旅行上癮者

by Paul Theroux, 保羅·索魯, 金佑蘭 (Translator)

本書是保羅·索魯的短篇旅遊寫作文集，全書收錄了他從1985年至2000年所撰述的旅遊文字。他說：「我生命中有很長一段時間是住在不屬於我的地方，我一直是個不折不扣的異鄉人。」而他離家踏上異鄉的生命起點，就在他完成大學學業、加入和平工作團的那一天。這年他二十二歲，一九六三年，目的地：非洲尼亞薩蘭。在這片遙遠的熱帶土地上，保羅有一種賓至如歸的感覺，「地球上有一道裂縫從加利利海延伸到莫三比克海岸，而我就住在裂縫的邊緣，在尼亞薩蘭。……」這篇描述地球另一端的旅遊文章，正式開啟了他的作家寫作生涯。

遊子的行腳一經邁開，就再也停不下來。非洲之後，保羅又前往新加坡、英格蘭多塞特郡、倫敦、南美巴塔哥尼亞高原、中國、太平洋諸島等地，或長期居留、工作，或單純旅遊、泛舟。很長的一段時間，保羅完全處於失聯狀態，因為對他而言，這是邁向作家之路最好的途徑。「旅行，是一種從地平線消失的孤獨之旅……」雖然孤立疏離，思緒靈感卻份外清明。

旅遊了大半輩的保羅·索魯，在這本書中記憶著過往點滴，最終他明白，寫作之於他，就像是一條回家的長途之旅；繞了地球一大圈，遊子總會踏上歸途，不再當個異鄉人。

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Essays, Memoir, Audiobook, Writing, Politics

576 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Paul 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.

Reviews

[Diane in Australia · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Who are the great travelers? They are curious, contented, self-sufficient people who are not afraid of the past. They are not hiding in travel; they are seeking. Recently I was on the northern Queensland coast of Australia, in an aboriginal reserve. In the most unlikely spot I encountered a beachcomber who had been living there for several years. He was looking for plastic floats and bottles, building a raft that would take him around the top of Cape York in one of the most dangerous channels in the world, the Torres Strait. I asked him if he knew the risks.

"I'm not bothered," he said. "You can go anywhere, you can do anything, if you're not in a hurry."

That is one of the sanest statements I have ever heard in my life."

4 Stars = It gave me much food for thought.

And, just for the heck of it, 'cause I love this pic of Paul Theroux! ... lol
(Paul Theroux by Nancy Ellison - London 1987)

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

From this book and 'Sir Vidia's Shadow,' which I also recently finished, I can say that I very much trust Theroux as a reliable guide and observer, an insightful writer about people and place. I've read little of his fiction so far (only a few stories here and there, never a novel) but I liked this collection of travel writings a good deal. The book is divided into thematic sections, which really helps as there are numerous essays here, all written between 1985 and 2000. Early on Theroux makes a case for travel writing and the kind of writing one should aspire to: "An unlikely source, Nabokov's novel, 'Laughter in the Dark,' contains a passage that amply illustrates a justification for Chatwin's sort of travel writing. One of the characters says:

"A writer for instance talks about India which I have seen and gushes about dancing girls, tiger hunts, fakirs, betel nuts, serpents: the Glamour of the Mysterious East. But what does it amount to? Nothing. Instead of visualizing India I merely get a bad toothache from all these Eastern delights. Now, there's the other way, as for instance, the fellow who writes: "Before turning in I put out my wet boots to dry and in the morning I found that a thick blue forest had grown on them ("Funghi, Madam," he explained)...' and at once India becomes alive for me. The rest is shop." [49-50].

