What do you think?
Rate this book
Até o Fim do Mundo
Neste livro, Paul Theroux passa um fim de tarde na casa de Jorge Luis Borges em Buenos Aires e na China pega um voo que parece mais esporte radical do que uma viagem. Descreve um banquete exótico de pratos elaborados com animais em extinção, e explora a América Latina da fronteira sul do Texas à extremidade da Patagônia - fazendo uma pausa em El Salvador para uma violenta partida de futebol.
Em 1988, Theroux atravessa a China na precária ferrovia "Galo de Ferro" com um inconveniente acompanhante governamental. Em uma estação ferroviária de Paris, o autor em-barca no Expresso do Oriente, cuja rota vai até Istambul; depois passa uma gélida noite de Natal no Expresso Transiberiano. Pelas janelas de outro trem conhece um Vietnã ainda em guerra onde crianças brincam sem o olhar protetor de adultos, porque nenhum sobreviveu.
Viajar, pelas palavras dele, com sua visão penetrante e um estilo impecável, é uma experiência que transcende qualquer turismo tradicional.
Em 1988, Theroux atravessa a China na precária ferrovia "Galo de Ferro" com um inconveniente acompanhante governamental. Em uma estação ferroviária de Paris, o autor em-barca no Expresso do Oriente, cuja rota vai até Istambul; depois passa uma gélida noite de Natal no Expresso Transiberiano. Pelas janelas de outro trem conhece um Vietnã ainda em guerra onde crianças brincam sem o olhar protetor de adultos, porque nenhum sobreviveu.
Viajar, pelas palavras dele, com sua visão penetrante e um estilo impecável, é uma experiência que transcende qualquer turismo tradicional.
421 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
116 people are currently reading
602 people want to read
About the author
Paul Theroux
237 books2,605 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
September 29, 2015
I had experienced Theroux the novelist, but I figured it's about time I stopped resisting Theroux the travel writer. This book contains large sections of 6 books of railway journeys around the globe. I concentrated on the parts from "The Great Railway Bazaar", "The Old Patagonian Express", and "Riding the Iron Rooster".
He doesn't spend any time oohing and ahing over artistic or geographical splendors or waste much effort on wonderful food and architecture. Nor does he really try to capture a country and it society in depth, marshaling lots of background material. Instead, he does well being an "every man" in rendering an open look at what he experiences, without using his platform as narrator to force some wisdom or humorous diversion. His strength is in his well crafted vignettes of the strange and interesting people he met in his travels. These characters stick in the mind as representatives of the infinite variety in people and personality, almost independent of culture. There is some wry humor, often with himself as the butt of the tale.
He unfortunately tends toward overgeneralizing certain people and runs the risk of negative stereotyping. For example, in his sketch of Mr. Chatterjee in Calcutta:
He was a Bengali, and Bengalis were the most alert people I had met in India. They were also irritable, talkative, dogmatic, arrogant, and humorless, holding forth with malicious skill on virtually every subject except the future of Calcutta.
And in Guatemala City, he propounds:
The Guatemalans, sullen at the best of times, display a scolded resignation--bordering at times on guiltiness--when the subject of earthqukes is raised.
Yet he does reflect on the vagaries of casual characterization of a people when he beholds the worldly city of Buenos Aires:
In the immigrant free-for-all in Buenos Aires, in which a full third of Argentina's population lives, I looked in vain for what I considered to be seizable South American characteristics. I had become used to the burial ground features of ruined cities, the beggrs' culture, the hacienda economy, and complacent and well- heeled families disenranchising Indians, government by nepotism, the pig on the railway platform. The primary colors of such crudities had made my eye unsuble and had spoiled my sense of discrimination.
I most enjoyed the respite from travel in the home of Borges, blind and nearly 80. His mind is electric, bouncing from subject to subject, and very strong in his likes and dislikes in literature and societies (e.g. he favors the English and Spanish and disparages Mexicans and Canadians). He has Theroux read to him from Kipling and Poe. Theroux asks him: "Do you ever reread your own work?" "Never, I am not happy with my work. The critics have greatly exaggered its importance. I would rather read"--he lunged at his bookshelves and made a gathering motion with his hands--"real writers. Ha!"
In the end, I wasn't enthalled, only moderately satisfied. I got spoiled by Bryson's "In a Sunburned Country": chock full of enlightening facts, uplifting experiences with people, and outrageously funny to boot. To be fair, Theroux doesn't really intend to render something deep or entertaining about the societies he passes through, but is using the stimulus of novel experiences while disconneted from his mundane life to construct reflective essays.
