| Title | : | Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0618446877 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780618446872 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 485 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2002 |
Gauging the state of affairs, he talks to Africans, aid workers, missionaries, and tourists. What results is an insightful mediation on the history, politics, and beauty of Africa and its people.
In a new postscript, Theroux recounts the dramatic events of a return to Africa to visit Zimbabwe.
Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town Reviews
-
WHY do I keep reading books by this man? For some unknown reason I assume that I'll garner some great knowledge form his books or be more amused than frustrated. Thus far: not. Instead I'm annoyed by his arrogance and his assumption that he's different from other white people in Africa because he "knows" that the aide system is faulty or because he lived there in the 60's. Just because you have a backpack and a history with Africa doesn't make you an expert, and Theroux whining about the fact that Africa hasn't lived up to its promise since he was there last only makes him look like all the people he criticizes. He wants Africa to make leaps and bounds in its economic and political policy, but then how would he be able to write so endearingly of the street urchins and the poverty? After all, seeing those things and writing about them makes him strong and experienced, right?
I agree that the current Western participation in African affairs is getting Africa nowhere, but I don't assume that makes me a genius or that I have my finger on the pulse of African issues. If you want to write a book about Africa, write about AFRICA and about how cool you are because you can travel there and not have any concern for your safety. If you want to write a travel book, write a travel book and don't be so bloody sanctimonious! Don't travel in crappy cars or eat bad food just so you can prove that you've "lived like an African." How condescending, to assume that Africans don't know anything better.
Can anyone tell that this guy annoys me? And yet, I'll probably read another of his books because I want to actually feel like he's not as much of a schmuck as I think he is. I can admit that the book has some insightful or well written passages, but in general I think it's another white person thinking he's got Africa down. Shut it. I'll bet he took a big bottle of hand sanitizer everywhere he went, he just didn't write about that. -
Grrrrr! Oh how this man irritates yet enthrals me!
I have just tramped down through Africa in the footsteps of Theroux, sighing and tsking, yet unable to put the book down. This man is a genius writer, yet so darn cantankerous, curmudgeonly and scathing that he made me want to throw the book on the floor and mash it. Even when he relishes a place, it often seems that it is the dirt, the stink and the squalor that inspires him. It's a kind of machismo. Proof that he isn't a tourist, but a bona fide explorer and traveller.
Yet he does take us where we - tender visitors on river cruises and to safari lodges - would fear to go. He gets under the fingernails of Africa, on one heck of a magnificent journey down the spine of this vast continent. There were some places I was fascinated to read about - like Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and the wilderness of the Shire River - and some I found boring - like Egypt, or his travels across Lake Victoria. But all the time he kept pulling us forward through this often torturous land. Time and time again he shows us how subsistence farming and subsistence living have replaced the grandiose stamp of colonial history, and he conveys both respect and disgust for these changes. He spits vitriolically at the idea of aid to Africa, and the culture of dependence that he feels it has created. Herewith an extract about his views about charity in Milawi:
He seems so determined - especially in central Africa - to see things in a negative light. At one stage he visits the school where he used to teach when young and in the Peace Corps, castigating it's demise - the loss of teachers, the stolen library books and the falling-down buildings. Yet he meets up with an ex-pupil who is obviously doing brilliantly well. Surely the heritage of that school would seem to lie with its pupils - the people that Theroux taught in younger and perhaps more idealistic days. Schools are not just bricks and mortar.
The more he moves further south the more he mellows. His views about Zimbabwe are positively uplifting, in spite of his recognition of its problems. In South Africa he brilliantly evokes the extreme contrasts - the wealth, culture and wonderful animal life, versus the crime, and the tough life experienced by the poor in squatter camps outside Cape Town.
On the very last leg of his journey, as he travels back from Cape Town to Johannesburg on the famous and luxurious Blue Train, a girl in one of the townships stops by the train to beg for food. He gives her nothing. As they start to move off she lobs stones through the window. It seemed a kind of retribution for the sourness of his writing. -
When Paul Theroux was a young man,he lived and taught in Africa.After thirty five years,he returns to Africa for this travelogue.
He starts off in Egypt,doing the rounds of the usual tourist attractions.In Cairo,people don't see themselves as being part of Africa.Africa to them is poorer,under developed and dangerous.
But Paul Theroux is determined to traverse Africa,no matter how dangerous it may be.He manages to procure a Sudanese visa,with considerable difficulty and thus begins his trip to the real Africa.
At that time,the US had dropped bombs on Sudan,while trying to kill Osama Bin Laden.It didn't seem very safe for a lone American to be travelling in Sudan.However,the people were friendly towards him.He got to see a vast,unexplored country with pyramids of its own which had been damaged.
From there,he moved on to Ethiopia's capital Adis Ababa,with its crumbling infrastructure and filth.He visited Harar in Ethiopia,where he encountered open hostility from the locals.
Given Africa's problems,Theroux likens it to a dark star.While Kenya is famous for its safaris and wild animals,and has been romantacised by the likes of Hemingway and Isak Dinesen,Theroux's impressions are very different.It is a dangerous and violent place,with lots of unemployment,crime and bandits.
Then,it's on to Uganda,where he had lived in his youth.It's relatively stable.Tanzania is poor,and travelling by train there is very unpleasant.In Zambia,everyone seems to be infected with AIDs,as girls as young as ten are forced into prostitution.
Malawi is so poor that a person's annual income equals the cost of a meal at an American restaurant.He spends way too much time there,refreshing the memories of his youth.Then,he goes to Mozambique,with its years of civil war and abundance of land mines.
Zimbabwe is next,with its skyrocketing inflation,the repressive rule of Robert Mugabe and the forcible occupation of white farmers' farms by the blacks.
After that comes South Africa,and despite being the most prosperous country in Africa,it is still crime infested.A look at the newspaper scares Theroux,it is full of crime of the most vicious sort.
Cape Town,under Table Mountain has some of the most beautiful mansions and some of the most desperate squatter settlements.
It is a very long and grueling trip.I almost found myself exhausted by the hardships he describes,while travelling rough.Primitive accomodation,dangerous places,bandits,disease and the chance of getting killed on the roads by incompetent drivers.But he braves it all.
The journey doesn't end happily,his valuables get stolen in South Africa.Breaking his return journey in Ethiopia,he gets African parasites,leaving him sick for months,after his return home.
The book began well,but became rather boring in the later half.Could have used a fair bit of editing.Still,an entertaining adventure.And as he writes,the best travel is a leap in the dark.And there is no shortage of unpredictable adventures on this journey. -
Planes, trains and automobiles…
…and a ferry; rickety, smelly mini-buses; a dugout canoe, taxis and a cattle truck.
I give mad props to Theroux for humping it from Cairo to Cape Town at the age of 59, but this type of transport (he only used a plane once: to fly into Khartoum) would scare away the more discerning traveler – me. This makes me even more grateful for Theroux’s firsthand account of Africa.
Foreshadowing book spoiler: He quotes and draws comparisons from Joseph Conrad’s
Heart of Darkness. A lot.
I like to read the occasional travelogue. A good travel writer gives you a window into their adventures, combining wit, history and insight into the present day doings of the area/country/continent they are visiting. As to humor: Bill Bryson (thankfully) looks for the punch line, Theroux’s humor is of the curmudgeonly sort – here, for example, pointing out the contradictory nature of the work of missionaries and aid workers. He spends pages raking a missionary over the proverbial coals – using his own thorough knowledge of the Bible to continually punch holes in her arguments. As much as I love a good verbal pummeling of a hypocrite, this was, even for me, excessive.
After traveling through several of the poorer countries of Africa, and, although many aid workers have their hearts in the right place, he sees foreign aid rapidly removing all incentive from Africans to do things for themselves. The vicious cycle goes like this: Country despots skim off significant portions of aid for themselves, little of it, if any, ever reaching the intended, who remain poor, jobless and hungry, thus drawing the need for still more aid.
