shocks, but rather a steadier kind of erosion -- like the seemingly changeless and consoling tide, in which there was always, in its push and pull, slightly more loss than gain. The endless mutation of the British coast wonderfully symbolized the state of the nation. In a quiet way the British were hopeful, and because in the cycle of ruin and renewal there had been so much ruin, they were glad to be still holding on -- that was the national mood -- but they were hard put to explain their survival. The British seemed to me to be people forever standing on a crumbling coast and scanning the horizon. So I had done the right thing in traveling the coast, and instead of looking out to sea, I had looked inland."
OK, so I now realize that I had unrealistic expectations for this book. I liked Theroux's memoir of his travels around the coast of Great Britain, but I didn't love it as I had hoped.
Theroux, who was born in America, had good fish-out-of-water stories about living and traveling in England, but for some reason it was a challenge for me to finish this book. I had gravitated to The Kingdom by the Sea because I always like a good travelogue, and I especially love reading about England. (Hello, my name is Diane and I'm an Anglophile. / Group: Hi, Diane.)
So, I had hoped to escape into this book and temporarily avoid thinking about the current disaster of American politics. However, something was off -- my mood or the tone of the writing, but whatever it was, I didn't mesh with this memoir as I had wanted. I think part of it was that Theroux comes across as really grouchy, which made my reading less escapist and enjoyable.
Another factor is that Theroux spent a lot of time discussing and writing about the 1982 Falklands War, which was happening during his trip. While I found it interesting to hear what the locals were saying about the military developments, it also made me uneasy and reminded me of current wars and strife and the fearmongering going on right now. In short, this wasn't the reading escape I had hoped.
I think this is a book I'll need to reread at a different point, when I'm less edgy and can better appreciate Theroux's travel narrative. One suggestion I'd make for the publisher is to add a map showing his route -- as it was I was constantly googling the names of towns to figure out where Theroux was in his journey.
Overall, I'd still recommend this book to those who like reading travelogues about England. Just brace yourself for some grouchiness.
Opening Paragraph
"Everyone seemed to be going to China that year, or else writing rude things about the Arabs, or being frank about Africa. I had other things on my mind. After eleven years in London I still had not been much in Britain. I had not set foot in Wales or even East Anglia. People joked about Bognor Regis. I had never been to Bognor Regis. but I joked about it too! And where was Porlock? And was Northern Ireland a nightmare and Scotland breathtaking? And what exactly were the Lincolnshire Wolds? What I knew of Britain I had got from books. Britain was the most written-about country in the world. That was the problem, really. You read one book about China and you think you've got a good idea of the place; you read twenty books about Britain, even English Traits and Rural Rides, and you know you haven't got the slightest."
Favorite Quote
"One of the few boasts the British risked was that their country was changeless. In some trivial ways it was, but to an alien it seemed entirely irregular and unpredictable, changing from day to day. It was not a question of seismic shocks, but rather a steadier kind of erosion -- like the seemingly changeless and consoling tide, in which there was always, in its push and pull, slightly more loss than gain. The endless mutation of the British coast wonderfully symbolized the state of the nation. In a quiet way the British were hopeful, and because in the cycle of ruin and renewal there had been so much ruin, they were glad to be still holding on -- that was the national mood -- but they were hard put to explain their survival. The British seemed to me to be people forever standing on a crumbling coast and scanning the horizon. So I had done the right thing in traveling the coast, and instead of looking out to sea, I had looked inland."
June 24, 2022
I love Theroux's travel writing. After reading some of his others about Asia and South America I decided to try this one about his travels along the coast of the United Kingdom in 1982. It's an interesting read because I was four years old at the time and have only very vague memories of it but what comes across is how there was a widespread element of deprivation and economic difficulty - the famous period of three million unemployed (it is quite likely, I think, that Margaret Thatcher would have lost the 1983 election without the victory over Argentina in the Falklands which looms large over the lives of the people Theroux interacted with). A lot of the people encountered were on unemployment benefits and it is interesting reading about that in June 2022 when we are likely heading into another recession (a stagflationary one this time with very high inflation rates) and also resonances such as rail strikes which are happening in the same week that I finished reading this. There is a slightly melancholic air about the writing which I noticed in the other Theroux travelogues I have read and a sense of slight depression and sadness that the UK, once an industrial powerhouse, seemed to have declined by the 1980s, whatever the promises of entrepreneurial renaissance of the Thatcher era. I enjoyed the book a lot and learnt a bit more about the country I live in.
June 5, 2025
I can't believe how much the UK has changed since this was written, and it didn't take long into this funny and acutely observant travelogue to notice we are smack bang in the early 80s: violent skinheads congregating on public transport. OK, but at least then you could go to many a seaside resort and not get completely ripped off when buying an ice cream. (Some places now you'd be lucky to get change out of a fiver - that's if you even got there because of the damn traffic!). There are places I've been to here - a nostalgia trip when thinking of many childhood holidays in Cornwall, but many I haven't, and taking this trip with Mr. Theroux was sure an interesting one: he does make such good company; however, without sounding too under enthusiastic in regards certain places in my homeland, it just isn't the same, for example, stopping off in Margate or Butlin's Holiday Camp in Minehead, when compared to reading Theroux's utterly fascinating Old Patagonian Express journey from Massachusetts all the way down to the arid plateau of Argentina's most southerly tip. Basically, I enjoyed this to a degree, but I bet if I devoured all his books, then this one wouldn't get anywhere near his travels to the likes of Asia or Cairo to Cape Town. Had this been written today, you can take the Great - sad to say it - out of the title and just call it Britain.
October 19, 2017
Without visiting castles and cathedrals Theroux decides to walk, train, hitch-hike and bus the coast of Britain as far as is possible (not forgetting the ferry to Northern Ireland). He just wants to observe and speak with people on the journey to get a sense of the places he visits. He has been living in London for 11 years but had not seen Britain. Nowhere in Britain is more than 65 miles from the sea so he decided his route would be round the coast. He does not want any stunts as this would distract him from the journey.
This is honest if a little depressing as he riffs on caravan parks, nuclear power stations, the railways and owners of B&Bs and guest houses. He certainly meets some characters. Just wait until he gets to Cardigan Bay and hear his thoughts on Holyhead. He gives all the people he meets names. It’s hard to know what are real names or not but that does not really matter. He is travelling at the time of the Falkland’s War (‘this Falkland’s business’ as the people he meets are wont to say). I was 12 in 1982 and England was not that sophisticated. There was high unemployment as the country was in transition from industry, manufacturing and mining to a more service-oriented country. Financial services being the biggest. Places were run-down and hardly endearing and this certainly comes to the fore in this book.