He doesn't spend any time oohing and ahing over artistic or geographical splendors or waste much effort on wonderful food and architecture. Nor does he really try to capture a country and it society in depth, marshaling lots of background material. Instead, he does well being an "every man" in rendering an open look at what he experiences, without using his platform as narrator to force some wisdom or humorous diversion. His strength is in his well crafted vignettes of the strange and interesting people he met in his travels. These characters stick in the mind as representatives of the infinite variety in people and personality, almost independent of culture. There is some wry humor, often with himself as the butt of the tale.
He unfortunately tends toward overgeneralizing certain people and runs the risk of negative stereotyping. For example, in his sketch of Mr. Chatterjee in Calcutta:
He was a Bengali, and Bengalis were the most alert people I had met in India. They were also irritable, talkative, dogmatic, arrogant, and humorless, holding forth with malicious skill on virtually every subject except the future of Calcutta.
And in Guatemala City, he propounds:
The Guatemalans, sullen at the best of times, display a scolded resignation--bordering at times on guiltiness--when the subject of earthqukes is raised.
Yet he does reflect on the vagaries of casual characterization of a people when he beholds the worldly city of Buenos Aires:
In the immigrant free-for-all in Buenos Aires, in which a full third of Argentina's population lives, I looked in vain for what I considered to be seizable South American characteristics. I had become used to the burial ground features of ruined cities, the beggrs' culture, the hacienda economy, and complacent and well- heeled families disenranchising Indians, government by nepotism, the pig on the railway platform. The primary colors of such crudities had made my eye unsuble and had spoiled my sense of discrimination.
I most enjoyed the respite from travel in the home of Borges, blind and nearly 80. His mind is electric, bouncing from subject to subject, and very strong in his likes and dislikes in literature and societies (e.g. he favors the English and Spanish and disparages Mexicans and Canadians). He has Theroux read to him from Kipling and Poe. Theroux asks him: "Do you ever reread your own work?" "Never, I am not happy with my work. The critics have greatly exaggered its importance. I would rather read"--he lunged at his bookshelves and made a gathering motion with his hands--"real writers. Ha!"
In the end, I wasn't enthalled, only moderately satisfied. I got spoiled by Bryson's "In a Sunburned Country": chock full of enlightening facts, uplifting experiences with people, and outrageously funny to boot. To be fair, Theroux doesn't really intend to render something deep or entertaining about the societies he passes through, but is using the stimulus of novel experiences while disconneted from his mundane life to construct reflective essays.
May 10, 2014
If you are a fan of travel writings and use libraries, you are stuck with Theroux. I have read the books, mostly years ago, from which these exerts are taken, found them cheerless then and cheerless now. He presents interesting information about places he travels but never gives much indication of enjoying those travels. I always feel dissatisfied after reading his books-- was it really all that bad? Still I seem to be running out of possibilities on the 800 and900 shelves of my local library. Sigh.
January 17, 2011
This book (some short stories from his other books) covers some India, some Latin America, some UK/Ireland, some China/Tibet, and bits and pieces of other places. I think he travels in pretty much the way I'd want to. Maybe he goes to a few extremes. But I quite liked his perspective: not much worrying about "am I a good traveler or just a tourist?", more just great stories. And not-so-great stories too, and seeing the interesting bits even in an odd English B&B or a terrible Tibetan trip.
May 7, 2011
I read this book several years ago, but remembered the essence of Theroux's thirst and delight with travel. It is a compilation of selections from other books covering a broad area of the world. As always, Theroux's books are not the usual travelogues, but combine history, humor and wonderful anecdotes.
May 31, 2018
Normally I tried to avoid selected readings because to me it feels weird to cut up books, but this type of travel writing is episodic, each chapter feels like its own little article, which allows you to enjoy it without reading the whole book its from.
August 11, 2025
not really worth reading if having red his other books as these are no new stories but simply excerpts from his longer books.
March 14, 2018
I marked this book "read" but I didn't read the whole thing. It was too choppy for me to enjoy, so I skipped around a lot. This was an assigned book for a class; it's bits and pieces from other books and I think I would have enjoyed just one of those books more. It felt very uneven (maybe all his books are -- this is my only attempt at Theroux). Some of the anecdotes were quite funny and entertaining while others ranged from dull to sad to just plain grimy. The first and last pieces were ones I did like. Theroux doesn't travel like most people -- he is looking for the dark underbelly of a place, and he often finds it. So if that is what you are interested in, you may find his approach appealing!
May 1, 2015
O livro é uma seleção de trechos de outros seis livros de viagens do autor. Muitos desses ainda não têm edição em português. O apanhado acaba cobrindo relatos de boa parte do mundo. O mais interessante de ler Paul Theroux é que ele não se restringe ao que viu nas viagens que fez, mas ao que viveu.