Theroux’s book isn’t a total festival of misanthropy. He visits old friends (he was in the Peace Corp), makes new friends, hangs out with hookers, and generally appreciates the pace, beauty and “otherness” that is Africa.
So far the Theroux travel books have been engaging enough to want to continue reading them – a decent mix of humor, history and bumpy rides.
Theroux’s Bottom line: African cities are a mess; the true generous and open spirit of the African people still exists in the villages.
And here’s the requisite wacky movie (see above) gif:
Is that a Nubian Banana or are you just happy to wake up next to me? (see my updates below if you really require an explanation) -
"Really there is no deadlier combination than a bookworm and megalomaniac. It was for example the crazed condition of many novelists and travelers." - Theroux on Mugabe
************
In 2001 Paul Theroux returned to Africa and traveled from Cairo to Capetown at age sixty. Thirty four years earlier he had taught in Uganda, where he worked with V S Naipaul, later to become Nobel Laureate. Since then Theroux gained fame and fortune as a novelist and travel writer. This was his middle travel period. He had begun in 1973 with 'The Great Railway Bazaar' and was still at it in 2018.
Theroux starts off in a cantankerous mood. Prior to leaving for Sudan he takes a Nile cruise from Aswan to Luxor. He criticizes ancient temple defacement, reconstruction and mocks the tourists he travels with. He is not a chauvinist, he reserves a special contempt for his American compatriots. At a Russian resort on the Red Sea he can't rest or relax until he is on his own, far from the beaten track.
Catching a flight to Khartoum, Theroux watches indigenous dervishes and rides Osama bin Laden's highway to Sudan's pyramids. In the mountains of Ethiopia he traces the steps of Richard Francis Burton and Rimbaud to a medieval walled city where hyenas roam the streets. In Addis Ababa he meets a founder of the Rastafarian movement who had pioneered repatriation of the African diaspora.
Travel by dirt road through northern Kenya was risky. Bandits shoot at trucks Theroux rides. In Nairobi crime and poverty rule the streets. Diplomats smuggle ivory as foreign aid is pocketed by politicians. Humanitarian groups and wildlife reserves are counter productive and self serving. Fleeing urban squalor he beats it back to the bush. The Great Rift Valley and Lake Victoria lay ahead in Uganda.
En route to Kampala the countryside looks better and yet political violence persists. The city and Makerere University were his home in 1965. In the years since Idi Amin things fell apart. Theroux recalls Naipaul's fear of Africa. This trip seems to support that aversion. He meets an old friend, now a Prime Minister. Dodging an ebola outbreak he books ferry passage to Tanzania on a vintage colonial steamship.
An antique British train takes him to Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean. Passing former fields of cash crops, tobacco and coffee were replaced by corn and beans. Socialism and capitalism had failed. Farmers fell back to subsistence ways or guiding westerners on safari. In Zanzibar, earlier an Arab slave trading island, Theroux tells how the missionary doles and microloans replaced mismanaged grants.
Theroux rides a Chinese cultural revolution era railway to Malawi, a gift to free people from South African imperialism. Indian merchants who had come in the days of the British empire were driven away after independence. Their stores lie abandoned but the coffin business is booming from AIDS as underage prostitutes ply their trade. He rides a beat up bus packed with locals and livestock to his old school.
Theroux waxes poetic about the trash and filth he finds on the way. Child beggars and youth gangs follow in his wake. Officials of all kinds demand bribes. The college he taught in is ruined, the grants stolen. Everywhere are agents of virtue, known as foreign aid workers, in new white Land Rovers. The system is so entrenched it is part of the permanent economy. He rides a dugout canoe down the Zambezi.
Through Mozambique's bombed buildings and land mines left from the civil war Theroux reaches Zimbabwe, ruled by madman Robert Mugabe. The country is in the throes of land reform. Blacks invade white farms with AK47's to claim the property. Land that fed a thousand now feeds a family while Comrade Bob turns a blind eye. The inequity is noted without reflecting whites had stolen the land before.
Theroux arrives in Johannesburg now full of immigrants and crime. He meets paleo-anthropologists and political activists imprisoned during apartheid. Despite his carping he visits a game preserve and then boards a luxury train to Capetown. A day trip to refugee camps reveals mistreatment of whites. On the way back he learns that V S Naipaul had won the Nobel prize for fiction and travel literature.
At first I was put off by Theroux's snide tone. Defending his backpacker credentials he jeers at foreigners on safari. Most people would rather be thought a traveler than tourist. As a former Peace Corps teacher, he sneers at the charity agency volunteers. Across ten countries he is undaunted by safety, health or language concerns. By the end I was convinced he's an authentic traveler and eccentric human being. -
Is the real Africa on its death bed?
Forty years after a stint as a Peace Corps worker in Malawi and a teacher in Uganda, Paul Theroux decides to return to Africa to see how his former haunts have made out over four decades and how his friends are doing. Travelling in a distinctly non-tourist mode - chicken buses, overland train, feluccas, rental car, ferry, dugout canoes, cattle trucks, trains but avoiding planes at all costs - Theroux travels overland from Cairo to Cape Town and discovers an ailing Africa. The question is not whether there are problems but whether the ailments he encounters are terminal.
DARK STAR SAFARI is not a travel guide or, for that matter, a travel journal of the form that many potential readers might expect. Rather it is a dark and very bleak sociological commentary that is a blend of vitriol and anger, pessimism with the odd interlude of ultra-cautious optimism, sadness and cynicism and, if I may make a personal observation, despair. There were problems when Theroux first entered Africa but what he found today was more of the same but worse - more corruption, more poverty, more violence and crime, more hunger, more racism and bigotry, less education, more decrepitude, less infrastructure and, sadly, more apathy and indifference.
If Africans can find a way to rid themselves of the entrenched dependence on handouts and the apparently complete lack of motivation that is engendered by the self-serving approach of first world Western institutionalized charities such as UNICEF, SAVE THE CHILDREN and WORLD VISION, then there is also a hope that Africans can find the political maturity and the will to develop themselves into something beyond what Theroux saw in his extended tour. Until that happens, it is quite clear that tourists to Africa will see nature, big game reserves, eco-parks and so on but they will not see (nor is it likely that they would wish to see) the "real" Africa. It's too dangerous and, in my opinion, it just doesn't sound like a very pleasant place to visit.
DARK STAR SAFARI is well-named. It is not light or easy reading but it is educating, informative and profoundly thought-provoking. Highly recommended.
Paul Weiss -
"Out of touch in Africa was where I wanted to be. The wish to disappear sends many travelers away." - Theroux on Africa
"Really there is no deadlier combination than a bookworm and megalomaniac. It was for example the crazed condition of many novelists and travelers." - Theroux on Mugabe
In 2001 Paul Theroux returned to Africa and traveled from Cairo to Capetown at age sixty. Thirty four years earlier he had taught in Uganda, where he worked with V S Naipaul, later to become Nobel Laureate. Since then Theroux gained fame and fortune as a novelist and travel writer. This was his middle travel period. He had begun in 1973 with 'The Great Railway Bazaar' and was still at it in 2018.
Theroux starts off in a cantankerous mood. Prior to leaving for Sudan he takes a Nile cruise from Aswan to Luxor. He criticizes ancient temple defacement and reconstruction, and mocks tourists he travels with. He is not a chauvinist and reserves a special contempt for his American compatriots. At a Russian resort on the Red Sea he can't rest or relax until he is on his own, far from the beaten track.
Catching a flight to Khartoum, Theroux watches indigenous dervishes and rides Osama bin Laden's highway to Sudan's pyramids. In the mountains of Ethiopia he traces the steps of Richard Francis Burton and Rimbaud to a medieval walled town where hyena roam the streets. In Addis Ababa he meets a founder of the Rastafarian movement who had pioneered repatriation of the African diaspora.
Travel by dirt roads through northern Kenya was risky. Bandits shoot at trucks Theroux rides. In Nairobi crime and poverty rule the city. Diplomats smuggle ivory as foreign aid is pocketed by politicians. Humanitarian groups and wildlife reserves are counter productive and self serving. Fleeing urban squalor he beats it back to the bush. The Rift Valley and Lake Victoria lay ahead in Uganda.
En route to Kampala the countryside looks better but the political violence persists. The city and Makerere University were his home in 1965. In the years since Idi Amin things fell apart. Theroux recalls Naipaul's fear of Africa. This trip seems to support that aversion. He meets an old friend, now Prime Minister. Dodging an ebola outbreak he books passage to Tanzania on a vintage colonial steamship.
An antique British train takes him to Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean. He passes former fields of cash crops, tobacco and coffee, that were replaced by corn and beans. Socialism and capitalism had failed. Farmers fell back to subsistence crops and guiding westerners on safari. In Zanzibar, earlier Arab slave trading island, Theroux says missionary doles and micro loans replaced mismanaged grants.
Theroux rides an old Chinese cultural revolution railway to Zambia, a gift to free people from South African imperialism. Indian merchants who came in the days of the British empire were driven away after independence. Their stores lay abandoned but the coffin business is booming from AIDS. Underage prostitutes ply their trade. He rides a beat up bus packed with locals and livestock to Malawi.
Theroux waxes poetic about the trash and filth he finds on the way. Child beggars and youth gangs follow in his wake. Officials of all kinds demand bribes. The college he taught in is ruined, the grants stolen. Everywhere are agents of virtue, known as foreign aid workers, in new white Land Rovers. The system is so entrenched it is part of the macro economy. He floats in a dugout canoe down the Zambezi.
Through Mozambique's bombed buildings and land mines left from the civil war Theroux reaches Zimbabwe, ruled by madman Robert Mugabe. The country is in the throes of land reform. Blacks invade white farms with AK47's to claim the property. Land that fed a thousand now feeds a family while Comrade Bob turns a blind eye. The unspoken irony is that whites had stolen the land a century before.
Theroux arrives in Johannesburg now full of immigrants and crime. He meets paleo anthropologists and political activists imprisoned during apartheid. Despite his carping he visits a game preserve and then boards a luxury train to Capetown. A day trip to refugee camps reveals mistreatment of whites. On the way back he learns V S Naipaul had won the Nobel prize for his fiction and travel literature.
At first I was put off by Theroux's snide tone. Defending his travel credentials he jeers at foreigners on safari. Most people would rather be thought a traveler than tourist. A former Peace Corps teacher, he sneers at charity agency volunteers. Across ten countries he is undaunted by safety, health or language concerns. By the end I was convinced; he is an authentic traveler and eccentric person. -
This was my first Theroux and, on finishing it, I couldn’t fully judge of the tone of a book that was written near what will likely be the end of his career, after a certain cynicism has taken root. Since then, I’ve read The Great Railway Bazaar (his first travel book) and now a good chunk of Ghost Train.
First, it has to be said that this book is very NOT-P.C. (to say the least!). Theroux has what often appears to be an open and unapologetic contempt for many of the black Africans he meets and describes -- certainly a contempt for what they’ve made of themselves and of their societies. There is a contempt for the entire African/ThirdWorld AID industry (whose representatives he sneeringly refers to as ‘agents of virtue’), those smug, insulated, liberal do-gooders riding about in their large, white Land Rovers, hanging around the fancy swimming pools of the luxury hotels, never mingling with the people they claim to help, not even willing to lend a hand to a stranded white man in need of a ride, spending wads of OPM (Other People’s Money) not simply in ways that are unhelpful, but in ways (Theroux believes) that are positively harmful. He cites books like The Lords of Poverty and The Road to Hell, as well the opinions of many Africans (black and white) who confirm this bias (he may be right in this; I’m in no position to judge). On the other hand, he shows great sympathy for the white South African and (formerly) Rhodesian farmers, who many of us would tend to view as being reactionary forces. I wouldn’t be surprised if this book brought down upon Theroux’ swampy head a heap of anger – and, indeed, charges of out and out racism.
But it’s not so simple, because he also quite obviously has a deep love and respect for the old African societies he viewed so hopefully in his youth, when he spent 3 years in the Peace Corp in Malawi and had (during the years of his early friendship with V.S. Naipaul) a Nigerian girlfriend. He seems (albeit in his wholly curmudgeonly way) to be motivated not by race-hatred, but more by an absence of white guilt – quite a different thing. So, when people shout out to him, ‘Hey, White Man”…, he gets fed up and says – “Hey, you want me to call you ‘Hey, Black Man’?” and people (that is, Blacks) respond, not surprisingly, in a positive way to this bold assertion of his own rights to individuality. People respect you when you respect yourself.
Theroux is, indeed, quite the cosmopolites – fleeing the artificiality of the developed world, in search of the authentic, of the ‘noble savage’, if you will…, if such remains – and he is an experienced and exuberant libertine (for all his protestations of restraint) for whom there must have been more than a little of the Richard Burton lurking in his wanderings.
Is this racism? Well…, it is a slippery slope, no doubt…
Nor is Theroux an entirely admirable personality. As a writer, even at his best, there is always something of the hack about him. Some of the writing in Safari is particularly cheesy, and his best works, his travel writings (I’ve never read the novels), are largely based on a formula and gimmick. His cynicism and the occasional mawkishness are well known. And his history with Naipaul, for all his self-justifications (Sir Vidia’s Shadow), leaves something to be desired on BOTH sides:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/do...
But it must be said, in reading this late work (pub. in 2002) that Theroux is someone who seems to have grown, and to have grown better and deeper, and more urgent…, which is not often the case with men (women, perhaps, are different), who are more frequently diminished by success and by aging. For all his flaws, in other words, Theroux has increasing been willing to look the beast… the beast of his personal weaknesses, of his mortality, and of his love… nay, his lust for life… a love ultimately doomed by the facts of nature… directly in the eye. And the result is a certain poignancy and beauty that is fully in evidence in this wonderful book.
This book is a redux. Having lived and traveled long ago in Africa, just during the period around Independence, he decided to go again in 2001 (or thereabouts), and to travel alone, without lots of money and without any entourage, by bus, train, walking – each stage of the route dictated by chance – from one end of Africa (Cairo) Xto the other (Cape Town), along the Eastern half, through Ethiopia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Malawai, South Africa, sleeping in cheap hotels or hovels, on busted down rusty buses and trains, basically ‘bumming thru’ Africa’…. And this, without a phone or blackberry, not as a 25 year old or a 34 year old (Great Railway Bazaar), but at the age of 60…!! This was quite feat, as those of you who are in your mere twenties will someday realize.
And what he saw was that Africa, so hopeful in 1972, has become ruinous. Ruinous because of the effects of colonialization; because of the effects of freedom, and corruption, and the profound and dire incompetence of the Africans themselves; because of the AID agencies who build Dams and projects that no one will ever use, instead of helping the Africans thatch their roofs; because of the stupidity both of modernity AND of those who will not be so easily modernized.
His description of the Grand Hotel in the town of Beira, Mozambique (347), a huge colonial skeletal structure facing the Indian Ocean, decrepit, “had been taken over by plunderers and invaders. These homeless people were living in the guest rooms and had cooking fires going on the balconies and had rigged up tends on the verandas. Some were emptying buckets of shit over the rails; their laundry hung limp on strong-up lines. The building was a vast crumbling pile of broken stucco and rusted railings, filled with ragged squatters. Smoke issued from most of the rooms. I supposed that for some people this looked like the past, but to me it had the haunted look of a desperate distant future, an intimation of how the world would end, the Third World luxury resorts turned into squatters’ camps.” (Cp. the collapse and ruin of Mbeya, in Tanzania, at 270f.)
Or the story of the Wagogo, living in the hot, dusted, ruined plains of Tanzania, 30 of them huddled under the shade of a single tree to escape from the blasted rays of the midday sun – but who never thought, to escape from this, simply to plant a few extra trees...