He starts in Margate after an eventful train trip down there and clockwise he goes taking in Cornwall, Wales, Liverpool, Northern Ireland (troubles are still going), Scotland and many places in-between and beyond. There is a city where he says ‘there is not a single healthy vice available’ and the people form this place ‘would gladly pick a halfpenny out of a dunghill with his teeth’. Want a clue? OK. The city name begins with A and they drill for black gold.
This is honest if a little depressing as he riffs on caravan parks, nuclear power stations, the railways and owners of B&Bs and guest houses. He certainly meets some characters. Just wait until he gets to Cardigan Bay and hear his thoughts on Holyhead. He gives all the people he meets names. It’s hard to know what are real names or not but that does not really matter. He is travelling at the time of the Falkland’s War (‘this Falkland’s business’ as the people he meets are wont to say). I was 12 in 1982 and England was not that sophisticated. There was high unemployment as the country was in transition from industry, manufacturing and mining to a more service-oriented country. Financial services being the biggest. Places were run-down and hardly endearing and this certainly comes to the fore in this book.
He starts in Margate after an eventful train trip down there and clockwise he goes taking in Cornwall, Wales, Liverpool, Northern Ireland (troubles are still going), Scotland and many places in-between and beyond. There is a city where he says ‘there is not a single healthy vice available’ and the people form this place ‘would gladly pick a halfpenny out of a dunghill with his teeth’. Want a clue? OK. The city name begins with A and they drill for black gold.
August 22, 2012
It's always initially difficult to see one's country through the eyes of a foreigner and this was my first attempt. Sadly, I chose badly as this is a book where I kept on wondering why he bothered to complete what seemed to be even for him a thankless and depressing endeavour.
To misuse a title from another book, this Beautiful Room is Empty. The use of language is often impressive and thought-provoking but language is like a picture frame - no matter how wonderful, it can not mask a weak painting - in fact it seems to accentuate the failings of the picture. The Britain of that time obviously had its serious problems, its eyesores and its lack of confidence but this book seeks out the worst of everything and then masochistically repeats and repeats the experiences. The blurb talks of humour - I found none, unless sarcasm and condescension can be described as humour (and while tastes are different across the Atlantic, base sarcasm doesn't seem to be any more a form of acceptable humour there than it is in Britain).
I remember being tempted after reading this to go and seek out the underbelly of boring US towns and write something equally snobbish, selective and depressing, thereby missing the incredible variety and positive energy of the country. Then my optimism kicked in and decided I could not devote myself to such a boring exercise in self-flagellation.
His book on China was fascinating - this one was just plain sad.
To misuse a title from another book, this Beautiful Room is Empty. The use of language is often impressive and thought-provoking but language is like a picture frame - no matter how wonderful, it can not mask a weak painting - in fact it seems to accentuate the failings of the picture. The Britain of that time obviously had its serious problems, its eyesores and its lack of confidence but this book seeks out the worst of everything and then masochistically repeats and repeats the experiences. The blurb talks of humour - I found none, unless sarcasm and condescension can be described as humour (and while tastes are different across the Atlantic, base sarcasm doesn't seem to be any more a form of acceptable humour there than it is in Britain).
I remember being tempted after reading this to go and seek out the underbelly of boring US towns and write something equally snobbish, selective and depressing, thereby missing the incredible variety and positive energy of the country. Then my optimism kicked in and decided I could not devote myself to such a boring exercise in self-flagellation.
His book on China was fascinating - this one was just plain sad.
July 18, 2017
Published not many years after Theroux found success with his wonderful Great Railway Bazaar, he wrote this, traveling the perimeter of his adopted (at the time) home of Great Britain. Theroux is a wonderful observer, open to experience, a lover of people and customs, but doesn't hold back when he dislikes a landscape that has been ravaged or the ugliness of a town (e.g., Aberdeen). Never making advance plans or reservations, he set out with a knapsack and one pair of shoes, staying at b&b's and smaller hotels. Making sometimes hilarious observations. When he's writing such memoirs (he's also a wonderful fiction writer), he reminds me of Bill Bryson. There are some wonderful moments that struck notes with me -- for instance an encounter with Jonathan Rabin, who told me once during a signing event that he and Theroux were friends and often shared galleys before final publication. That particular meeting was over 20 years after the meeting described in this book. Theroux also casually throws in the phrase that he didn't want to get "duffled," a phrase he himself coined in the Railway Bazaar. But this book, although a time capsule of the '80s when it comes to the current events of the time (birth of Prince William, the Falkland "issue," impending railway strike, Yorkshire ripper, IRA troubles), gives the impression that the landscapes he describes from the Cornish and rough Scottish coastlines would remain the same and be familiar today.
December 31, 2010
One of my all time favourite travel books, Theroux takes his jaded eyes around the coast of Thatcher's Britain at the time of the Falklands conflict. His favourite spot is the remotest corner of Scotland where the sight of sheep stranded on a deserted beach sandbank as the tide comes in,leaving them to drown, warms the cockles of his heart. If only those sheep had been Aberdonians (his least favourite town). Theroux concludes more or less that there's not a lot to like in Britain, really, which makes it much the same as the rest of the world with the exception of Cape Cod and the odd bit of Africa. Theroux travels in order that he can visit a place, hate it, and then leave. He lives in London, because when a man is tired of London he turns into Paul Theroux.
July 15, 2023
Another lovely travel memoir by Paul Theroux. I really enjoy his writing. This one passes over the UK, quite quickly, but paints a nice picture of the state of the coastal area. I wish it was a little longer and detailed!
January 8, 2012
I'm trying to figure why I like Paul Theroux travelogues quite so much. The guy is bluntly a dick at times and craps on places for no apparent reason. Yet I found his writing insightful, his adventures fascinating, and his conclusions illuminating. Here, he traveled clockwise around the coast of the UK, covering England, Wales, then Northern Ireland, then back for Scotland and the rest of England. He did this in the summer of 1982, as the Falkland Wars raged, Prince William was born, and England was in throes of massive unemployment and labor unrest as Maggie Thatcher pushed through structural reforms with profound impacts on the deindustrializing country. Theroux captured the sense of the British, of both their personality similarities with Americans but also their profound differences as a people far more content with far less creature comforts and, among many, far more willing at this point to watch the world go by and accept their increased obsolescence. The beginning on the south and west of England is slow at times, but the section on Northern Ireland was amazing, and Scotland and east England continue. I've read two other books covering much of the same route and Theroux blew them away and had me looking up towns and tracing his route. I have two more of his books on my nightstand and I can't wait to take the next trip.