December 8, 2021
A nice collection of essays. As I expected from such a evocative writer. Wonderful , historic and timeless.
November 12, 2018
Reading Paul Theroux is like settling back in an easy chair with an old friend to listen to him regale you with news of his latest trip. Theroux is not a big-picture travel writer, looking for long term trends or a national zeitgeist. Although he writes beautifully about the scenery, even that is not his primary focus. He writes about the people he meets, sketching their personalities and quirks, and he is usually sympathetic but willing to call an ass an ass.
In this book he writes about places like China, India, and Argentina. In each of them he finds someone who he believes typifies the location, and while the vignettes are always interesting, some of them seem too broadly generalized, as he extends their portrait to represent a national character.
This book consists of extracts from his previous writings, and if it is a reader’s first time with Theroux they make a good introduction, but there is the inevitable choppy feeling that comes from being dropped into the middle of a trip, and then leaving again. If you like his style, pick up one of his other books and read about a trip from beginning to end.
In this book he writes about places like China, India, and Argentina. In each of them he finds someone who he believes typifies the location, and while the vignettes are always interesting, some of them seem too broadly generalized, as he extends their portrait to represent a national character.
This book consists of extracts from his previous writings, and if it is a reader’s first time with Theroux they make a good introduction, but there is the inevitable choppy feeling that comes from being dropped into the middle of a trip, and then leaving again. If you like his style, pick up one of his other books and read about a trip from beginning to end.
May 15, 2019
Some fantasies prepare us for reality
.
.
.
-Paul Theroux
.
.
.
The writing in this one compared to the 'happy isles' has a very cynical tone.
.
.
1. I'm not sure about the purpose of these selections, but I thought Paul was very rude throughout. Especially when he was with Mr. Fu in China. Also not sure if he was doing it on purpose to be funny, but I found each comment he would go on about was not nice at all (negative stereotyping is a big no, no)
2. It just seemed like everywhere he went, he was either insulting something or someone 🙃
3. Some good parts, most fascinating was when he was in Lhasa, Tibet. I wish he talked more about the sky burials though.
4. In a nutshell I found him to be your typical pompous, arrogant elitist that talk about how they know everything. In the book it seems like he has very slim respect for poor people. If all you do is insult people you have the desire to learn about, what is the need for insults? I don't get it.
5. This one is complete opposite of his trip to the oceania. Very dark, and probably also cause it was published in 1990. I was 3 at the time. Maybe being mean-spirited at that time was the in-thing for adults 🤷
.
.
.
-Paul Theroux
.
.
.
The writing in this one compared to the 'happy isles' has a very cynical tone.
.
.
1. I'm not sure about the purpose of these selections, but I thought Paul was very rude throughout. Especially when he was with Mr. Fu in China. Also not sure if he was doing it on purpose to be funny, but I found each comment he would go on about was not nice at all (negative stereotyping is a big no, no)
2. It just seemed like everywhere he went, he was either insulting something or someone 🙃
3. Some good parts, most fascinating was when he was in Lhasa, Tibet. I wish he talked more about the sky burials though.
4. In a nutshell I found him to be your typical pompous, arrogant elitist that talk about how they know everything. In the book it seems like he has very slim respect for poor people. If all you do is insult people you have the desire to learn about, what is the need for insults? I don't get it.
5. This one is complete opposite of his trip to the oceania. Very dark, and probably also cause it was published in 1990. I was 3 at the time. Maybe being mean-spirited at that time was the in-thing for adults 🤷
May 10, 2017
A confession first. I purchased this book not knowing that it was composed of excerpts from Theroux's travel books to date (this book was published in the early 90s). Once I found out I was quite disappointed and let it sit on my shelf for quite a while.
I eventually got down to reading it and I really enjoyed it. I am not one for reading books more than once but I must say that it was great fun reading certain stories for a second time. Nothing beats reading each of the books featured here in their entirety, but reading this book was a great way to revisit all of Theroux's early travel books.
I eventually got down to reading it and I really enjoyed it. I am not one for reading books more than once but I must say that it was great fun reading certain stories for a second time. Nothing beats reading each of the books featured here in their entirety, but reading this book was a great way to revisit all of Theroux's early travel books.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 17, 2020
Paul Theroux will transport you. Sometimes the setting is lush (Vietnam by train in 1973), sometimes bleak (Indian brothels; a rundown hotel bar in Wales), but it's always fascinating (driving 1,000 miles - and getting into an accident en route - to Tibet from China; attending a soccer game in El Salvador; interviewing Jorge Luis Borges in Argentina; staying at English bed and breakfasts while the Falklands War is underway).