At any rate – this is a powerful and moving book, despite its flaws. -
For me this is the best Paul Theroux that I have read.
It was better (in my opinion) that his other travel non fiction (
The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia,
The Old Patagonian Express,
Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China), and I think there are a couple of reasons.
Firstly, in Dark Star Safari the travel was not all by train. This meant there was more to write about. In his other books (which I also enjoyed - don't get me wrong), there is only so much he can describe about the train itself, and the method of travel. This book opened the door for more descriptive writing about travel method.
Secondly, and probably more importantly, while Theroux was his usual pessimistic, fault finding, negative self, he was being far more accurate with his assessment of Africa. What I mean is, in other books where he tears into the people, the places & the culture, they are often not all as bad as he makes them out to be. In this book, a lot more often than not, the situations he describes negatively are in fact pretty dire. So this brings an accuracy to his pessimism.
Thirdly, Theroux has an opinion which he spends a lot of the book discussing - his premise that continued foreign aid in Africa has a negative effect rather than a positive effect - and this lets him examine and re-examine with examples this theory. The fact I buy into this, probably makes this book more enjoyable for me as a reader.
So to the book - Theroux travels overland (mostly - there was a short ride in a small plane due to border difficulties) from Cairo to Capetown. He takes in Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Some places he is visiting for the first time, others he is returning to, and has a frame of reference. He spent time in Malawi in the Peace Corps, and as a teacher in Uganda, so has some comparisons to make there.
Along the way, he makes literary references - some involving people he knows and meets, others purely by reference. He also reconnected with people he knew from his previous time in Africa, including the President of Uganda!
“I had some good friends - really funny ones. My best friend was a guy called Apolo Nsibambi. We shared an office at the Extra Mural Department at Makerere, and then I got a promotion - became Acting Director - and I was his boss! I used to tease him for calling himself “Doctor” - he had a Ph. D. in political science. I mocked him for wearing a tie and carrying a briefcase and being pompous. I went to his wedding. He came to my wedding. And then I completely lost touch with him. I wonder what happened to him.’ ‘Doctor Nsibambi is the Prime Minister of Uganda.”
All up, one of the best books I have read this year. Five stars. -
This was an endlessly patronizing, infinitely tedious rant from a burdened white man.
Perhaps the most annoying travel book I read.
Take 54 seats Paul Theroux. I'd recommend
Dark Continent My Black Arse if you're looking for a Cape to Cairo travelogue. Infinitely better.
Edit:
Found this
article which, while reviewing
The Last Train to Zona Verde: My Ultimate African Safari, might as well have been reviewing this book.
Excerpts
"As Theroux-watchers will know, his sub-Saharan travelogues read as if he had taken Binyavanga Wainaina’s sarcastic instructions on “How to Write About Africa” literally. He is, as the sharp-eyed blog Africa Is a Country remarks, “so reliable that way”. He mints generalisations and insults at such a clip that they soon begin to outstrip even the most gifted parodist..."
The rhetoric is so offensive and plain bizarre to anyone making her or his life in “Africa” that I had no option but to pretend that we were in a different genre, to keep imagining the book as a comic novel with a deliberately unlikeable narrator.
Bankrupt in more ways than one, then, this is a book I would recommend only as a teaching aid or to someone interested in tracking the final sub-Conradian wreckage of a genre, rusting away like the hulks of tanks that so fascinate the narrator along the roads in Angola. It is imbued not just with the narrator’s old age but the senescence of an entire genre..."
---
And there you have it. Don't waste your money on this book. -
This is Paul Theroux’s journey from Cairo all the way down to the tip of Africa to Cape Town. Very little of this is done luxuriously. He takes random taxis and buses that are overcrowded. Most of these vehicles are in a decrepit state – and likely would not be allowed on roads in a First World country. He, also journeys on boats of variable size – from old boats left over from colonial days to canoes. And most infrastructure (buildings, roads, bridges, …), most forms of transportation are left-overs from colonial days and have not been maintained very well. The roads have huge potholes, there are roadblocks, and sometimes they are shot at by various rebel groups. It is also possible that the since this book was published in 2003, that the Chinese have upgraded or built new roads and buildings for their exploitation of African resources.
He journeys through Egypt (on the Nile), Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and lastly South Africa. The author complains about the poor conditions, the continually expanding slums, the lack of planning, and the lack of safety in many of the cities he visits and contrasts this with the apparent self-sufficiency that is in the rural country-side. Yet my understanding is that the country-side is far more vulnerable to roaming bands of armed militias.
I really was captivated by many of the anecdotes, observations and conversations that this rather curmudgeonly and misanthropic author had with the wide diversity of people and landscapes that he encountered. He can have a very dark humour. He points out how life is so different in the various countries he journeys across. We are made very aware of the distinctions across this vast continent. Despite the negativity there is a certain humanism that surfaces from time to time. Theroux is at his best when he can maintain a neutrality from his subject matter.
But about two-thirds of the way through this book there arose a tiresomeness that started to set in. He tells us repeatedly that he feels that all the aid agencies in Africa do not accomplish much. He becomes increasingly derogatory about them. His argument, which has some validity, is that they just create a dependency and they do not empower the African people. They serve as a constant back-up – when things go wrong just notify the aid agencies to come to the rescue. Also, the money is often pocketed by corrupt government officials. The constant demeaning remarks on the aid workers become too repetitive – as in give it a rest Paul.
Also, Paul Theroux demands a lot of attention to himself. He worked as a teacher in Africa (Uganda and Malawi) in the 1960s. Somehow, he thought he would return as the “conquering hero” – he informed the U.S. embassy in Malawi that he was willing to give some lectures at a local college – they ignored him – sending the author into another rant about inept, indifferent government officials.
Maybe he just felt down-beaten by being a lone traveler constantly vigilant to his surroundings and fending off predators (beggars, thieves, prostitutes) who would congregate around him. He responded at times aggressively when they called him mzungu (white man). He stayed in some rather dismal hotels. But what did he expect?
He also exudes a smugness of his opinions. I felt him very dismissive of the aid workers he encountered. In Cape Town he visits an old writer acquaintance (I don’t want to give the name) and proceeds to tell us of how significant and wonderful this writer is on the plight of Africa. I despise this when a writer gives us an unrestrained promotion of another writer. I really don’t give a flying…
I also didn’t give a … about this soft-core porn book (he called it erotic) that he was writing and referring too.
There were still many searing passages in this travelogue across Africa, but this book could have been shortened by at least a hundred pages. -
Near the end of Paul Theroux's north-south journey across the African continent, from Cairo to Cape Town, he allows himself the luxury of a swanky South African train trip, a rare mode of transportation for this usually spartan traveler in this fascinating trek on board cattle trucks, minivans packed to the roof with Africans, rickety matutus, canoes and proper boats. During a train stop a child begs in a prayerful way. Theroux, from the train, can't bring himself to toss food to her. After the train starts, the girl flings stones through his window, just missing him. Such "What do you do?" moments in relation to charity are a big part of this journey for Theroux, who, as a white man, is descended upon by Africans of every age almost everywhere he goes. For the poor on the continent, begging is a way of life.
On a bigger scale, attempts to help Africans help themselves through endless charity is counterproductive. Money goes in the pockets of corrupt politicians, aid is resold. Foreigners had been helping them so long that Africans lost interest and motivation.
But there's much more to Theroux's travels than gripes about donor nations. And on this safari, it is people, not animals, Theroux seeks out. Thirty-five years after Theroux lived in Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer and teacher, he returns in 2000 (or thereabouts) to find the continent worse off than he left it. He finds countries poor and dangerous, mean cities of little hope.