May 16, 2024
Did not finish. A depressing and dreary view of 1980s UK . Even when he visited beautiful parts of the country he seemed to only find the negatives. Despite enjoying other books by Theroux this just made me angry. I hated everything about it from his habit of giving silly fictitious names to the people he meets to his casual ageism and sneering tone.
March 7, 2011
Theroux manages to make Britain seem like the most dismal country on the planet. While he was traveling during the 80s, I can definitely say that some of the places he described either aren't that way now, or weren't given a fair shake. And he seems to seek out the miserable, spending mere paragraphs on places like Edinburgh. He deliberately avoids castles and anything most travelers would visit. While I understand not wanting to make the whole book a tour of castles and museums, the things he does instead are generally walking from place to place, describing how terribly dismal each place is. So it's a very dull read.
At best it's outdated, at worst it's deliberately misleading -- without him making the same trip again, it's tough to say which it is. Clearly the British economy wasn't what it was now when Theroux wrote this.
This might have still been readable if there was humor involved (thinking here of Bill Bryson's delightful "Notes from a Small Island"), but there wasn't. And there's a difference between Theroux and Bryson -- while Bryson often writes at length about British eccentricities, you still get the sense that he truly loves the country and her people. With Theroux, you get the increasing sense that he hates all British people, for reasons never fully described.
At best it's outdated, at worst it's deliberately misleading -- without him making the same trip again, it's tough to say which it is. Clearly the British economy wasn't what it was now when Theroux wrote this.
This might have still been readable if there was humor involved (thinking here of Bill Bryson's delightful "Notes from a Small Island"), but there wasn't. And there's a difference between Theroux and Bryson -- while Bryson often writes at length about British eccentricities, you still get the sense that he truly loves the country and her people. With Theroux, you get the increasing sense that he hates all British people, for reasons never fully described.
April 21, 2024
3.5 Stars!
“The elegant houses of Tenby standing tall on the cliff reminded me of beautifully bound books arranged on a high shelf; their bow windows had the curvature of book spines. The town was elevated on a promontory, and so the sea on three sides gave its light a penetrating purity that reached the market square, and fortified the air with the tang of ocean-washed rocks.”
Starting out from London in May 1982, with Thatcher’s Tories on the verge of war with Argentina over a collection of distant rocks on the other side of the planet, Theroux embarks on a wander involving coastal walks, branch lines and meeting the locals along the way, all playing out under the shadow of “this Falklands business.”
Deliciously dated in some ways, fresh as ever in others, Theroux is far from the first to write about Blighty and he certainly wasn’t the last, but he will always be one of those travel writers worth reading. He can definitely be a bit of a curmudgeon, and I soon feared that he was going to spend page after page moaning and complaining his way across the UK like some grumpy dad with a sore head (exactly what Bill Bryson did in his last venture across the same country).
He is surprisingly prudish and quick to offence at times. Often he comes across as lofty and patronising towards many, which is often the places where the humour is found, but it can sometimes be a bit much. Though his recollection of watching “Omen II” in the TV lounge of a Butlins holiday camp in England’s South West, with some retired, elderly Welsh ladies was pretty comical. A trip to a nearby waxworks prompts the observation that, “…most of the murderers looked silly in lopsided wigs, and the torture victims like big shattered steak and kidney pies.”
Elsewhere he tells us that, “Wales was visibly poorer than England but I found it to be much better-natured.” Although he “came to hate Aberdeen more than any other place I saw.” He fell in love with Sutherland and wished to go back.
Theroux shows coastal United Kingdom in all its parochial charm and provincial horror. This initially had a few laugh aloud moments as we progressed through the small towns and tiny villages of England seeing all of its snobbery, prejudice, racism and ignorance are often the currencies as valid as the British pound. But too often I found him too dismissive and condescension towards the working classes, the comments became cheap, predictable and at times this descended into a monotonous exercise in punching down as he appeared to revel in delight as he mocked everything from their personal tastes to where they went on holiday.
Sometimes forgetting that these were the people on the hardest end of Thatcherism and unlike him, they didn’t have the privilege of getting paid to go round the world lording it over people and publishing books about it, and their options were often narrow and so limited to going to low cost resorts or not affording to eat out in nice restaurants or having parents who could afford to send them to elite schools.
At one point when he comes across some graffiti and punks he reflects on the words and scrawled on their clothing etc and says, “perhaps they were pop groups?” which made me laugh - at times his ignorance is breath taking and he seems so ignorant and out of touch that he comes across like one of those old stuffy BBC correspondents sent out to some unfamiliar outpost and who tries to summarise his surroundings in clipped RP tones illustrating little more than their snobbery, fear and ignorance.
He spends so much time and pages on the south coast of England that there is scarcely little dedicated elsewhere, he does go through Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland but these parts seem more tokenistic and feel like a box ticking exercise, largely made up of train journeys and he seems to just sweep through most of them, which was a shame and seemed like a bit of missed opportunity. So although Theroux really annoyed me for long spells in this, and he often comes across as a miserable, depressed man battling some inner demons, overall this was still an enjoyable read, and he is still good enough value, and in spite of its flaws this is still worth the read.
December 12, 2019
I started this as an audiobook but that just didn't work; I wanted to check maps to follow all the places author was visiting.
Paul Theroux had written several travel/train books, including The Great Railway Bazaar, before he decided to learn more about Great Britain, the country in which he had been living for the past 10 years. So, he sets out by rail, by bus, and by foot to learn the land and people by following the coast. Britain has always been defined by the sea, he says, and no place in the kingdom is more than 85 miles from the ocean.
Travel was done in late spring and summer of 1982, during the Falklands War, which starts many of his conversations with folks. Falklands & the birth of Princess Diana's baby helped me remember that this book was about the Britain of 35 years ago. He vows not to visit a single castle or cathedral; he's not a "tourist" but a traveler.
During his travels by train, he mourns the closings and threatened closings of all the small branch lines that reached so deep into the countryside and coast. And then, during the last 2 weeks of his journey around Britain, there was a rail strike and he became dependent on bus and hitch-hiking to get around. Bus takes 3 times as long as rail, much less reliable, does not serve as many places as rail; he sees this transition to road over rail as leading to depopulating the rural areas, making them much more isolated and "Third World" like. Could it be that something similar happened in this country, too?
Paul Theroux had written several travel/train books, including The Great Railway Bazaar, before he decided to learn more about Great Britain, the country in which he had been living for the past 10 years. So, he sets out by rail, by bus, and by foot to learn the land and people by following the coast. Britain has always been defined by the sea, he says, and no place in the kingdom is more than 85 miles from the ocean.
Travel was done in late spring and summer of 1982, during the Falklands War, which starts many of his conversations with folks. Falklands & the birth of Princess Diana's baby helped me remember that this book was about the Britain of 35 years ago. He vows not to visit a single castle or cathedral; he's not a "tourist" but a traveler.
During his travels by train, he mourns the closings and threatened closings of all the small branch lines that reached so deep into the countryside and coast. And then, during the last 2 weeks of his journey around Britain, there was a rail strike and he became dependent on bus and hitch-hiking to get around. Bus takes 3 times as long as rail, much less reliable, does not serve as many places as rail; he sees this transition to road over rail as leading to depopulating the rural areas, making them much more isolated and "Third World" like. Could it be that something similar happened in this country, too?
April 13, 2014
God, I hated this. I wanted to give up when I was halfway through, but some sick sense of perseverance compelled me to finish it.
I picked this up originally because I rather like travelogues; I didn't realize that Theroux is famous for the grim, bitter unhappiness of his travel writing (Theroux's theory is that "a lot of travel is misery and delay").
The problem is that Theroux never manages to make this misery and delay interesting. It's just tedious -- a hundred pages in, and you may be wondering why this grey misanthrope even gets out of bed in the morning but you're still not interested in his martyred quest around the British coastline. It doesn't help that Theroux is painfully repetitious. He has a handful of observations and conclusions that he will carelessly reuse again and again. God, those nuclear power stations suck! God, those railway enthusiasts suck! God, those Skinheads suck! Et cetera. The repetition of these points doesn't build to any greater theme or purpose: it's as if Theroux just didn't re-read his manuscript and hadn't realized that he'd used the exact same phrasing against the exact same target five times before.
God, I hated this.
I picked this up originally because I rather like travelogues; I didn't realize that Theroux is famous for the grim, bitter unhappiness of his travel writing (Theroux's theory is that "a lot of travel is misery and delay").
The problem is that Theroux never manages to make this misery and delay interesting. It's just tedious -- a hundred pages in, and you may be wondering why this grey misanthrope even gets out of bed in the morning but you're still not interested in his martyred quest around the British coastline. It doesn't help that Theroux is painfully repetitious. He has a handful of observations and conclusions that he will carelessly reuse again and again. God, those nuclear power stations suck! God, those railway enthusiasts suck! God, those Skinheads suck! Et cetera. The repetition of these points doesn't build to any greater theme or purpose: it's as if Theroux just didn't re-read his manuscript and hadn't realized that he'd used the exact same phrasing against the exact same target five times before.
God, I hated this.
September 19, 2016
My mother-in-law, Rose Virgo, was a great reader, and no doubt felt some embarrassment at having a relation ignorant of such great writers such as Theroux. Consequently, the first birthday after my marriage, she gifted me this wonderful travel book. For years thereafter, one after another, I received travel books by Theroux until, having exhausted them, she proceeded to introduce me to other great travel writers. This, certainly, was one of the most wonderful gifts of my life, and remains a favorite of a genre to which I am now addicted. Even a short trip by train recalls to me this wonderful roundabout of Britain by rail and all the garrulous comments and wonderful descriptions. Buy it, gift it and enjoy.
January 12, 2023
Loved his description of a Butlin's.
December 31, 2021
Somehow the criticisms were less personal and harsh compared to Bryson’s Notes From A Small Island. Still often felt like a meandering and aimless experience, though.
August 6, 2022
The chapters on the Troubles in Northern Ireland and on Scotland make up for the general negativity Thoreaux has about England, some of which is due to the recession and high unemployment in the early 1980s.
May 2, 2021
I enjoy reading travel books long after they get published. It gives me a glimpse into the past, the economic conditions, political and social preoccupations, standards of living, and the state of the infrastructure. Paul Theroux wrote this book in 1982 on his travels in the UK that year. I too traveled in the UK for months in 2003, 2014 and 2016. It was interesting for me to compare the UK in 1982 with my experience, almost 35 years later.
Theroux travels along the coast of the UK in 1982. He starts in the south-eastern coastal town of Margate and moves clockwise along the coast. He returns to Margate via the northern and eastern coastline after reaching Cape Wrath in Scotland as his northern-most point. On the way, he makes a detour from Carlisle in northern England and takes the boat train to Northern Ireland. The entire journey takes him three months. His preferred mode of travel, as always, was the train. Trains did not always run because of strikes or Thatcherite purges. Then he walked. Only when forced to do so, he hitchhikes or takes the bus. He experiences the country talking to its people in small towns and on trains. Museums, big cities, and sight-seeing forays were a no-no. As a result, the book is full of observations on the English, the Scot, the Welsh, and the northern Irish. Readers of Theroux’s other books would recall that he always has a soft corner for the underdog. In the UK, he seems to like the Welsh the most, followed by sympathy for the Northern Irish, even though he loathes their religious fervor. Scots merit some friendly words, when he can understand what they were saying in English. As for the English, I could spot his hidden affection for them, but he drowns it in his biting observations.
Theroux’s observations on Northern Ireland fascinated me. I traveled there for a few weeks in 2016. It was a good eighteen years after the Good Friday Agreement between the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the political parties in Northern Ireland. I saw tourism flourishing in the cities of Derry and Belfast. There were even tours to the infamous ‘Divis Tower’ of Falls Road in Belfast. Life seemed normal, as it would in any European city. Theroux’s account of Northern Ireland in 1982 captures the past of this troubled region and shows how different life was then.
For a start, Theroux refers to N. Ireland as Ulster, a term favored by Unionists, owing allegiance to the UK. The Irish nationalists reject this term. He makes blistering psychoanalytic remarks about Ulster, its men and womenfolk, and its religions. In 1982, he viewed Ulster as an assemblage of secret societies, where only men got admitted. He observes the men made rules, beat drums, swore oaths, invented handshakes, and passwords, and crept into the dark and killed people. Then they returned home to their women, like small children to their mothers. At home, their overworked womenfolk treated these men as if they were forever boys and burdens. Theroux says the shame or guilt this dependency inspired made the men aggressive. They were unemployed and had all the time in the world to ventilate their aggression. Religion was not a restraining force. Theroux finds Irish Catholicism to be one long litany of mother imagery and mother worship. Irish Protestantism, he feels, is a collection of tribal memory of bloody battles.
Theroux found Northern Ireland unlike a part of Europe. It was like the past in an old picture - empty trains, blackened buildings, bellicose religion, dirt, poverty, narrow-mindedness, trickery, and murder filling the scene. He saw it as a society with tribal instincts, tribal warfare, tribal kinships, and a sense of isolation that inspired suspicion and generosity toward strangers. In his assessment, Ulster as a society was frightening at first, then inconvenient, then annoying, then maddening, and ultimately a bore. His exasperated words, “All the security checks! All the metal detectors! All the body searches and friskings and questions!” reminded me so much of our world today after 9/11!