Theroux continues: "In seven long travel books and an assortment of shorter ones, I have been, figuratively speaking, putting my wet boots out to dry and describing what the morning brings. I've taken people as I've found them." [50]

And now for your amusement, an excerpt from Theroux's essay, "Unspeakable Rituals," in the very last section of this collection:

The Mouse Missions of the Plashwits
"Among the Plashwits, a pastoral people in central Asian Turkestan, the ability to carry a live mouse in one's mouth for a great distance without harming the creature is regarded as an essential skill, acquired in the passage from boy to man.
"A Plashwit boy becomes a warrior by feeding flesh from his own body to the mouse, and once the mouse is fattened in a way that impresses the commander of the Plashwit army, it is eaten.
"The male organ in Plashwit is also known as a mouse. Plashwit women are forbidden to look at a mouse or even utter the word." [444-45]

Not all of the book is this exotic of course, and in fact this essay is unlike any of the others, being composed only of these curious rituals from around the world.
No matter the subject, Theroux is consistently engaging and insightful.

[Chris Steeden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Theroux is my favourite travel writer. He is also a novelist but I have not read any of his novels (I have seen Mosquito Coast). Yes, he can come over as a bit of a curmudgeon sometimes in his travel books but that just adds to the honesty of his writing and personality. Here he tells us what is required to become a writer and how he fitted into this creative art. It appears that going out with the Peace Corps to Central Africa stirred the juices. That area had a little more going on than his hometown of Medford, MA.

He had joined the Peace Corps specifically to avoid being drafted into Vietnam. He is sent to Nyasaland which would become Malawi. ‘In Malawi I saw my first hyena, smoked my first hashish, witnessed my first murder, caught my first dose of gonorrhoea.’ Yikes!!

These are all articles / essays that were in magazines or self-published and include being a writer, kayaking in different countries including the US, Hawaii, Trobriand Islands and Palawan, Philippines to which Theroux says ‘that it was one of the best places I had ever been’, illnesses, train journeys, winter camping, his on-going hunt for the wilderness areas, travels down the Zambezi, German humour, travels down the Yangtze, the hand-over of Hong Kong back to the Chinese, his life in Hawaii, trip to Christmas Island where the British tested the H-bomb, how his books came about, his thoughts on other people’s books, his friendship with Bruce Chatwin and other authors.

All a bit of a hodgepodge as you’d expect. Some of it I loved (travel essays) and other bits I did not care for particularly (writing about other authors). Still, this gives quite an insight into Theroux and his thinking. I just want to get onto his travel books now that I have not yet read.

[Jo Deurbrouck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sigh. Halfway through, I may need a Theroux break. Vinegar is not the only seasoning that makes food taste good.

The man is an exquisite wordsmith and a sharp-eyed observer, but one of the things that means is that his lack of compassion, lack of empathy and big doses of judgmental superiority sparkle like diamonds throughout the essays. I want to yell every so often, "YES! We are not as cool as you! If we concede that point, apparently so important to you, can you mellow out and tell us a good story?"

I'm also a bit peeved with his repeated assertions that solitary travel is the only kind of travel that really means anything, when clearly he has guides and companions to get him to and through some of these difficult destinations, like, say, Africa. I travel too, so I know that getting there IS the journey, and if you've hired a guide and then you pretend you're on your own, you're dishonest at an essential level. He describes companions who can translate for him and answer his questions, but then it is always Paul pitching a tent alone. Do they exit stage left or what?

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paul Theroux describes in this book the King of the Lozis at a bend in the Zambezi river or crossing the United States while traveling by train, relating his unforgettable experiences

[Will Ansbacher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book I wish I had read earlier because it may be as close as we get to an autobiography, and I have always wanted to understand what drives his writing.
I love Paul Theroux’s travel writing, and I’ve never understood why people consider him such a cranky grump; rather there’s an abundance of affection for people he meets. In this collection of travels, essays, personal history and much else, what is remarkable is his forbearance under duress (even if it’s all self-imposed). It is such a pleasure to read, for example, his understated comments about the extremely rich tourists he travelled with in China. Reading between the lines, you get a clear idea of how grating some of them must have been.
One minor quibble is that the collection was published about 10 years ago now and some of the pieces were not recent even then, so I would have liked to know just when they were written - it’s not always easy to get that from the context.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Few books oscillate this wildly from the profound to the profoundly boring. Paul Theroux, I don't care about each and every one of your kayaking misadventures or the toast you made off Nantucket over a camp fire. I do like some of your other essays though.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of Theroux's shorter travel pieces. Most have something interesting to offer ... cruising down the Yangtze in 1980 when the Cultural Revolution was fresh in people's minds; visiting Christmas Island in Micronesia, once the site for nuclear testing; comments on travel writing and travelling. I would give it 3.5 stars, maybe not quite up there with his fuller travel books, but readable nevertheless.

[Julie Lozano · Rating 4 out of 5]

For most of us; a hard read but so worth the time. I reread a lot of pages to really feel what he was feeling. The traveling he did is amazing and what most of us would be scared to do. A very interesting and informative read.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Theroux says normal people don’t become writers. It is just not healthy to sit in a room for hours staring intently into your own mind. He counter-balances this basically inward condition by paddling thousand of miles in a kayak. In Fresh Air Fiend he explains why and how this type of therapy has become an intrinsic part of his life. This pot- pourri of his experiences and reflections, is more about Paul the human being rather than Paul the observer, than any his other books. He explains why he wrote the books he has, and why he took the trips that inspired them. He never intended to be a travel writer. Like Mark Twain, another great travel writer who needed to make a living as a writer, he did it out of necessity. The fact that he has always been an outsider—just the unhealthy prospective you need to succeed in his line of work—helped him become one of our best contemporary commentators.

Linda Ballou-adventure travel writer and author of
Lost Angel Walkabout-One Traveler's Tales and Lost Angel in ParadiseLost Angel Walkabout: One Traveler's Tales

[Parvathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a 3.5 really. This book of essays is a mixed bag, both in terms of quality and topics. Some riveting pieces of travel - Christmas Island, the Peace Corps experience in Malawi, HongKong just before the handover, rowing down the Zambezi. And some really boring ones - the one on '80s China seems really dated today and the rowing to Nantucket wasn't my cup of tea. The writer profiles were cool -
especially Chatwin and Greene. There are a few compelling pieces on his own books and how they came about. Overall, Thoreaux is being Thoreaux - cranky and disgruntled a lot of the time and amazingly buoyant sometimes. A fun read.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3* but only just.

[Rob Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really looking forward to "Fresh Air Fiend: Travel Writings" by Paul Theroux, but sadly, it didn't quite meet my expectations. While Theroux is an acclaimed travel writer, this collection of essays felt rather disjointed and struggled to keep me engaged. The book comprises a variety of travel pieces spanning different times and places, but the lack of a cohesive narrative thread made it difficult to stay interested.

Theroux's writing is, as always, rich in detail and vivid descriptions, painting a clear picture of the places he visits. However, the fragmented nature of the essays disrupted the flow and made it challenging to connect with the stories on a deeper level. Each essay seemed to stand alone, lacking the continuity that might have tied them together into a more compelling read.

Additionally, while some of the essays contained insightful and thought-provoking observations, others felt repetitive and uninspired. This inconsistency left me wanting more from a writer of Theroux's calibre. It's a shame because the potential for an immersive and engaging travel narrative was there, but it fell short due to the scattered structure.

"Fresh Air Fiend" has its moments of brilliance, but the disjointed compilation and varying engagement levels of the essays ultimately made it a less satisfying read for me. If you're a dedicated fan of Theroux's work, you might find value in the individual pieces. However, if you're seeking a cohesive and captivating travel memoir, this might not be the best choice.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I grabbed this on audio, as I enjoyed Norman Dietz' narration of Theroux's Old Patagonian Express. But this end of the millennium collection seems more odds and ends. Even the gifted voice actor cannot do a lot with the ramblings of this peripatetic travel tale teller. Back to his travelogues, which seem often more cohesive, given their naturally linear rather than sauntering pace. I may revisit FAF after his tidier books.

[Miguel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uma ântologia de texto previamente publicados, na sua maioria em revistas de viagens. A organização faz-se por temas (por exemplo, China, Havai ou textos sobre livros de viagens). A escrita é, como sempre, entusiasmante, e Theroux é sempre igual a si próprio.

[Graham Bear · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rather wonderful collection of essays. I was surprised at how much I learnt from this book. As usual with Mr . Theroux this work was eloquent and beautifully written.

[Prima Seadiva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Library Audiobook. Reader okay. Though he can write quite beautifully, it was kind of trudge to get through (19 discs). I would have liked a bit more background about the essays in terms of how they were organized and the chronology. This may be available in other editions but like most audiobooks this had no information. Some chapters did have a verbal listing of what was to follow but it didn't really help.
Some essays were interesting, some boring and some were rants about other travelers and people often about traits displayed by the author. This last is something I have noticed in some of his other work.
So while I kind of enjoyed it I think a hard copy might be a better to approach the large amount of material but so often my eyes just can't take smaller type in large doses anymore. Too bad at least at our library, the large type section runs mostly to pop action and romance.

[David Dannecker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of good stuff in this collection, especially for a long-time fan of Theroux’s work, but it definitely has the feel of being the cutting room floor for some of his other travel novels. The writings that most felt on theme were the ones about feeling at home in the outdoors and extolling the wonders of paddling in a kayak. Dead Reckoning to Nantucket, Paddling to Plymouth, The Maine Woods, and the titular Fresh Air Fiend were my favorite chapters, and teased the concept and themes of a more cohesive travel novel. These made reading the book feel justified, and earned the three stars. I also greatly enjoyed the section of Part Seven where Theroux wrote about the circumstances surrounding his own novels; it was pretty biographical and it was interesting having read most of the mentioned works to hear the context for their creation.

Much of the rest of the book feels like a retread of his other novels, such as Paddling the Pacific or Riding the Iron Rooster. Since many of these articles were written seemingly without the intention of being included in the same volume (or perhaps cut from other works?) there is quite a bit of repetition. Some sections have multiple chapters reintroduce the same “characters” repeatedly, with the China/Hong Kong section probably being the worst offender on that front. The eleventh hour switch to fiction in Part Eight was odd and unexpected - literally the whole book up to that point, including the first chapter of Part Eight had been nonfiction so I had to double check to make sure I hadn’t accidentally slipped into a preview of his next fiction novel - I had not.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book, but not all of it. It’s best to think of this book as basically being akin to the deleted scenes section of a DVD or BluRay. Lots of writing by an excellent author that didn’t make its way into other final drafts, but still deserved to be published and read somewhere. If you are used to Theroux’s books that tell the story of a single journey (Dark Star Safari, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, etc), this will have a very different feel, being a collection of shorter works that often feel disconnected, and somewhat disorganized. If you are a fan of his work and enjoy his writing however, it’s a welcome add-on to the rest of his bibliography.

[Raghu Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is one of the best I have read from Paul Theroux. It is a great collection of essays on travel, adventure, his writer friends and his vision of what travel is all about and why he travels and what travel has taught him and how travel has 'made' him. Every time I read him and see the way he writes, I get discouraged about my own attempts at writing because I feel that one should write only if one can write like him; otherwise it is not worth writing.

This book has two lovely essays on Cherri-Garrard and Robert Scott's adventures in sourcing emperor penguin eggs in the Antarctic winter and the journey to the south pole. Theroux quotes Cherri-Garrard's philosophical words: "...if you have the desire for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore. If you are brave, you will do nothing. If you are fearful, you may do much , for none but cowards have need to prove their bravery...".
In the introduction 'Being a Stranger', Theroux gives clues to his existential condition. He says , "For long periods of my life, living in places where I did not belong , I have been a perfect stranger. I asked myself whether my sense of otherness was the human condition....I was an outsider before I was a traveller and I was a traveller before I was a writer.....One of the paradoxes of otherness is that in travel, each conceives the other to be a foreigner. But even the most distant and exotic place has its parallel in ordinary life.."
Theroux says that he discovered who he was and what he stood for through solitary travel.He has done solo adventures in remote and rather dangerous places around the world. For him, being in a kayak and sailing away into the ocean is the perfect way to be at one with himself.

This book has excellent and penetrative insights and essays on China just at the time of handover of Hong Kong to China. His tribute to Bruce Chatwin and Moritz Thomsen is touching. Also, for all those people who keep saying that he is a misanthrope, his tribute to one Rajat Niyogi, an Indian in Uganda in the 1960's is a must read.
I enjoyed reading this book very much and learnt much from it. It is one of Paul Theroux's best.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a strange mixture of Paul Theroux's non-fiction writing. There was less of his usual travel writing, which I enjoy so much.

Near the beginning was an large, difficult-to-digest chunk on modern China reminiscent of the least enjoyable swathes of a school history syllabus. I willed myself through it and ended up feeling I knew a bit more about the country, if not attracted to it. However, it is surely a worthy report and analysis. Theroux really does get right into the thick of places and his anecdotes about individual people are vivid.

The remainder of the book featured travel writing in the form of articles and essays. Of particular interest, I thought, were those on the Upper Zambesi and the hand over of Hong Kong.

Other parts discussed diverse themes including the actual business of travel writing and a fascinating one about other travel writers including Graham Greene and Bruce Chatwin.

A bit of a mix, this book, where one might be inclined to skip sections, but there is much of interest and several delightful pieces.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything folks in the reviews here are saying about Paul Theroux's character is quite possibly true. He certainly goes off the edge on occasion (most particularly when writing ungenerously about other writers) where I just know that if I was having coffee with him I would find an excuse to get up and leave. But that's likely true of most of us. And he has a really good side too. And his flaws do not change the fact that he's a great observer, he has a keen sense of what matters, and he has traveled to an extraordinary number of places and he writes about them in wonderful detail. He always talks about the people he meets. The theme of outdoor exploration is really a loose pretext for this collection I think. It is an incredible globally wide ranging travelogue. I learned so much from this book. I highly recommend it.

[Alexis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this collection to be a bit uneven. Admittedly, I did skim some of the essays and entries. Sometimes Theroux can be a wonderfully funny and irreverent travel writer. Other times, he comes off as whiny and crabby. There were some pieces that I absolutely loved, and a few that I skipped. Good if you want to dip in and out, I guess.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a fan of Paul Theroux in the New Yorker. I've never picked up a collection of his essays and decided to try this one. This man is adventurer extraordinaire, but his pretension is a little overpowering. Also, he might be the one adventure writer who hates China (besides Grace Paley back when she was a pro-Communist student).

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of the book was ok although I did not enjoy the essays about authors' books and about funerals. So I skipped them.

[Sandie · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this anthology, Paul Theroux writes about various trips he has taken around the world. Although many identify him as an author who writes about train trips, his preferred method of travel is kayaking or sailing around coastal lands. In this book, he talks about his trips in Hawaii, Easter Island and Palawan. He also talks about travel in the United States which was the first I had read of his travels here. He spends a lot of time in Cape Cod and surrounding areas kayaking and also discusses traveling in Florida.

But it's not all self-travel. He talks quite a bit about his time in Africa with the Peace Corps and how he started his travel book writing along with the novels he writes. He also spends time talking about China and a trip he took down the Yangtze River and areas adjacent such as Hong Kong before the handover.

In an interesting ending to the book, he has articles about other travel writers, all of whom he knew. He discusses Bruce Chatwin, John McPhee, V.S. Pritchett, Graham Greene, William Simpson and Rajat Neogy and it is interesting to see his take on other travel writers and his generosity in talking about them.

I came to know Theroux's writing through his novel, The Mosquito Coast and then started reading his travel books. He is an American author, although he lived in England for seventeen years while married and raising his family. He has traveled and written about his travels all over the world and he descries the 'travel' of most tourists who have a tailored experience set up for them by others. This book is another in his many travel books that readers will enjoy and it is recommended for nonfiction readers who enjoy learning about the physical world around them.

[Camerin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up years ago in a used bookstore because I liked the title, I felt that I , too, was a fiend for fresh air. After languishing on my bookshelf, untouched, since then, I recently found myself in a new home with my boxes of books still sadly unpacked. Desperate for something to read one night, I opened up one of my boxes and pulled out the first unread book I saw - this one.

And OH ITS SO GOOD. To be fair, in the first couple essays I was pretty sure that I hated Paul Theroux- he seemed so full of himself, arrogant, prickish. But for some reason I kept reading… by the time he was waxing poetic about his foldable kayak , I had done a complete 180 on my assessment of his character, now finding him curious, bold, and sure maybe a little bit cleverer than the rest of us. I warmed to his sense of humor, and his deep empathy for humanity .

This book sparked my long neglected wanderlust, my desire to write, reminded me that the world is big and wild and curious and so much more than the little spot I currently occupy on it.

11/10, can’t wait to read more by this author, picking this collection of his travel writings up was a gift from the universe 🤍

[Diane Reynolds · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was once quite an enthusiastic reader of Theroux, and had read all of his books up until about ten years ago, when I began to sense a kind of crabbiness in his commentaries. Each time this vague awareness sneaks up on me, I go back and retrace my reading, trying to find some evidence of my vague unease, something at least more concrete that an unsupported "sense" of something chafing, but each time, so far, I've failed. So I conclude that I must be the one bringing the crabbiness to bear, and keep on. Still, I can't entirely banish the sense that Mr. Theroux is not enjoying the people he comes into contact with in his travels, and because the people one meets, or merely observes, while traveling is one of a journey's rewards, it tarnishes the pleasure I used to have in reading his essays. I've not yet given up, but I have slowed down. This book in particular took an unusually long time to finish. Each time I picked up where I had left off, I had to reread a few pages, kind of rev myself up again, to get into the spirit of the thing once more.

[Aida Fonollera · Rating 3 out of 5]

In today’s age and time, it is easy enough to travel, pick your choice: land, air and water or space, take snapshots and come back home with memories. And why am I reading a travel book, again? When all it has done was put me to sleep. Because of this, I dared myself to find one that wouldn’t. And I had wanted to see what others found.

Theroux enlightened me to look at travel book from another angle.

“.... some travel book ought to have prepared us for those events....i.e., Iran and China Tiannamen Square.... maybe even prefigured them....”

As a peace corp in his younger days, it may perhaps contributed to the author’s love for travel. And not merely traveling itself as a tourist, but using a not so common mode of transportation searching for that joy in travel.

A bestseller, this is the second book I am reading by this author. He has mentioned his love for the open air, space which is completely opposite to a writer’s space, a chair, a room, a table, alone in solitude.

This book is a collection of essays written at different times.

[Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my tradition of reading the wrong book first, I would recommend reading Theroux’s other travel books first before this. Not all of them, but at least one. That was my mistake, because this book is less travel book and more behind the scenes of his travel stories. Although still interesting, it would have been better had I read some of his travel stories (or even fiction) before this.

As mentioned, this is more stories of where and how he wrote his other travel stories more than separate travel stories in themselves. There are also some book, I want to say reviews, about his own books and the books of other authors. It’s a collection of essays on the outskirts of his main body of work to date, it seems. Inspiration, behind the scenes, context, etc…

Overall, interesting but not exactly what I was expecting.

[Tyler Schmied · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paul Theroux's observations on travel, politics, and culture are fascinating to read, coming from a well-traveled perspective between 1985-2000. The variety in subject, time, and place make this collection of essays more enjoyable, as it does not rest upon one subject or area too long. Theroux writes of far-off islands, China in the throes of cultural revolution, writing as a profession, fellow travel writers, and famous travellers. This collection has something for everyone, and the personal stories that Theroux details, his meetings with interesting people and wonderous places, transport one on a journey across the world and, in 2024, through time to an era of political upheaval and decolonization.