Theroux's tale acquires more dark momentum the closer he gets to the equator. Starting out amid pyramids and Sudanese proving irresistible to European types ("We find Nubian banana"), he seeks people he knew from his Peace Corps days and ordinary strangers who have contempt for him because of the color of his skin or who want nothing more than to go to America; people trying to take advantage of him or treating him with real kindness. We do not love Theroux, but we cannot help but admire his courage in often taking the most difficult route possible and for his sharp way with words. His pace is leisurely; he doesn't have a schedule, and his family doesn't know where he is. He likes it.
Theroux covers many aspects of African life:
Waiting for a visa, waiting for transportation ("In a place where time seemed to matter so little, there existed a nihilism that was also a form of serenity and a survival skill."); ancient infrastructure, vehicles, buildings ("That's what happened in Africa; things fell apart."); dangerous types said to be around the bend ("'There are bad people there,'" the direst warning, heard time and time again); those trying to help, with varying degrees of real commitment ("Aid workers are the last to offer travelers assistance."); hopelessness of city life ("African cities became more awful — more desperate and dangerous — as they grew larger.")
It's not all hopeless (the journey has its funny and uplifting moments), and not all of "Dark Star Safari" is concerned with black Africans — there are white Africans too, of course, and the horrors of the government-sanctioned seizure of white farmers' land in Zimbabwe (and the brutal murder of whites) and the frustrations of whites in the new South Africa who now live in a far more just society but find themselves on the outside looking in, are touched upon.
Theroux likes all this, the grains of hope, the beauty of Africa, its contradictions and horrors: "I had fulfilled one of my fondest yearnings at the outset of my trip, for this was the territory I lit out for, and cruising down this empty river in a hollow log was pure Huck Finn pleasure."
It's a pleasure for us, too, but an often disturbing one.
-
Theroux is a pompous ass. A just-compelling-enough pompous ass.
-
This book was a great read for a student of international development/relations. I understand the author's cynicism, admire his risktaking, and appreciate his insight into the impact of decades of foreign intervention in Africa. I didn't feel he was overly arrogant for a journey of this depth and magnitude; it certainly added to the story, for better or worse. It was an enjoyable read, full of analysis, rather than simply description.
-
A trek through the heart of Modern Africa
16 May 2015
Well, I have already written three blogposts worth of thoughts on this really interesting book, however I will simply touch on a few more important points for those of you who don't have the time (or the inclination) to read through what I have written elsewhere (and the links to those posts are below). Anyway, this is the diary of a journey that the author took from Cairo, across the African continent, to Cape Town. His original intention was to travel entirely by land, however since the Sudanese border was closed (and the fact that he wanted to travel legitimately, meaning no sneaking over the border, and no bribing officials) a couple of legs were by plane.
Anyway, Theroux had been in Africa in the 60s, first as a teacher in Malawi and then as a university lecturer in Uganda. However due to the deteriorating situation in Uganda at the time he, and his wife decided to leave and ended up settling in England. Years later Theroux decided that he wanted to go back to Africa and visit some of these places to see what had changed, but to also simply escape and wander across the continent completely cut off from the modern world. The story of his journey, while not necessarily eye-opening, is interesting to say the least.
The first theme that comes up regularly in the book is that of the modern tourist industry, an industry that Theroux really does not particularly like. In a way the industry is simply another form of entertainment where tourists go and see a sanitised version of the continent, whether it be to the ruins of Ancient Egypt, the big game parks of central and southern Africa, or the cheap coastal resorts. Okay, I must admit that I quite enjoy travelling myself, however I have also experienced this modern industry where travel agents do their best to book you into some of the most expensive hotels simply to jack up their commissions, and where you are shielded from the worst excesses of some of these countries. In places like Tanzania the tourist enters via a shiny new airport and is whisked away by minibus on sealed road to the game parks. What they do not see is the grinding poverty and the decaying infrastructure off of the main route.
Decay is another thing that is repeated throughout the book. Africa in many cases is a land that is in decay, and in a way it is simply because the locals do not have the mindset that those of us in the developed west have. While we may be regularity repairing our homes and maintaining our roads, the Africans have never really done that in the past and the only reason much of this infrastructure was built was thanks to the European settlers. As the wave of independence spread across the continent many of the colonial governments were expelled to be replaced by governments consisting of the local people, people who had no experience in running a modern state and people who too easily succumb to corruption. While western countries may give aid to the government, or provide assistance with trade, much of this money never makes it to the community level and instead disappears as soon as it hits the minister's desk.
Theroux seems to be very critical with regards to the aid industry, and while I am only going by his word, in a way I am not surprised. The question that is raised is why is it that many of these countries are still living in abject poverty despite all of this money and all of the agencies working here tirelessly for decades. Theroux suggests that a part of it is because aid is big business, and if these countries were lifted out of poverty then there would no longer be any work for them. Another suggestion is that these organisations don't educate the local population, but rather do everything for them. For instance they dig wells and the build schools, and then they leave, and while the community may have this brand spanking new building, they don't really know how to keep it in good condition, and as such it begins to decay. Another thing is that these countries are really cheap and this provides young aid workers an adventure that doesn't cost all that much. Thus they can sit in their resorts sipping margaritas by the pool, and then go out performing some project that in the end will do nothing for the community. I guess it all comes down to the old axiom – give a man a fish and feed him for a day, but teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.
Don't get me wrong, I believe aid agencies do a lot of good for many of the communities that they help. Sure, Theroux suggested that these agencies love disasters because it brings them money in the form of donations, but famines are even better because while a natural disaster may occupy the minds of the western world for a couple of weeks, a famine can last a lot longer. It is with disasters that these agencies really begin to shine because many of these countries do not have the infrastructure, or even the resources, to be able to deal with the consequences of a disaster, which means that these agencies can get feet on the ground to supply food and medical aid quickly, which helps prevent the spread of diseases. While the disaster may have an immediately effect, if help does not come quickly, disease can quickly take hold and end up leaving a much, much greater death toll.
Yet these is also the problem with the fact that if you simply give things to people then these people become to expect these gifts. Some may scoff at the idea that giving a beggar money only works to encourage them, but the sad truth is that in many cases it does. I have even heard stories that here in Australia backpackers will pose as beggars to top up their travelling allowance. Granted, there are people out there that are genuinely in dire straights – in particular the mentally ill that simply cannot take care of themselves. Rent increases are increasingly marginalising people and pushing them out onto the streets, and when somebody hits the street, it is very hard for them to turn their life back around. However there is some truth to the fact that simply by giving money to people doesn't necessarily help them, it simply rewards them for in effect doing nothing. This is also why I have concerns about giving houses to the homeless. Don't get me wrong, I believe that everybody should have a roof over their head, but then there are many of us who work really hard to maintain that roof over our head while others are misusing their funds and regularly getting bailed out by the government, and it is not just the undeserving poor, it is the corporate world as well.
Anyway, I'll finish off there, though this is sounding like I have suddenly drifted far over to the right. This is not the case because not everybody has the skills or the ability to sell themselves that others have. However everybody should be entitled to receiving a far rewards for the work that they put in, but some people just find it really hard to find work. This is where I believe assistance needs to be provided, not by simply giving people money, but by providing meaningful work that pays a decent wage so that they might also participate in society – oh and also getting rid of the advertising industry that uses psychological manipulation to enslave the masses into a debt that they cannot ever pay back.
Part one of my post
can be found here.
Part two of my post
can be found here.
Part three of my post
can be found here. -
At Elephantine Island near Aswan an Italian priest talking about Sudan says ’Wonderful people. Terrible government. The African story.’
Theroux goes back to Africa 40 years after being there as a schoolteacher. He says that ‘Africa is materially more decrepit than it was when I first knew it – hungrier, poorer, less educated, more pessimistic, more corrupt and you can’t tell the politicians from the witch-doctors.’ You know what you are going to get from Theroux. Yes, he can be a little grumpy but his writing and straight forward opinions are all still to the fore. He says ‘The best travel is a leap in the dark. If the destination were familiar and friendly what would be the point of going there?’ Going there he does and the reader is richer for it.
His plan is to go from Cairo to Cape Town. He wanted to disappear, be out of touch. He didn’t want people to contact him. He was fed up with predictable routine and mostly with phones but who would soon get fed up with embassies. ‘No one knew I was in Mozambique. This sort of disappearance made me feel wraithlike and insubstantial, as though I had become a ghost without the inconvenience of dying in order to achieve it.’
He is extremely prescient as well. At the moment of writing this review there was the scandal in Haiti with Oxfam. While in Kampala, Theroux goes on to say how prostitutes follow the money and where there are aid organizations prostitution is rife. He also talks about the presents from other countries like a school or a clinic. When the funding stops then it is not maintained and it fails. This happened in the UK when lottery money was given for a brand-new swimming pool. It was fantastic but there was no money to keep it going so it just stood there falling into disrepair.
His time in Malawi is also such a disappointment to him. He was a teacher there in the 60’s and things have not got better at all. The descriptions of the school and the town he was in and the house he lived in bring so much unhappiness.
I just loved following him on his African journey all the way down to Cape Town. If he got told not to do something because it was too dangerous he would do it. Foolhardy? Maybe. Great for travel writing and reporting it certainly is. He meets a cast of characters. The old, young, poor, rich, friendly, pestering… The whole range. Each pass on some interesting advice / reality / history. -
I read this a chapter or two chapter at a time over a period of 2 months. It is a book to savor. There are not many books I read again, but this one is on my list.
This is a difficult journey and Theroux, traveling alone, might not have emerged from it alive. His advantages were years of travel and previous acquaintance with the continent.
The most interesting vignettes were his visit with Mahfouz in Egypt, the boat trip across Lake Victoria, entering any country, visiting friends from his former school, and the descriptions of the situations in Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Theroux shares his strong opinion about the role of aid in Africa. It does seem that the aid is misdirected. The attitude, "I am poor because no one helps me" certainly pervades the latter part of the book. I don't see how the situation can continue, nor how withdrawal of aid will bring about a sustainable society.
This trip will be hard to replicate, by Theroux, or anyone, in the foreseeable future. This and other Theroux travelogues are bound to be classics. I recommend them for armchair and real travelers everywhere. -
4.5 stars
A grim and fascinating journey through Africa, the "dark star" continent, with Paul Theroux. This is my fourth book by Theroux, my third of his travel diaries. I have now followed Theroux on intrepid and gripping trips in China (
Riding the Iron Rooster) and South America
The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas), in addition to Africa. Theroux is older here, jaded and cantankerous, but his writing is just as sharp, his observations just as cutting, his style just as persevering and inquisitive as always.
The trip doesn't start well - the chapters on Egypt are by far the weakest in the book. It's when Theroux starts moving south, through Sudan and Ethiopia, that the trip truly begins in earnest. It's a grueling schlep, on rattletrap minibuses and rickety trains and dubious water vessels, from a skeleton-crew steamer on Lake Victoria to a longboat steered by the ganja-smoking Karsten, but utterly spellbinding. Theroux is no stranger to roughing it - he sleeps on bug-infested mattresses/tents/benches in the most far-flung places, shares moving vehicles with cattle and would-be rapists, and endures months of suspect nourishment. What makes every interaction so colorful is Theroux's ability to recall his conversations in astonishing detail (it helps that he's a fastidious note-taker). These are the real gems of his African safari: the voices of the African people, fellow travelers, and every manner of aid worker, missionary and do-gooder who dares to cross paths with Theroux, who wears his conversational boxing gloves to sleep, to shower and to sh*t, so prepared is he for a little vocal jousting. These conversations were enlightening, infuriating, and hysterical.
What elevates this travelogue to a must-read is Theroux's observations on the African people ("men under trees, doing nothing"), the aid organizations that have made charity into a veritable business, and the governments and politicians that have sucked donor aid dry while mercilessly leaving their people, wildlife and crops to wither and die. He spares no one from his scathing attention. In his postscript, Theroux speaks with Roger Chongwe, former minister of justice in Zambia, who sums up the African problem: "They [aid workers] are entrenched. Charity is a business. They don't even think about leaving. They've created an imbalance in food, artificial shortages, sudden surpluses from abroad that undercut local farmers. They make more problems than they solve. [...] They send us doctors. Two thousand doctors have been trained by the University of Zambia Medical School. Fewer than one hundred and eighty have remained in the country. Does that make sense? [...] The donors must fuck off. Write that down! Use my name! [...] What we need is non-corrupt government. There has not been a free election here since the 1960s."
Theroux has the added benefit of seeing Africa through the perspective of his younger self, circa 1965, one of the first Peace Corps volunteers in Uganda, where he spent three transformative years. That makes this journey bittersweet as Theroux reminisces on better times and laments the Africa of 40 years ago; according to him, things have taken a dire turn in every country through which he passes, with all of the hope of self-governance flagging as corrupt ministers, under the influence of everyone from Mao to Qaddafi, and self-appointed messiahs grabbed hold of leadership positions and never relinquished them. Theroux observes that as the government has turned its back on its people in favor of personal wealth and power, and the locals have returned to the hand-to-mouth subsistence crop farming that sustained them for thousands of years. His book is also full of hordes of people demanding from him handouts, harassing him ceaselessly, relentlessly, and, in a surprising number of instances, those who scream at him on sight, whether in fear or in anger, for being white.
Powerful, dark, and rich, this is travel writing at its most grueling, scathing, and unforgiving. There is suffering, but there is grace. There are monuments of splendor, but there is unfathomable ruin. There is growth, but as soon as something grows it is abused and destroyed. There is God, but there is despair. There is beauty, but there is disease. Everywhere there is disease: sickness, deformity, AIDS, rape, voodoo, murder, stonings, female circumcision, addiction, greed, extinction, malnutrition. A million hands outstretched in need. Africa, intimidating Africa with its green farms and its endless deserts, its scavenged beaches and filthy cities, if not experienced first-hand, is quietly traversed by following in Theroux's restless footsteps. -
Funny. I had a Paul Theroux on my shelf for years, untouched, and finally decided to take it with me to the Chicago Book Festival last summer where I released it. Theroux was speaking so I thought it would be cool to release one of his books just outside the tent where he was speaking. I left the book next to one of the tent stakes and went inside to hear him talk. He was a fabulous storyteller and I immediately regretted that I had given away his book. I went out to try to retrieve the book, but it had already found its way into the hands of a couple who loved the whole BookCrossing idea. Never did journal the book, but I definitely knew the book had a good home. And I've been itching to read Theroux ever since I heard him speak. I vow not to let this book go before I've given it a thorough reading.
Later:
I've been reading this book in bits and pieces for a couple of weeks. What a great safari it has been. Theroux has guided me through Egypt and Sudan, Kenya and Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa. His adventures and misadventures have led me to conclude that I will never visit Africa outside the pages of a book. A wonderful, awful trip to a wonderful, awful place. -
A reasonably well written and interesting book about Africa.
There are very interesting bits about places rarely visited by Westerners (such as Sudan) that are surprising and vividly narrated by the author.
Quite heartbreaking is the terrible condition in which many countries in Africa still find themselves in, and the author's cynicism is very understandable, considering the history and the realities which Africa must face. His insight into the impact of decades of foreign intervention in Africa (including the work done by International Aid organizations) is also pretty disheartening.
So much has to change in Africa before real improvement can kick start.
A honest book containing a cynical but sincere assessment of reality in this long suffering continent. -
What an arrogant, hypocritical dick! One picks up this book hoping for an armchair traveling voyage through East Africa. What one gets is a self-righteous White Man who describes himself as grizzled and wise at the ripe age of 70-something, pointing out numerous times that many Africans guess he's in his 40s because they are so unused to seeing old men. He paints himself as impervious to the dangers of Africa because he's Been There Before, and can speak to natives in their own language. He sneers at rich, white tourists, even though he is a "famous author" who can afford to spend months traveling the slow route through several African countries. While he mocks white tourists who don't see the "real" Africa because they travel through airports, he stays in the best hotels he can find. He name drops Conrad and Dickens to sound Important without contextualizing or explaining the significance of these works to the reader.