However, Theroux is fair and acknowledges the goodness in N. Ireland. He feels grateful no one had imposed on him. He had done nothing but ask questions, but says he always received interesting answers. The people he met were hospitable and decent. No one had ever asked him what he did for a living. Theroux speculates that it would be an impolite question in a place where so many people were on the dole.
1982 was the year Margaret Thatcher went to war on the Falkland Islands. Theroux found the British b being caught up in nationalism and jingoism because of the war. But his keen eye sees beyond the war hysteria to realize that Britain’s problem in 1982 was unemployed people and closed mines, factories, and businesses. No one talked about working conditions anymore because there was no work. It was as if the era of Industry had come and gone. In the Scottish city of Aberdeen, he finds the oil industry almost entirely manned by young single men with no hobbies. They looked lonely and swamped the city doing nothing but drink. He thought the Aberdonians hated and feared them.
Theroux is caustic about the English attitude to race and minorities. He finds the English hated the Japanese for being rich overachievers and for being guiltless racists. They hated them for eating raw fish, for working like dogs, and for torturing their prisoners during the war. To my amusement, in 2016, I remember hearing them saying similar things about the Chinese! Theroux writes with sarcastic humor on the British attitudes towards its minorities. When a colored runner came first in a race against foreigners, he was “English.” If he came second, he was “British.” and he was “colored” if he lost. If he cheated, he was “West Indian”! The English aristocracy, according to Theroux, had nearly always composed of flatterers, cutthroats, boyfriends, political pirates, and people of very conceited ambition.
The author concludes the English do the small things well and the big things badly. He writes at length, “every large hotel at which I had stayed in England seemed run down or overpriced, understaffed, dirty, the staff overworked and slow. All the smaller places were preferable, the smallest always the best. The English were talented crafts people, but poor mass-producers of goods. They were brilliant at running a corner shop but were failures at supermarkets. Perhaps this had something to do with their sense of anonymity? Person to person, I had found them truthful and efficient, and humane. But anonymity made them lazy, dishonest, and aggressive. Hidden in his car, the Englishman was often impatient to the point of being murderous. Over the phone, he was unhelpful and often rude. They were not timid, but shy. Shyness made them tolerant, but it also gave them a grudge against foreigners, whom they regarded as boomers and show-offs. It was hard to distinguish hotels in England from prisons or hospitals. They ran most of them with the same indifference or cruelty.”
Theroux makes many other insightful observations on a myriad number of things and people. He talks about writers, painters, musicians, travelers, the youth in Britain and the skinheads. In my travels in the UK, I found the people always friendly and kind. The way waitresses in restaurants and coffee shops addressed me as ‘Love or darling’ in places like Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire or Yorkshire, enchanted me. I found northern Englanders cordial and amiable. However, Theroux traveled in the UK at a more problematic time. The UK was in the process of a great transition in 1982. Margaret Thatcher, the then prime minister, decided that life cannot continue to be what it was for the British. The challenge of Globalization and the emerging Chinese manufacturing behemoth forced her to make drastic changes. She concluded that the British economy cannot prosper by mining coal, manufacturing products at high costs in their factories, and trade unions ruling the roost. Her policies put many people out of work without alternatives. Theroux had seen the early pangs of this transition in 1982. I saw a prosperous and richer UK in 2016, with even the small towns looking well-heeled and booming. It would justify what Thatcher set in motion as necessary. Even the Labor party under Blair embraced many of those ideas later.
I enjoyed reading the book, even though much of that UK does not endure anymore. Theroux peppers it with his superb command of the English language and a keen sense of reflection. It feels like a timeless chronicle.
Theroux travels along the coast of the UK in 1982. He starts in the south-eastern coastal town of Margate and moves clockwise along the coast. He returns to Margate via the northern and eastern coastline after reaching Cape Wrath in Scotland as his northern-most point. On the way, he makes a detour from Carlisle in northern England and takes the boat train to Northern Ireland. The entire journey takes him three months. His preferred mode of travel, as always, was the train. Trains did not always run because of strikes or Thatcherite purges. Then he walked. Only when forced to do so, he hitchhikes or takes the bus. He experiences the country talking to its people in small towns and on trains. Museums, big cities, and sight-seeing forays were a no-no. As a result, the book is full of observations on the English, the Scot, the Welsh, and the northern Irish. Readers of Theroux’s other books would recall that he always has a soft corner for the underdog. In the UK, he seems to like the Welsh the most, followed by sympathy for the Northern Irish, even though he loathes their religious fervor. Scots merit some friendly words, when he can understand what they were saying in English. As for the English, I could spot his hidden affection for them, but he drowns it in his biting observations.
Theroux’s observations on Northern Ireland fascinated me. I traveled there for a few weeks in 2016. It was a good eighteen years after the Good Friday Agreement between the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the political parties in Northern Ireland. I saw tourism flourishing in the cities of Derry and Belfast. There were even tours to the infamous ‘Divis Tower’ of Falls Road in Belfast. Life seemed normal, as it would in any European city. Theroux’s account of Northern Ireland in 1982 captures the past of this troubled region and shows how different life was then.
For a start, Theroux refers to N. Ireland as Ulster, a term favored by Unionists, owing allegiance to the UK. The Irish nationalists reject this term. He makes blistering psychoanalytic remarks about Ulster, its men and womenfolk, and its religions. In 1982, he viewed Ulster as an assemblage of secret societies, where only men got admitted. He observes the men made rules, beat drums, swore oaths, invented handshakes, and passwords, and crept into the dark and killed people. Then they returned home to their women, like small children to their mothers. At home, their overworked womenfolk treated these men as if they were forever boys and burdens. Theroux says the shame or guilt this dependency inspired made the men aggressive. They were unemployed and had all the time in the world to ventilate their aggression. Religion was not a restraining force. Theroux finds Irish Catholicism to be one long litany of mother imagery and mother worship. Irish Protestantism, he feels, is a collection of tribal memory of bloody battles.
Theroux found Northern Ireland unlike a part of Europe. It was like the past in an old picture - empty trains, blackened buildings, bellicose religion, dirt, poverty, narrow-mindedness, trickery, and murder filling the scene. He saw it as a society with tribal instincts, tribal warfare, tribal kinships, and a sense of isolation that inspired suspicion and generosity toward strangers. In his assessment, Ulster as a society was frightening at first, then inconvenient, then annoying, then maddening, and ultimately a bore. His exasperated words, “All the security checks! All the metal detectors! All the body searches and friskings and questions!” reminded me so much of our world today after 9/11!
However, Theroux is fair and acknowledges the goodness in N. Ireland. He feels grateful no one had imposed on him. He had done nothing but ask questions, but says he always received interesting answers. The people he met were hospitable and decent. No one had ever asked him what he did for a living. Theroux speculates that it would be an impolite question in a place where so many people were on the dole.
1982 was the year Margaret Thatcher went to war on the Falkland Islands. Theroux found the British b being caught up in nationalism and jingoism because of the war. But his keen eye sees beyond the war hysteria to realize that Britain’s problem in 1982 was unemployed people and closed mines, factories, and businesses. No one talked about working conditions anymore because there was no work. It was as if the era of Industry had come and gone. In the Scottish city of Aberdeen, he finds the oil industry almost entirely manned by young single men with no hobbies. They looked lonely and swamped the city doing nothing but drink. He thought the Aberdonians hated and feared them.
Theroux is caustic about the English attitude to race and minorities. He finds the English hated the Japanese for being rich overachievers and for being guiltless racists. They hated them for eating raw fish, for working like dogs, and for torturing their prisoners during the war. To my amusement, in 2016, I remember hearing them saying similar things about the Chinese! Theroux writes with sarcastic humor on the British attitudes towards its minorities. When a colored runner came first in a race against foreigners, he was “English.” If he came second, he was “British.” and he was “colored” if he lost. If he cheated, he was “West Indian”! The English aristocracy, according to Theroux, had nearly always composed of flatterers, cutthroats, boyfriends, political pirates, and people of very conceited ambition.
The author concludes the English do the small things well and the big things badly. He writes at length, “every large hotel at which I had stayed in England seemed run down or overpriced, understaffed, dirty, the staff overworked and slow. All the smaller places were preferable, the smallest always the best. The English were talented crafts people, but poor mass-producers of goods. They were brilliant at running a corner shop but were failures at supermarkets. Perhaps this had something to do with their sense of anonymity? Person to person, I had found them truthful and efficient, and humane. But anonymity made them lazy, dishonest, and aggressive. Hidden in his car, the Englishman was often impatient to the point of being murderous. Over the phone, he was unhelpful and often rude. They were not timid, but shy. Shyness made them tolerant, but it also gave them a grudge against foreigners, whom they regarded as boomers and show-offs. It was hard to distinguish hotels in England from prisons or hospitals. They ran most of them with the same indifference or cruelty.”
Theroux makes many other insightful observations on a myriad number of things and people. He talks about writers, painters, musicians, travelers, the youth in Britain and the skinheads. In my travels in the UK, I found the people always friendly and kind. The way waitresses in restaurants and coffee shops addressed me as ‘Love or darling’ in places like Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire or Yorkshire, enchanted me. I found northern Englanders cordial and amiable. However, Theroux traveled in the UK at a more problematic time. The UK was in the process of a great transition in 1982. Margaret Thatcher, the then prime minister, decided that life cannot continue to be what it was for the British. The challenge of Globalization and the emerging Chinese manufacturing behemoth forced her to make drastic changes. She concluded that the British economy cannot prosper by mining coal, manufacturing products at high costs in their factories, and trade unions ruling the roost. Her policies put many people out of work without alternatives. Theroux had seen the early pangs of this transition in 1982. I saw a prosperous and richer UK in 2016, with even the small towns looking well-heeled and booming. It would justify what Thatcher set in motion as necessary. Even the Labor party under Blair embraced many of those ideas later.
I enjoyed reading the book, even though much of that UK does not endure anymore. Theroux peppers it with his superb command of the English language and a keen sense of reflection. It feels like a timeless chronicle.
Want to read
April 27, 2023*****************
*Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads 4 stars
*Ghost Train to the Eastern Star 4 stars
*The Old Patagonian Express 4 stars
*The Last Train to Zona Verde: My Ultimate African Safari 4 stars
*The Lower River 4 stars
*La costa de los mosquitos 1 star
The Kingdom by the Sea TBR
*Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads 4 stars
*Ghost Train to the Eastern Star 4 stars
*The Old Patagonian Express 4 stars
*The Last Train to Zona Verde: My Ultimate African Safari 4 stars
*The Lower River 4 stars
*La costa de los mosquitos 1 star
The Kingdom by the Sea TBR
July 27, 2016
Paul Theroux writes about his travels around the coast of Britain. This book is highly regarded but I really didn't feel it.
The book could be summarised quite easily. Theroux gets off a train and looks for a nice place to stay. He is the only guest and the owners tell him it will be busy when the tourist season starts. The room is horrible and the owners inhospitable, he leaves as soon as he possibly can. The town is deserted and the few things that are open are unimpressive. He picks up his bag and walks to the next town, which is pretty much the same as the previous one.
I chose this book because the author seemed like someone that I should read. However I just found the book to be a long winded and repetitive whinge about the lack of hospitality and excitement in the coastal towns. It wasn't written in a particularly humourous way, just a bland unimpressive opinion piece that filled a book.
The book could be summarised quite easily. Theroux gets off a train and looks for a nice place to stay. He is the only guest and the owners tell him it will be busy when the tourist season starts. The room is horrible and the owners inhospitable, he leaves as soon as he possibly can. The town is deserted and the few things that are open are unimpressive. He picks up his bag and walks to the next town, which is pretty much the same as the previous one.
I chose this book because the author seemed like someone that I should read. However I just found the book to be a long winded and repetitive whinge about the lack of hospitality and excitement in the coastal towns. It wasn't written in a particularly humourous way, just a bland unimpressive opinion piece that filled a book.
Read
August 29, 2007Paul Theroux wrote this book after living in England for several years. To prepare for the book, he decided to follow the coastline around Britain traveling clockwise, and to include Norther Ireland. He made this trip in 1982, traveling by foot, bus, and train.
His goal was to tell his readers what the British are really like. He has a real gift for getting people to talk to him and includes lots of quotations from his many conversation with British people. The account seems an honest one. At times he can be brutal in describing what he sees as a negative. He is also a lover of rail travel and did not like the fact that the British rail service was shrinking even while he was making this trip.
His goal was to tell his readers what the British are really like. He has a real gift for getting people to talk to him and includes lots of quotations from his many conversation with British people. The account seems an honest one. At times he can be brutal in describing what he sees as a negative. He is also a lover of rail travel and did not like the fact that the British rail service was shrinking even while he was making this trip.
August 31, 2025
Theroux has written some excellent books - The Great Railway Bazaar, The Mosquito Coast, Millroy the Magician; the short stories 'White Lies', 'Zombies' and 'World's End.'
Then he's penned ones like this, which bears as much resemblance to a worthwhile book as sawdust does to a live tree. If it feels less written so much as spat onto the page, it reminds you what happens when an author sets out to work off a grudge first and investigate second.
Hardly surprising Bill Bryson's Notes From A Small Island long ago supplanted it.
Then he's penned ones like this, which bears as much resemblance to a worthwhile book as sawdust does to a live tree. If it feels less written so much as spat onto the page, it reminds you what happens when an author sets out to work off a grudge first and investigate second.
Hardly surprising Bill Bryson's Notes From A Small Island long ago supplanted it.
December 11, 2009
I just had to stop in the middle. I couldn't bear to read any more putdowns and sad commentary on the British. This author has some serious issues going on that are causing him to have such a negative take on those around him and life in general.
Too bad because he does a good job of the research into the places he goes, but his relationships with the people he observes are so reflective of his own emotional state, it sad. I'm going to have to hang it up on any more of his books.
Too bad because he does a good job of the research into the places he goes, but his relationships with the people he observes are so reflective of his own emotional state, it sad. I'm going to have to hang it up on any more of his books.
December 22, 2024
Theroux knows how to stick it to the Brits. He's an American who understands them but is no anglophile. I've read about 10 of Theroux's novels and rated some highly. This is the first time I've made it right through one of his much more popular travel books. His savage wit kept me reading this long account of crusty Brits eating sandwiches on overcast beaches. Briefly picked up when he went to Northern Island.
Read
September 29, 2024I was recently* in the Victorian regional town of Shepparton** where I stayed in the cheapest and shittiest motel money could buy (I won’t say which because that would be rude). I only spent a night there, but for the time I was in the room, with its ancient fittings, thin carpet and rock-hard pillows, I kept thinking back to this book, and especially that scene where a nude, drunk woman barges into Paul Theroux’s room, looking to nuzzle up with him while he slept. That didn’t happen to me. But, for a moment, I understood what Theroux must have experienced as he toured the British coastline.
In 1982, on the eve of the Falklands War (an event that understandably permeates the narrative), Louis and Marcel’s Dad, having seen bugger all of the country after spending eleven years in the UK, decides to journey clockwise, starting from Margate, around the coast. What follows is a snapshot in time: an insightful and frequently funny record of Britain and its diverse communities that hug the shore.
Travel books are not my thing. So, I can’t judge where this sits alongside a Bill Bryson or a Jan Morris (the latter of whom Theroux visits in what’s a lovely scene, but also very much of its time—like an excited puppy, Theroux reminds us on several occasions of Morris’s gender transition). Auberon Waugh, for example, really did not like this book, knocking Theroux for visiting the “loneliest and nastiest corners” of the country. Waugh says, “To base a judgment of the British people on chance encounters with strangers while one stays, as Mr. Theroux did, in cheap hotels and lodging houses is no more useful than to base a judgment of British literature on graffiti in public lavatories and railway stations.”
Unlike Waugh, I never felt that Theroux was trying to represent the country through its coastline. Instead, he’s shining a light on a part of Britain forgotten by those who live in London. He does play up the eccentricities, the racism, and the peccadilloes of the people he meets. And he doesn’t hold back when he thinks a motel or a town is a bit shit. But there’s also a curiosity and sense of wonder in the questions he asks, even if he’s not expecting a meaningful answer. There are also several delightful moments. His aforementioned visit to Jan Morris. The sad and mysterious fate of a man he met on a previous sojourn on the Orient Express. His stay in Cornwall.
I liked this book. Maybe not enough to read more Theroux, but happy to be persuaded otherwise.
*It won't be so recent by the time I press publish on this.
**For work if you must know.
In 1982, on the eve of the Falklands War (an event that understandably permeates the narrative), Louis and Marcel’s Dad, having seen bugger all of the country after spending eleven years in the UK, decides to journey clockwise, starting from Margate, around the coast. What follows is a snapshot in time: an insightful and frequently funny record of Britain and its diverse communities that hug the shore.
Travel books are not my thing. So, I can’t judge where this sits alongside a Bill Bryson or a Jan Morris (the latter of whom Theroux visits in what’s a lovely scene, but also very much of its time—like an excited puppy, Theroux reminds us on several occasions of Morris’s gender transition). Auberon Waugh, for example, really did not like this book, knocking Theroux for visiting the “loneliest and nastiest corners” of the country. Waugh says, “To base a judgment of the British people on chance encounters with strangers while one stays, as Mr. Theroux did, in cheap hotels and lodging houses is no more useful than to base a judgment of British literature on graffiti in public lavatories and railway stations.”
Unlike Waugh, I never felt that Theroux was trying to represent the country through its coastline. Instead, he’s shining a light on a part of Britain forgotten by those who live in London. He does play up the eccentricities, the racism, and the peccadilloes of the people he meets. And he doesn’t hold back when he thinks a motel or a town is a bit shit. But there’s also a curiosity and sense of wonder in the questions he asks, even if he’s not expecting a meaningful answer. There are also several delightful moments. His aforementioned visit to Jan Morris. The sad and mysterious fate of a man he met on a previous sojourn on the Orient Express. His stay in Cornwall.
I liked this book. Maybe not enough to read more Theroux, but happy to be persuaded otherwise.
*It won't be so recent by the time I press publish on this.
**For work if you must know.
Read
September 14, 2022Paul Theroux lebt schon elf Jahre in London als er erkennt, dass er nicht viel von Großbritannien und den Briten kennt, zumindest nicht aus erster Hand. Um das zu ändern macht er sich auf eine Reise entlang der britischen Küste.
Elf Jahre in einem fremden Land zu wohnen und nicht viel darüber zu wissen, ist auch eine Kunst. Paul Theroux kann man zugute halten, dass er während seiner Arbeit als Reiseschriftsteller schon viele fremde Orte und deren Einwohner kennen lernt und deshalb daheim Ruhe haben will. Trotzdem: gerade wenn man viel unterwegs ist um Länder und Leute kennen zu lernen, sollte man das doch auch in der Heimat tun.
Das ist nicht die beste Voraussetzung, um mich unbefangen auf ein Buch einzulassen. Vielleicht hat mir The kingdom by the sea deshalb nur mäßig gefallen. Vielleicht lag es aber auch daran, dass Paul Theroux teilweise sehr ins Detail gegangen ist, das aber an unpassenden Stellen getan und somit auf mich oft kleinlich gewirkt hat. Dann wieder kamen mir seine Schilderungen oberflächlich vor.
Oft hatte ich den Eindruck, als ob er eher Vorurteile bestätigt haben wollte als sich wirklich mit dem, was er sah, auseinander zu setzen.
Was mich am meisten gestört hat, war seine Auslegung der Küstenlinie. Sicher kann man der nicht immer folgen, wenn man sich auf die öffentlichen Verkehrsmittel verlässt, aber für mich war es zu viel Land und zu wenig Küste, um dem Titel gerecht zu werden.
Bei so vielen Kritikpunkten und wenig, was mir gefallen hat, bleibt nur ein durchwachsener Eindruck zurück.
Elf Jahre in einem fremden Land zu wohnen und nicht viel darüber zu wissen, ist auch eine Kunst. Paul Theroux kann man zugute halten, dass er während seiner Arbeit als Reiseschriftsteller schon viele fremde Orte und deren Einwohner kennen lernt und deshalb daheim Ruhe haben will. Trotzdem: gerade wenn man viel unterwegs ist um Länder und Leute kennen zu lernen, sollte man das doch auch in der Heimat tun.
Das ist nicht die beste Voraussetzung, um mich unbefangen auf ein Buch einzulassen. Vielleicht hat mir The kingdom by the sea deshalb nur mäßig gefallen. Vielleicht lag es aber auch daran, dass Paul Theroux teilweise sehr ins Detail gegangen ist, das aber an unpassenden Stellen getan und somit auf mich oft kleinlich gewirkt hat. Dann wieder kamen mir seine Schilderungen oberflächlich vor.
Oft hatte ich den Eindruck, als ob er eher Vorurteile bestätigt haben wollte als sich wirklich mit dem, was er sah, auseinander zu setzen.
Was mich am meisten gestört hat, war seine Auslegung der Küstenlinie. Sicher kann man der nicht immer folgen, wenn man sich auf die öffentlichen Verkehrsmittel verlässt, aber für mich war es zu viel Land und zu wenig Küste, um dem Titel gerecht zu werden.
Bei so vielen Kritikpunkten und wenig, was mir gefallen hat, bleibt nur ein durchwachsener Eindruck zurück.
August 22, 2019
I have read Paul Theroux’s travel articles in “Smithsonian” magazine, but confess to never having read his fiction. I was intrigued by his book about walking around the coast of England over a three-month period in 1982. What a disappointment.
I was hoping to learn more about my mother-in-law’s birthplace in order to share this book w/ her, but she would take high dudgeon at Theroux’s description of the seashore all around her home, and his descriptions about the various British inhabitants and visitors thereof.
Theroux’s walk coincides w/ the short Falklands War between the UK and Argentina, basically over a sheep farm. Anyway, Theroux obviously didn’t like the war or the way the British people responded to it. He was also highly disillusioned at how ruined and past its prime everything looked, seemingly like an old Countess wearing moth-eaten clothing b/c she’s dirt poor but still has her haughty pride! He goes on and on about the ruined cities, which he tried to avoid, and the death of the British railway system (I thought he was walking everywhere? What’s he doing on trains?). He gets REALLY repetitive quickly when complaining about the trains. The only time he seems to like what he sees is when is in the far-north of Great Britain, on the North Sea in Scotland. It is poor as well, w/ sad stories about the Clearances, but at least he finds it beautiful. “Outlander” fans (including me!) would appreciate that he seemed to prefer the Scottish coast the most.
Maybe if you don’t mind the author’s navel-gazing, constant allusions to writers no one has read, and self-congratulation over the extended tour, you would enjoy the book. My MIL wouldn’t, nor probably any other citizen of the UK.
I was hoping to learn more about my mother-in-law’s birthplace in order to share this book w/ her, but she would take high dudgeon at Theroux’s description of the seashore all around her home, and his descriptions about the various British inhabitants and visitors thereof.
Theroux’s walk coincides w/ the short Falklands War between the UK and Argentina, basically over a sheep farm. Anyway, Theroux obviously didn’t like the war or the way the British people responded to it. He was also highly disillusioned at how ruined and past its prime everything looked, seemingly like an old Countess wearing moth-eaten clothing b/c she’s dirt poor but still has her haughty pride! He goes on and on about the ruined cities, which he tried to avoid, and the death of the British railway system (I thought he was walking everywhere? What’s he doing on trains?). He gets REALLY repetitive quickly when complaining about the trains. The only time he seems to like what he sees is when is in the far-north of Great Britain, on the North Sea in Scotland. It is poor as well, w/ sad stories about the Clearances, but at least he finds it beautiful. “Outlander” fans (including me!) would appreciate that he seemed to prefer the Scottish coast the most.
Maybe if you don’t mind the author’s navel-gazing, constant allusions to writers no one has read, and self-congratulation over the extended tour, you would enjoy the book. My MIL wouldn’t, nor probably any other citizen of the UK.
October 17, 2024
This was published in 1983 so a lot of it is now outdated, but it provides one American writer's view of Great Britain at that time, a lot of it uncomplimentary. This was the time of Maggie Thatcher, skinheads, race riots, the Falklands War, and The Troubles, economic depression and unemployment. Theroux had lived and worked in London for 11 years, but had not seen much of the rest of the country, or countries. He decided to remedy this and write a book about his travels, and wanting a "gimmick" for his book decided to travel clockwise around the entire coastline of Great Britain, including Northern Ireland, the latter being a little hard to do as it doesn't actually have either a southern or western coastline, only the borders of the Republic of Ireland. He avoided the interior of Britain, which is of course most of it, and refused to visit the usual tourist attractions of churches and castles and great houses. He journeyed mostly by train and by walking, occasionally by bus or by hitchhiking. This is an interesting book, and there are some good bits in it, but since the author was often cranky or grumpy about his surroundings and the people he encountered, it left me feeling rather dreary, not happy to have read it.
June 13, 2023
The year is 1982, and Paul Theroux sets off on a solitary tour of the United Kingdom. He gets around by foot, rail, bus, hitch-hiking, and a boat or two, too.
It was both interesting and often humorous to hear what Paul thought of various places within the UK, its people included. I have been to quite a few of the places mentioned, so it was interesting to see how much (or how little) they have changed, over three decades later. It seems that the people of England (or their stereotypes) haven't really changed at all!
Lots happened in the three months or so of Paul's travels. The Falklands war, The Troubles, birth of Prince William, capture of The Yorkshire Ripper, railway strikes etc.. He of course writes about these events as they transpire.
Overall, another enjoyable read from Theroux and I look forward to the next of his on my list to read!
It was both interesting and often humorous to hear what Paul thought of various places within the UK, its people included. I have been to quite a few of the places mentioned, so it was interesting to see how much (or how little) they have changed, over three decades later. It seems that the people of England (or their stereotypes) haven't really changed at all!
Lots happened in the three months or so of Paul's travels. The Falklands war, The Troubles, birth of Prince William, capture of The Yorkshire Ripper, railway strikes etc.. He of course writes about these events as they transpire.
Overall, another enjoyable read from Theroux and I look forward to the next of his on my list to read!
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