Long Train Running (The Old Patagonian Express - Paul Theroux)

Member Name: Puggers

Product:	The Old Patagonian Express - Paul Theroux
Date:	28/06/09 (64 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Skilful, evocative depictions of people and places, engrossing depth and insight.

Disadvantages: Slow to start.

Of the passengers waiting at a chilly South Street Station, Boston one morning in the late seventies, most will have been making short trips - commuters, perhaps, or visiting relatives. Others were perhaps going a few hours down the line to New York; a few bound for destinations further afield. None, however, could have been anticipating the journey Paul Theroux was.

Heading south, south and further south still, his final stop was to be Esquel, in Patagonia, nearing the lowest apex of South America - the end of a line made up of an almost unbroken network of tracks originating in Boston. The titular train was the last to carry the author, who by then had travelled on a great cast on evocatively-named locomotives; The Lone Star, The Aztec Eagle, La Estrella del Norte ("The Northern Star").

This was Theroux's second travel book, following on from 1975's The Great Railway Bazaar, his account of a similarly epic train journey to and through Asia. The Old Patagonian Express is a classic example of the incisive, rich qualities of the author's writing, although it is a slow-starter. Indeed, until he crosses the border into Latin America, Theroux comes across as rather an acerbic presence, with little patience for his fellow travellers - a reflection perhaps of the grim clutches of winter that held North America as he made his way south.

Once the climes warm up and the surrounds become less familiar, though, the book comes alive. Character, location and situation are conveyed with gentle wit and a keen eye for detail and idiosyncrasy.

Theroux is a master of the language of description, yet for the quiet, understated way in which he about his art, you hardly notice it. He is able to pull the reader in and immerse you in the landscape as if you were in the next seat, and while you feel the effect - feel the heat, the prickly sweat or the heavy-lidded weariness of an endless journey - you rarely realise overtly the skill that makes you feel this way. Theroux is adept at reducing himself to just another passenger, albeit one that accompanies you all the way to your destination, whilst promoting the journey to star-billing. Contrast with the dominant role the narrator plays in other travelogues, and the skill of the author is apparent.

The Old Patagonian Express is, of course, very much a product of its time, and is all the more potent and telling for it. I sometimes think of one of the curious paradoxes that is modern Britain; whilst we back-slap and like to think of ourselves of as riding a wave of unprecedented technological gains, our rail network is a pale shadow of the one that existed fifty or so years ago, vast swathes shut down and hundreds of former stations cut off. Likewise, the network that enabled Theroux to travel virtually the length of
the Americas with few gaps no longer exists, and the journey is no longer possible.

As such, there is an element of nostalgia here - but it is only created by our knowledge of what has been lost, gained and changed since. The narrative, on the other hand, gives little indication of its age. Occasionally, there are segments that show the thirty years that have passed since its publication - the chapter relating life in Panama City's "Zone", then in American hands, but now handed back to Panama, for example - but for the most part, Theroux's writing is timeless, and rings as true now as it ever did.

Another aspect of The Old Patagonian Express which makes it such a pleasure to read is the literary undercurrent that runs through it. Theroux is an avid, prolific reader, and is as apt to discuss his latest book as he is his location. In lesser hands, this might make for disjointed, somewhat self-indulgent interludes, but the author here always seems to make his observations on his reading matter fit in to his descriptions of people and places; by topic or by pace, they slide smoothly into the narrative. This theme runs throughout the book, culminating in a meeting of two significant writing minds when Theroux arrives in Buenos Aires, a memorable chapter in which the author's admiration for the Argentine is clear.

This isn't a book you'll fly through; it's rich, dense and detail-thick, crammed full of Theroux's insightful observations and reports of his conversations; presumably a fluent Spanish speaker, he seems to be able to put people at their ease, and brings a natural air to his writing. Other writers are easier to digest, perhaps, and make for more light-hearted reading, but Theroux is one of the most capable travel writers around, able to pull the reader right into the story - and this is one of his most engaging journeys.

Summary: As resonant now as it was thirty years ago, the story of the writer's Pan-American rail odyssey.