I hoped he would detail the cultures, people, and history of ancient lands that are now Ethiopia, Mozambique, Somalia, and other nations, but he is a lazy traveler who allows his nations to blend together so blurrily that I found myself labeling the chapters by the country he was in, since there were few clues except borders that indicated he's actually moved. Either he's not very skilled at researching beyond the British classics he name-drops, or else all Africans are one and the same to him. And he calls other tourists lazy??
But the worst part of all is his scorn for charities and Christians. He addresses the valid fears that aid societies are teaching Africans learned helplessness, but he offers no hope. This kind of despair is more fitting for a socio-economic work, not an armchair traveling memoir. Whatever. What is profoundly more damaging is his dismissiveness of charities in general, acknowledging only once that aid workers do good. He mocks Christians for their beliefs and evangelizing without explaining why Christian teachings are harmful for Africans. He seems to mock the belief system merely because he disagrees with it. Talk about arrogance! As for hypocrisy, he vaguely refers to his own history as a teacher in Africa, working for the Peace Corps (gasp! he worked for a charity?!), without discussing his apparent switch from pro-aid to anti-aid. And, as he is going to celebrate a birthday on his trip, he contacts several people in former areas in which he taught about appearing on a sort of comeback tour to lecture at schools. Lecture about what? He doesn't say. And it doesn't happen. Meanwhile, he verbally abuses a "Christ-bitten nag" for her charity efforts to help turn women from prostitution, and to help provide shelter for children. She tell him she will pray for his health and happiness. He tells her he will pray that reads some real history books. What a jerk. -
Curmudgeonly cogitator creeps curiously from Cairo to Cape Town. Crazy old coot!
Travel writer + several months of free time = Egypt--->Sudan--->Ethiopia--->Kenya--->Uganda--->Tanzania--->Malawi--->
Mozambique--->Zimbabwe--->South Africa--->Mozambique--->South Africa
Rearrange the letters in "Paul Theroux" and you get "Heat Up, Luxor!"
I feel it's my duty to point these things out. Make of them what you will. -
First book I read by Paul Theroux, but definitely not the last! I've only seen documentaries by his son Louis (which I really like). Great travel memoir, highlighting rarely-highlighted points of Africa. He do seems to be a bit obsessed with his erotic novella, lol, which he works on while traveling. I don't know a lot about Africa and its not something on my travel-list at all (I am more of a cold weather person), but the book is very enjoyable to read and full of adventures. Plus I love reading about train travel because its my favourite way to travel.
-
3.5/5 "Pessimistic Globetrotter wins d Nobel"
On reading this headline during this trip, Theroux's hopes went up that maybe he had hit d jackpot. He did not, Naipaul did :)
The word "pessimistic" is a little too harsh on Theroux but he is blunt, has a caustic wit at times, but like Naipaul he is observant and has empathy and hence is readable.
The dust, antiquity and fundamentalism of Egypt, the complete anarchy and poverty in war-struck Sudan, Kenya, the utter despair of Malawi, Mozambique and the games missionaries and charities play in them, the politics of Zimbabwe, South Africa - all these have been very well depicted.
This was my 3rd travelogue by him and will go for a ride again with d author. -
In Dark Star Safari, Paul Theroux travels from Cairo to Capetown over land. His journey takes him through Egypt, the Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. As much as Hans Rosling (of TED.com fame) urges his audience to see these countries as unique, I suspect that for many readers these countries are all just parts of a hazy mental map titled "Somewhere in Africa." On the legend might be the following notes:
Blood Diamond was a good movie set in Africa.
Nelson Mandela is from Africa and his story was made into a movie, too. Was it "The Green Mile to Freedom?"
AIDS
Oh -- KONY 2012!
Bono, Matt Damon, and George Clooney are doing something for ... some people in Africa.
There are terrible events so ubiquitous that they don't even make the news anymore.
I'm as guilty of this ignorance, more or less, as anyone else. And one thought I had when I bought this book was that it might allow me to come up with more specific notions about life in countries that are in Africa, as opposed to more general impressions about the massive continent.
I may not have been right on that one. I was surprised by how many vague associations either showed up or else repeatedly showed up during Theroux's travelogue. Theroux meets corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, he meets people that have political views that are hardly sympathetic to the United States in a post-September 11th 2001 world, and he is shot at by bandits while riding through the desert (his seat was on the roof of the truck). Even the Lord's Resistance Army (KONY 2012) is mentioned. He constantly meets people that live in poverty and who demand charity. I'd be lying if I said Dark Star Safari inspired me to travel to Africa, and I actually found myself wondering while reading whether I would walk away from this book with more generalizations or if I would walk away from it with a more sophisticated view.
There's probably a good case to be made that Dark Star has a negative or pessimistic (insufficient positive thinking!) outlook. In fact, I would not be surprised to encounter some readers of Dark Star Safari who would like to dismiss the book entirely. Theroux is not very charitable with the charity workers he encounters, though I will admit that I was also surprised by the way they treated fellow travelers, even travelers in danger of being stranded in a desert full of bandits. He meets and is disgusted by missionaries who offer help to the desperate on the condition that they accept Jesus as their personal savior. He also reads Conrad's Heart of Darkness twelve times during the trip, which is not a very sunny novel. Every country seems to be introduced from the perspective of a famous westerner (Rimbaud, Mr. Livingston I presume, Mr. Kurtz...). Even the title "Dark Star Safari" is meant to suggest that for Theroux, Africa is a dangerous wilderness that he will use to escape the center (the West).
In spite of these concerns, I still felt that it would be unfair to simply dismiss Theroux's account. Many of his impressions of Africa are informed by his time in the Peacecorps. He had taught in Malawi and Uganda thirty five years prior, so when he sees ubiquitous charities that have taken on the responsibilities of the government and concludes that both countries have deteriorated since he was last there, his disappointment struck me as moving (even if I do think one part of being old is to look back on the past with rose-colored glasses).
And to be fair, as often as Theroux expresses disappointment in the things he finds, he is happy to write about the positive things he encounters. He does meet aid workers and nuns that he finds sincere, and sometimes even charming, in their attempt to light a candle in the "darkness" rather than to add another chapter to the story of their lives.
It would be naive to read Dark Star Safari and expect to walk away from it an expert on the eastern coast of Africa. However, the next time I read a book about Zimbabwe, for example, I will likely find myself thinking of this travelogue while reading it. The next time someone tells me that they know how to "fix" Africa, I will think of this book. I suppose I remain more or less as ignorant as I was when I first read the book, but I have a bit more context to rely on the next time someone mentions "Africa" than I did when I started.
And for what it's worth, I do intend to read more of Theroux's travelogues. I found him snarky and egotistical, and I would not want him to visit my country. But I also found him honest, thought provoking, and bold. -
Paul Theroux does not admire foreign aid workers or the work they do. The first 200 pages of Dark Star Safari contain several accounts of rude, obnoxious, self-important aid workers, often depicted as roaring through blighted communities in expensive Land Rovers, refusing to give rides. Two aid workers tell him they are on their way to “supervise a wet-feeding,” an outreach effort that Theroux characterizes as “going to a village to dump [corn-soy blend] in a trough for people to eat.” He gets into it with those two after telling them that supervising a wet-feeding “sounds like something you’d do in a game park…to help the hippos make it through the season.” He portrays various aid organizations, World Vision, Save the Children, Oxfam, Project Hope, and many others as thriving and competing in a self-interested fashion fueled by the desperate situation in parts of Africa. “Large-scale famines,” he says, ” are welcomed as a ‘growth opportunity’ and the advertising to stimulate donations to charities is little more than ‘hunger porn.'”
Paul Theroux was a Peace Corps volunteer, and he taught for four years at a school in Uganda. He returned to these places while taking notes for Dark Star Safari. Things are not better, he found. The situation was worse, and yet the aid workers continued to harp on the same things:The whites, teachers, diplomats, and agents of virtue [his euphemism for aid workers] I met at dinner parties had pretty much the same things on their minds as their counterparts had in the 1960s. They dicussed relief projects and scholarships and africulteral schemes, refugee camps, emergency food programs, technical assistance. They were newcomers. They did not realize that for forty years people had been saying the same things, and the result after four decades was a lower standard of living, a higher rate of illiteracy, overpopulation, and much more disease.
Foreigners working for development agencies did not stay long, so they never discovered the full extent of their failure. Africans saw them come and go, which is why Africans were so fatalistic. Maybe no answer, as my friend said with a rueful smile.
I experienced the same frustration while in Tonga, especially when I considered how long the Peace Corps had been in the country. But - to respond to Theroux's cynicism - I don't measure my impact on Tonga or on Tongan society, but the difference I made on one island, in four villages, in the lives of a few dozen people. One of the reasons we were effective is precisely because we did not have a Land Rover. Or running water, or all the food and money we needed, or other foreigners to chum around with away from the locals. These circumstances made us hugely dependent on the charity and good will of the locals even as we were trying to help them. We were the ones – my wife and I – asking for boat rides and hoping for free food. We also needed their community, because we were the only foreigners on the island. We were there long enough to see some of our efforts fail, and long enough to begin to understand which of our projects were even worth the effort.
Speaking of Paul Theroux and of Tonga, he has been banished from that country. Two chapters of his book The Happy Isles of Oceania are about Tonga. His interview with the ridiculous and now deceased King Taufahau Tupou IV so embarrassed the king, Paul Theroux supposedly can never return to Tonga, though I doubt that grieves him greatly. -
JHC was this a slog. I've heard the name Paul Theroux bopped around as a great travel writer for quite some time, and picked this guy up because it fit with my read all the Africa books from this year. And it's a cool topic, too- an "overland safari" from Cairo to Capetown. But truth be told, do not start here.
I'm gonna be real mean now so I sure hope that Paul Theroux never reads his goodreads reviews (given the general state of misanthropy towards all things new in his book, I think this is a safe bet). This is the work of a guy past his prime, someone looking back over their life and wanting to see a cohesive picture where there just isn't one. One of the consistent themes of the book is his rage at being referred to as "old man" throughout his journey.
I think the episode in Malawi or wherever pretty much sums up his whole attitude- he arrives all ready for a triumphant tour through his old country "giving lectures" and "helping out" but is met instead with a polite no and proceeds to throw a temper tantrum. I get it- this place was a hugely formative part of HIS life, but it has moved on without him and barely remembers him. He is constantly ranting about the aid workers and the tourists but he was a gd Peace Corps worker!! And he's fully touristing around Africa the same way as his despised safari-goers- he just prefers poverty tourism.
Which, a quick aside about these LONG rants- trust me, I get it, aid is not a good thing for Africa. The point has been made in many places and by many people more qualified than Theroux. But doesn't he see that the whole system he was living under when he was in Africa, the one set up by the colonists, was just the precursor to the whole aid state? Sure, the walls were painted and the hedges trimmed, as he repeatedly reminisces, but these neat communities hid a whole multitude of evils. I get that it's sad and depressing to come back and see things so run down. But what about a little self reflection on why this happened? He is certainly capable of it.
The first part of the book was engaging and interesting- he is able to look at the good and the bad in Ethiopia and Egypt and Sudan and not constantly compare it to the shadow of things past. But the second he gets to the places he lived back in the 70s, suddenly this story is not about his journey through Africa anymore. Instead, it's him looking at himself through the lens of all the decades that have passed since he was last there, and wondering what his legacy will be. There's even a poignant moment in Capetown where he daydreams about winning the Nobel. There's some cool stuff in that, but I think Theroux was not quite self aware enough to fully flesh out what this journey could have been.
One thing I'll say, though, for all my criticisms- Theroux does a wonderful job of meeting interesting characters and drawing them well. I enjoyed learning about the countries through the eyes of the people who lived there the most. I'm still going to give his most famous work, The Great Railway Bazaar, another shot, because he is clearly a great writer. -
Cranky, crusty and cantankerous- we get the full Paul Theroux experience in this incisive work. Love him or hate him, Theroux is an author who is able to find the sweet spot between educational and entertainment. He is a man who feels most at home in the bush and less traveled areas. His journey from Cairo to Cape Town along the eastern African coast is both a sentimental and nostalgic one wrought with danger and distress. He traverses through: Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
The most impressive thing that Theroux is able to accomplish in this book is to show the grandeur of Africa in both its glories and blunders. Theroux takes an unconventional approach in his travels which lends an authenticity to his work. He is not content in taking a largely safe antiseptic route but revels in going off the beaten path. Whether it is the Nuba tribe in Sudan or a teacher who graduated from Georgetown in Malawi we get to see a side that is often obscure. Despite hearing the warning, "those are bad men over there", Theroux is able to show the majority of the population is not only good but beyond gracious even to strangers such as himself.
Another thing which Theroux is adept at is showing after 30 plus years of not living there, the conditions in Africa have not only not improved but in many cases have deteriorated further. He is at his most personal when a school he taught at in Malawi is falling apart and no one seems willing or able to do anything about the situation. He vividly depicts most of the major cities such as Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as overcrowded cesspools not fit to live in. The smell of trash comingling with the unwashed masses is a sight that is frequently mentioned.
Perhaps the greatest scrutiny that Theroux levels is towards the confluence of a corrupt system that is heavily subsidized by charitable aid organizations. He contends that organizations such as Save the Children have created a culture of dependency which have further eroded the incentive for any African to improve their society. Furthermore, these organizations are exploited by the rulers of these nations who leverage the charitable donations by giving their countrymen barely survivable means (packets of seed, cheap textiles) and pocketing the rest of the charitable largesse. Theroux wonders quite succinctly if the charities are doing harm than good.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book though it did lag in parts. Theroux has a good eye for adventure and a good radar for bullshit. He is able to combine these two perceptive qualities in a damn entertaining book. -
Although Paul Theroux’s The Great Railway Bazaar is one of my all-time favorite books, I stopped reading him when he fell into what seemed to me to be an interminable bad mood--somewhat ironically, along about Happy Isles of Oceania, I think, in 1993, so it’s been quite a while since I picked up a Theroux travel narrative. But a friend recommended his Dark Star Safari (Houghton, 2004), and, ever trusting (and, as always, looking for a good book to read), I tried it, and was immediately hooked. It begins, “All news out of Africa is bad. It made me want to go there, though not for the horror, the hot spots, the massacre-and-earthquake stories you read in the newspaper; I wanted the pleasure of being in Africa again.” I’m a sucker for an opening line like that. There are sentences on every page of this engrossing book that you just want to write down and share with others. Theroux seems to have recovered his emotional equilibrium and shed most of his grumpiness and petulance; all of his talent for discovering the unusual in the ordinary people he meets and places he visits is in evidenced on every page of this tale of his trip overland from Cairo to Cape Town. Here’s another wonderful line, also from the first chapter:
I … was heading south, in my usual traveling mood: hoping for the picturesque, expecting misery, braced for the appalling. Happiness was unthinkable, for although happiness is desirable, it is a banal subject for travel. Therefore, Africa seemed perfect for a long journey.
Along the way, he celebrates his 60th birthday, revisits Uganda (where he once taught at Makerere University), and offers his opinion (not high) on the efficacy of foreign aid. He travels by nearly every sort of conveyance you can imagine: a variety of trucks, a ferry, train, bus, and dugout canoe (a particularly fascinating section) and talks to a diverse group of people from all walks of life, both Africans and others, such as missionaries, tourists and aid workers from Western countries, which gives him (and us) a well-rounded portrait of a continent struggling to find itself. Incidentally, there’s a very funny joke on page 123 of the paperback edition.