January 8, 2022
My first reading of Theroux - not at all what I expected, but thankfully a refreshing approach to travel writing. Talk about going "off the beaten path"! His traveling style (like a native....) and writing provide true portraits of the areas he visits.
I would give my left arm for a narrative or video of Theroux and Anthony Bourdain jointly exploring the deep corners of the inhabited planet, probing, eating, and drinking their way through the native culture! But alas......
I would give my left arm for a narrative or video of Theroux and Anthony Bourdain jointly exploring the deep corners of the inhabited planet, probing, eating, and drinking their way through the native culture! But alas......
July 12, 2022
Reading this, I realized travel writing is not my thing. Through most of the book I kept wondering on the author's arrogance, audacity, and pretension. I was ready to give this one just two stars, but then at the end (it's always at the end), the author wrote something quite charming -- charming enough to give this three stars and have me re-think my view of the book.
If you like travel writing, this is the book for you.
If you like travel writing, this is the book for you.
September 27, 2020
This looked interesting even though I don't generally go for travel books. Theroux is well recognized for his writing but the current generation does not know him. I can relate to this book because I traveled quite a bit myself. The experiences were similar...nothing glamorous about it, just everyday people in different places.
April 29, 2022
Very enjoyable, occasionally irreverent travelogue. Somewhere between Redmond O'Hanlon and Patrick Leigh Fermor. But... probably a lot of Hanlon. Relatively light and funny and never overly historical. Theroux moves through a wide variety of landscapes with an eye for bizarre and amusing vignettes.
June 19, 2022
I have read most of Theroux's travel works, and they are all excellent (although most are now dated, and I'm never sure if it is all true, but he tells good stories). It is impossible to remember all the details, so it was nice to sip on some reminders - excerpts from six of his books collected here.
November 1, 2017
I did not enjoy this as much as a previously read book; The Great Railway Bazaar, partly As this was only a selection and lacked the natural sequence. His observations are astute and his descriptions rather amusing.
February 23, 2019
This is not one of my favourites of his.
Very disappointed with this selection.
One of his weakest books, but I did enjoy the beginning section on the England and their use of English--quite hilarious.
The problem with this collection is there is nothing to get your teeth into. Very short stories and hard to get a real view on any of the places he is talking about--they begin and then they end in the middle of nowhere. Don't know who chose what but not a very good selection of his wide body of work. Good travel writing can't just be about snippets of conversation you need some background and finishing. But it looks like the editors just plucked out certain selections.
I find that I am skipping pages--something I rarely do--the Chinese section is better than most.
This short collection is a sad attempt.
His Tao of Travel was quite good in comparison.
My favourite is Dark Star Safari
Very disappointed with this selection.
One of his weakest books, but I did enjoy the beginning section on the England and their use of English--quite hilarious.
The problem with this collection is there is nothing to get your teeth into. Very short stories and hard to get a real view on any of the places he is talking about--they begin and then they end in the middle of nowhere. Don't know who chose what but not a very good selection of his wide body of work. Good travel writing can't just be about snippets of conversation you need some background and finishing. But it looks like the editors just plucked out certain selections.
I find that I am skipping pages--something I rarely do--the Chinese section is better than most.
This short collection is a sad attempt.
His Tao of Travel was quite good in comparison.
My favourite is Dark Star Safari
June 29, 2021
The Best Travel Writer in the World
Paul Theroux writes of journeys to unchartered places and makes our minds expand in the process. I can no longer go on explorations and discoveries, but I can travel vicariously through Theroux.
Paul Theroux writes of journeys to unchartered places and makes our minds expand in the process. I can no longer go on explorations and discoveries, but I can travel vicariously through Theroux.
June 15, 2017
This inspires me to write up some of my travels.
Worth a re-read.
Worth a re-read.
April 24, 2018
A Good introduction to Theroux style of writing, very enjoyable.
If you have never read Theroux before this is a good selection to get you started, true world travel writer.
If you have never read Theroux before this is a good selection to get you started, true world travel writer.
June 4, 2018
I really enjoyed the book. I would recommend this to anyone who travels.
March 7, 2019
Enjoyed this book thoroughly.
December 14, 2019
Paul Theroux is one of the best travel writers of our generation...the risks he takes, the patience he has, and the ability to remember it all makes him a rare breed.
February 5, 2020
Um diário de viagem muito recheado, e boas histórias.
April 20, 2020
I have read all of these before (with the possible exception of the stories from 'Sunrise with Seamonsters') and was curious to see if they still hold up. They do.
June 17, 2022
A pleasant overview of Paul's writing from the distant past (~1980).
June 7, 2023
Theroux's lyrical writing transforms the ugliest places and most uncomfortable experiences into mezmorizing tales. Great book for those who love travel and good writing.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews