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2008 was a banner year for fiction. Although I was hard-pressed to narrow down my list of deserving books to just a few exquisite gems, here are my absolute favorites:
"The Lazarus Project" by Aleksandar Hemon, (Riverhead Books, $24.95). America was caught up in a hysterical swirl of paranoia and fear. In Chicago, a flood of immigrants speaking unfamiliar languages made some Chicagoans nervous. The year was 1908, threats of terrorism and anarchism made for electrifying headlines in the Chicago newspapers. A young Jewish immigrant named Lazarus Averbuch appeared at the door of George Shippy, Chicago's police chief. Shippy shot him dead.
Aleksandar Hemon was intrigued by this true story. He observed some parallels between then and now. His novel revisits the hysteria ripped from century-old headlines. Brik, a Bosnian-American writer somewhat like Hemon, retraces Averbuch's odyssey from anti-Semitic pogroms in central Europe to his death in that Chicago mansion. A finalist for the National Book Award, "The Lazarus Project" should have won it.
"Knockemstiff" by Donald Ray Pollack (Doubleday, $22.95). For 30 years Donald Ray Pollack labored in the paper mill at Chillicothe. He never relinquished his dream of becoming a writer. Knockem-stiff was the name of a little hollow outside of Chillicothe where Pollack grew up. The young Pollack observed how the inhabitants of this hardscrabble sort of place struggled and brawled. This collection of short stories immortalizes a vanished community with a potency that will knock a reader right upside the head. Pollock's pithy tales swerve across the pages in angelic agony. These tortured souls extract a measure of bitter redemption out of brutality and desolation. An awesome debut.
"Sea of Poppies" by Amitav Ghosh (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $26). Ghosh takes readers on an epic journey of the mind. Set in India in the 1830s, "Sea of Poppies" revolves around the opium trade that English traders plied as they shipped Indian opium to China. Ghosh creates numerous vivid characters and scenes. There are love stories, shocking violence and soaring flights of linguistic fancy as the author re-creates the polyglot languages of the period. This novel, the first in a planned trilogy, comes to a startling climax as most of the main characters sail from India on a ship called "The Ibis." I can't wait for the next book.
"A Mercy" by Toni Morrison (Knopf, $23.95). In "A Mercy," Toni Morrison explores slavery before it became a form of institutionalized racism. In the 1680s slavery came in many forms. Morrison's novella examines the impact of enforced servitude upon a cast of characters of different races who are brought together on a Virginia farm. Haunting, brilliantly rendered, "A Mercy" illustrates once more why Morrison is one of our greatest novelists.
Honorable Mentions: "Home" by Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $25); "The Mayor's Tongue" by Nathaniel Rich (Riverhead, $24.95); "When Will There Be Good News" by Kate Atkinson (Little, Brown, $25); "The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb (Harper, $29.95).
Book reviewer Vick Mickunas blogs daily about books at www.DaytonDailyNews.com/booknook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com
Posted by Vick Mickunas on 12/23/08; 3:01:41 PM
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"The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb, (Harper, 740 pages, $29.95)
Wally Lamb wrote "She's Come Undone" and "I Know This Much Is True." His latest, "The Hour I First Believed," immerses the tragic Columbine shootings within an expansive fictional framework.
Q Did you have difficulty writing this?
A I did. I had to survive my good fortune — the bestseller stuff -— going from thousands to millions of readers. It was a joyride, but then the ride was over. I had to come up with something else. I was intimidated by that. I was a little too focused on reader reaction.
Q Why Columbine?
A One day I sat down and Googled "school shootings"... this tidal wave of stuff came back at me. I was very disturbed by the videos that the shooters, Klebold and Harris, had left behind — both as a high school teacher for many years and as the dad of a then teenaged son .... I was suddenly in the middle of it — emotionally involved in the sadness of that.
Q Klebold and Harris aren't characters, yet their presence is felt on every page,
A I felt that rather than try to psychoanalyze them I would use their actual voices partly as a reminder of just how lost and really depraved they were and how viciously they sought to wreak some kind of vengeance. I went back and forth with whether or not to do that. Then I just took the gag off them and let them speak for themselves.
Q You're in Denver now — how does that feel?
A I don't mean to speak for the people out here nor do I pretend to understand the level of pain and the terrible ripple effect that it has had in the Denver area. I do have a sense from what people have said that they feel these victims and this tragedy should not be forgotten. We're almost 10 years away from it at this point — I think in some ways we need to learn from all this — hopefully, to prevent other things.
Q Do you keep wall charts to track loose ends?
A Have you seen the Russell Crowe film "A Beautiful Mind?" There's one scene where his wife goes into his office and there's stuff all over the walls; pictures and scrawlings. I hate to say it, but that's kind of what my office looked like.
Q What's your structure?
A The novel is in two parts. Part one investigates chaos; the way that our lives can go reeling in a whole different direction than we had planned. The second part investigates the possibility that there is some sort of guiding principle, or some universal order to things ... my work always balances despair and hope ...
Ultimately this story became an investigation of people who carry pain inside and how debilitating grief and shame can be ... silence can just make people kind of sick. I think it needs to be talked about ... the way I'm different from Caelum (the narrator) is that he's a cynic and I'm not. I do hold out hope.
Posted by Vick Mickunas on 12/7/08; 2:24:55 PM
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Twenty-one years ago Toni Morrison published "Beloved," a slavery tale set in 1855 Cincinnati. Morrison accomplished a rare feat for an American by winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.
Morrison's latest book, "A Mercy," is a prequel to "Beloved." The story takes place in Virginia around 1690.
In a recent interview with the The Scotsman newspaper, Morrison said she wrote "A Mercy" because "what I was wondering was what it must have felt like to be a slave before racism."
Growing up in Lorain, Ohio, Morrison listened to family storytellers. She repeated stories, with her own embellishments.
Morrison's storytelling genius is fully blooming in "A Mercy," told from the viewpoints of a number of characters, the most significant being Florens, a young black slave. As the story begins, she is being sold to a Dutch trader, Jacob Vaark.
Vaark tried to collect on a bad debt. He didn't like slavery. Still, he takes Florens as partial payment. Initially, Vaark demanded Florens' mother, but the mother begged Vaark to take 8-year-old Florens instead. Her mother's act of sending her daughter to what might be a better life was "a mercy."
Morrison explores this not yet racist slavery. On Vaark's farm, she meets Lina, the sole survivor of a smallpox epidemic that wiped out her entire tribe. Vaark's wife, Rebekka, came to America as a mail-order bride.
Sorrow is an indentured servant at Vaark's place. She was the sole survivor of a shipwreck. Willard and Scully also are indentured servants. White, black and American Indian, these characters have something in common — each is some type of orphan, and with the exception of Vaark, they are all in some sort of bondage.
It was a land of fear, hardship and death. Lina, the Native American, ponders the madness of these invaders she calls the "Europes": "cut loose from the earth's soul, they insisted on purchase of its soil, and like all orphans they were insatiable. It was their destiny to chew up the world and spit out a horribleness that would destroy all primary peoples."
Sorrow is so damaged that she has an invisible twin to keep her company. But the suffering that Florens endures is the central focus of "A Mercy." We feel her misery as she says "I never cry. Even when the woman steals my cloak and shoes on the boat, no tears come."
At age 16, Florens falls in love with a blacksmith, a free black who came to the farm to build a grand iron gate for Vaark's new mansion. Vaark has cut down 50 trees to build it, but he dies before his dream home is finished.
Morrison creates a magical voice for Florens that lifts readers up on a swirling arc of prose, which makes all this heartbreak and despair almost tolerable. Florens could be describing how Morrison captivates her readers when she says "I can never not have you have me."
Posted by Vick Mickunas on 11/26/08; 12:06:06 PM
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"The Secret Life of Words — How English Became English" by Henry Hitchings (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 440 pages, $27)
Without words we wouldn't have much to say. We would have even less to write about.
The English language is a magnificent thing. Have you ever wondered how it came to be and how it has changed over centuries? Henry Hitchings addresses these notions in a sweeping new study, "The Secret Life of Words — How English Became English."
His previous book, "Defining the World," was the story of the first notable English lexicographer, Samuel Johnson. This ambitious new work digs down to the roots of our language, exposing the forces that shaped it and made it what it is today.
English is ever changing. New words come into usage. Some last. Some drop by the wayside. "The Secret Life of Words" contains fascinating information on "the world's most widespread language."
Did you know that English has been greatly influenced by foreign invasions? In the year 789, the Vikings began a cycle of invasions that brought many new words to English shores. For example, "the Norse 'vind-auga' ('eye of the wind') became 'window'."
The later Norman invasion of Britain infiltrated numerous French words into English; as these languages melded, "the Norse word 'law' survived, but a new jargon engulfed every dimension of its practice and enforcement. Much of this endures: 'jury, justice, plea, plaintiff, lease, larceny' and 'crime' are all from the French."
Readers derive a comprehension of the forces that have shaped English over the centuries. As Great Britain became the dominant global power, our language absorbed new words from exotic lands.
The word "shampoo" is derived from "the Hindi "champna," a verb that conveys the idea of kneading and pressing the body to relieve fatigue and stimulate the circulation." India has been a rich source for English words.
"Pyjamas' is another import from India. In fact "pyjama" derived from the Persian words for "foot" and "garment," and in its Indian context it was used only of loose-fitting trousers, rather than of the entire ensemble of bedwear.
Some word origins are amazing. New words enter our vocabularies daily. Have you ever wondered where the inventors of the drug "Viagra" got that name? Is it a mere coincidence that the Sanskrit word for "tiger" is "vyaghra"?
"The Secret Life of Words" is a linguistic goldmine. Did you know that the inventor Thomas Edison "seems to have initiated the habit of answering the phone with the exclamation 'hello' — once a ferryman's call?"
Hitchings has a delightful section that delineates the differences between American English and English English. And he looks toward the future of our language, and the forces that shall continue to mold it. Most notably he writes that "today there are more Hispanics in the U.S. than in Spain, and their median age is well below 30. They promise to write important chapters in the histories of not just one language, but two."
Hello, anybody up for SCRABBLE?
Book reviewer Vick Mickunas blogs daily about books at www.DaytonDailyNews.com/booknook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com
Posted by Vick Mickunas on 11/10/08; 4:03:17 PM
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"The Economist Book of Obituaries"
by Keith Colquhoun and Ann Wroe
(Bloomberg, 409 pages, $30)
When you pick up the newspaper, what do you like to read first? Comics? Sports? The editorial pages? Stock market quotes?
In the New York Times, I check two sections first: the book reviews and the obituaries. Of course I read the book reviews religiously. And then, in the obit section I learn about fascinating people who accomplished significant things during their lives. The writers frequently turn up marvelous anecdotes about the deceased. Some obits are downright humorous.
In my quest for additional purveyors of fine obituaries I've unearthed another source, The Economist. This publication is even older than the New York Times. It was founded in 1843 and curiously, never published obituaries prior to 1995.
They must be even more selective than the New York Times because they publish only one obituary per week. From 1995 to 2003 their obits were written by Keith Colquhoun. And for the past five years they have been written by Ann Wroe.
The best of these are now available in "The Economist Book of Obituaries." There are obits for notable people that you'd expect: Diana, Princess of Wales; Gerald Ford; George Harrison; John Paul II; Frank Sinatra; and Hunter S. Thompson.
Then there are the ones that we knew little to nothing about — individuals who somehow rose up from among the teeming masses and took some bold action that did humanity proud. Or, in some instances, shamed the human race. In marking their exploits, our own lives seem richer. Here are a few of my favorites:
Momofuko Ando invented instant noodles in 1957. After a string of business failures, he created his secret instant noodle recipe. Ando, who died last year at age 96, held this philosophy of life: "peace will come when people have food. Eating wisely will enhance beauty and health. The creation of food will serve society."
Rosemary Brown was a musical psychic. She claimed psychic contact with legendary composers like Beethoven, Liszt and Chopin, "who had employed her on earth to receive their latest compositions." She made regular TV appearances in which she related that, "in heaven ... there was no sex ... 'the earthy side of our being has been left behind.' There was though, oddly, an interest in fashion. ... Everyone was well. Beethoven was no longer deaf." Brown died in 2001 at age 85.
Albert Hofmann was the Swiss chemist who first synthesized the drug LSD in 1943. "For the next decades, Mr. Hofmann took an awful lot of LSD. He ingested it listening to Mozart and looking at red roses." Apparently, it didn't do him any harm. He died this past April. He was 102.
Alex the African Gray was a parrot who "had a vocabulary of 150 words ... he could count up to six, including zero (and was grappling with the concept of 'seven' when he died)."
Book reviewer Vick Mickunas blogs daily about books at www.DaytonDailyNews.com/booknook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com.
Posted by Vick Mickunas on 11/5/08; 2:50:57 PM
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here's a stack of books I've set aside. I plan to read them. Last spring I placed "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga in that pile. It got great reviews. Still, I had not cracked it open yet.
"The White Tiger" just won the Man Booker prize, Great Britain's most prestigious literary award. Each year an author from Britain, Ireland or one of the British Commonwealth countries is chosen to receive it. The prize comes with a lovely check for 50,000 pounds — that's about $86,000.
That piqued my interest. The author was born in India in 1974. "The White Tiger" is his first novel. Adiga is a former correspondent for Time magazine. As a journalist, he found a part of India that he never witnessed before — grinding poverty. As a consequence he decided to write this book.
The White Tiger of the title is Balram Halwai, the narrator. As the novel starts, Balram has heard that the premier of China is coming for a state visit. The book is written in the form of letters that Balram is writing to the premier.
Balram identifies himself as an entrepreneur. He suggests that "apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don't have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs."
Over the course of seven nights Balram describes how he rose up from horrifying conditions in the Indian countryside, an area that Adiga refers to as the Darkness. Balram became the driver for a wealthy family in Delhi. He observed as his corrupt employers bribed government officials and lived the high life while the multitudes struggled to exist.
In his travels across India the author was struck by the fact that most Indians lived a threadbare existence yet the country has a low crime rate. His character Balram marvels that his fellow servants don't steal from their masters. As the story develops readers observe Balram's resentment growing.
The book has ruffled some feathers. The Press Trust of India reports that "Adiga's novel is creating ripples in India for its defiantly unglamorous portrait of the country's economic miracle." Adiga makes no apologies. He told The Times of India, "I tried to tell a very real story about India on the brink of unrest. I tried to challenge the assumptions that many in middle-class India hold about the poor: that they are stupid, easily manipulated, excessively religious and bound by caste and family."
Adiga's Balram is a fascinating fellow. "The White Tiger" is animated by Balram's dark humor. We balance on the trembling knife edge of irony as Balram astutely observes: "See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich dream of? Losing weight and looking like the poor."
Posted by Vick Mickunas on 11/5/08; 2:49:36 PM
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"The Wordy Shipmates" by Sarah Vowell, (Riverhead Books, 254 pages, $26).
Sarah Vowell is a frequent contributor to the public radio program "This American Life." That squeaky voice and sarcastic humor have made her a mainstay on the air.
Vowell parlayed that recognition into a rising career as an writer. Her 2006 book "Assassination Vacation" allowed her to indulge a morbid fascination with American history. She mined historical archives, uncovering bizarre links between the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley.
In her latest effort, "The Wordy Shipmates," Vowell takes readers back to the 1630s and the Massachusetts Bay Colony that was founded by English Puritans. Vowell was inspired to write the book by three significant events: the attacks on 9/11, our invasion of Iraq and the funeral of President Ronald Reagan.
She noticed that Ronald Reagan used a term in speeches, which originated in a sermon by John Winthrop, the governor of the Bay Colony. Winthrop spoke of the "city upon a hill." Reagan embellished this term, calling it "that shining city on a hill."
Intrigued, Vowell studied the writings of Winthrop and other notable Puritans from that community. "The Wordy Shipmates" of the title are Winthrop; John Cotton, a Boston minister; Roger Williams, the founder of the Rhode Island Colony, and Anne Hutchinson, a midwife devoted to Cotton's preaching. Vowell dredged up their dusty scribblings from the 17th century gloom.
I expected to be amused. While there were frequent glimmers of Vowell's trademark sarcasm, this grim history is far from amusing. Vowell is not a historian, but she is the ultimate history geek, and so readers learn about this period. Now and then, we get a glimpse of Vowell's personal history.
The motto of the Bay Colony was "Come Over and Help Us." This somehow implied that American Indians asked Europeans to come to America to help them. We know how that turned out. Vowell attempts to link that slogan with the mindset that seems to guide our philosophy even now. She asserts that after the United States became a global power, our government used it to justify incursions around the world. In reference to Iraq, she writes: "of the American invasion (Vice President) Cheney claimed, 'My belief is that we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.' After all, we're there to help."
Her argument seems somewhat flimsy, though.
Vowell grew up Pentecostal in Oklahoma. That Puritan faith opened floodgates of her memory. "I was exposed, from infancy on, to so much wretch-like-me, original-sin talk that I spent my entire childhood believing I was as depraved as Charles Manson when in reality I might have been the best-behaved 9-year-old in the 20th century."
That past inspires her best lines: "Once, when I told a member of the fabled East Coast Media Elite that I was raised Pentecostal, he asked if that meant I grew up 'fondling snakes in a trailer.' I replied, 'You know that book club you're in? Well, my church was a lot like that, except we actually read the book.' "
Book reviewer Vick Mickunas blogs daily about books at www.DaytonDailyNews.com/booknook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com.
Posted by Vick Mickunas on 10/16/08; 2:40:23 PM
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"The English Major" by Jim Harrison, (Grove Press, 255 pages, $24).
"It used to be Cliff and Vivian and now it isn't."
This opening line from Jim Harrison's novel "The English Major" expresses the blunt reality of how a life can get turned upside down.
"The English Major" is written from Cliff's perspective. As the story begins he describes how his life was thrown all topsy turvy. At their 40th high school reunion, Vivian rekindled her passion for an old flame.
Cliff, a former school teacher, was growing cherries on a farm on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Their marriage fell apart. Cliff lost the farm. His dog died. Suddenly untethered, Cliff embarks on an epic journey across America in his junker car.
He heads west. There isn't much of a plot here. The reader is seduced by Harrison's ornery narrator. Cliff brings along a jigsaw puzzle of the United States. Whenever he crosses another state border he discards the puzzle piece for the state he's just left.
The trip allows Cliff the luxury to ponder his existence. He recalls warning signals ignored. " I didn't pay attention over a year ago when she looked up from her Robert Ludlum spy book and said, 'You look so forgettable, you'd make a good spy."
In Minnesota, he picks up Marybelle, a former student. Initially they get along well but after a few hundred miles she is driving Cliff nuts, talking constantly on her cell phone, annoying him to no end.
Harrison's characterization of his cranky narrator is marvelous. The road trip shifts his memory to the man he once was. "Marybelle joked that I sounded like I had been in long-term parking for 25 years. My feelings were a little hurt and when we stopped to bury the North Dakota jigsaw piece under a rock in the austere landscape my mind wandered back 40 years to when my brain was so alive I could barely sleep."
Cliff takes a circuitous route to San Francisco to visit his gay son, a successful location scout in the film industry. In California, Cliff's long suffering vehicle expires. "I had just pulled off the freeway in Sausalito and was near the former home of my boyhood hero Jack London when Ron died. Ron is the private name of my 13-year-old Ford Taurus with just short of 250,000 miles on it. The actual Ron was a high school friend who died when his tractor (a John Deere) tipped over backward on top of him while he was pulling out a stump."
As Cliff coasts to a fading halt inside the dying Ron, he meets a man with "the name 'Fred" on his shirt pocket." Cliff says to Fred: "I think my car has gone to heaven."
If you enjoy reading a book that takes you to lots of fascinating places with minimal fuss, then you must check out "The English Major." Jim Harrison writes fiction that feels so real you can believe that he has lived every moment of it. And perhaps he has.
Posted by Vick Mickunas on 10/12/08; 12:19:43 PM
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In 2004, Marilynne Robinson published "Gilead," a jewel of a novel that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Set in the 1950s in the fictional town of Gilead, Iowa, it is the story of the Rev. John Ames, a minister nearing his 77th birthday. Late in life Ames, a widower, falls in love with a young woman. With his heart failing, he records his thoughts and feelings to pass them down to their young child. He wants the boy to know what kind of man his father was. Luminous, tender, "Gilead" goes straight to the heart.
Robinson has written a companion novel to "Gilead." "Home" doesn't read like a sequel. This book feels more like a good neighbor. John Ames and his family are still living in Gilead. His best friend since childhood was the Rev. Robert Boughton. Both men are quite elderly. Boughton's health is failing faster than that of John Ames.
Boughton has been a widower for 10 years and his health has been declining. One of his seven children, a daughter named Glory, returned to Gilead to care for him. Glory has been unlucky in love. She's 38 years old and returned home when her fiance announced that he would not marry her.
"Home" is written from Glory's viewpoint. As the story begins, Rev. Boughton hears that his son Jack is coming home for a visit. Jack is the black sheep of the family. He hasn't been home in 20 years. Nobody in the family knows where he has been.
Jack is seven years older than Glory. He left home when she was still a girl. They never really knew each other very well. She is resentful about his visit. Caring for her father is difficult enough. The prospect of dealing with her mysterious brother Jack overwhelms her.
Rev. Boughton is excited about Jack's visit. Jack was always his favorite. They wait for Jack and his arrival keeps getting delayed. When Jack finally shows up, it is a real shock. In Jack, Robinson has created one of the most striking characters in recent memory.
Jack left two decades before under a cloud of scandal. His return recasts this shadow over the sweet town of Gilead. "Home" is a poignant tale about the enduring strength of family bonds. Robinson's delicate depiction of this tangled web of family is mesmerizing While the main focus of "Home" is the Boughton family's relations, the Ames family flits through these pages like moths dancing amid the sparkling shimmers of Robinson's prose.
As we turn the pages of "Home," we collect each precious morsel, the hints that Jack doles out like rare gems. He has always been running from himself. Finally at home, Jack crashes through the shards of his tormented soul.
Home is the one place where you feel safe. When Jack is leaving again Glory says: "Don't worry. If you ever need to come home. I'll be here." In a world that is so very uncertain there's no book like "Home."
Posted by Vick Mickunas on 9/8/08; 8:31:03 PM
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In 1973, Paul Theroux embarked on an epic journey by train across Asia. In 1975, he published his classic account of that trip, "The Great Railway Bazaar." This incredible travel story put Theroux on the literary map.
Thirty-three years and some 40 books later, he has re-traced that original journey. He shadowed most of his original route across Europe and into Asia. He recounts the experience in "Ghost Train to the Eastern Star."
He was able to re-create most of his original itinerary. Theroux prefers rail travel. It allows him to savor the sights. Readers encounter the multitude of people that he meets. We eavesdrop on their conversations as he finds out who they are and what they think.
He is a sympathetic listener and a keen observer. These strangers sense that he is an open person. They talk to him about their lives. He asks them what they think about America. Their responses are thought-provoking.
A Turkish scholar observes that "American experts are the problem ... they were wrong about the Soviet Union and wrong about Iraq." Theroux quizzed this professor about possible motives for dispensing poor advice? His response: "Scholars need to validate the status quo, or they lose their funding."
After Turkey, the author's next stop was Georgia, the U.S. ally and a former Soviet republic that was invaded last week by Russia. He observes that "with a vocal Muslim country on every border, Georgia was a natural ally of Bush's so-called war on terror, though I did not meet any Georgian who agreed with American policy."
Theroux continued east through central Asia on his "Ghost Train." He gained entry to oil-rich, isolated Turkmenistan which he describes as "desert wasteland, scrubby bushes, and dusty boulders, an emptiness of lizards, and a landscape like cat litter."
From Uzbekistan he is forced to fly over the troubled tribal areas where Osama Bin Laden is reputed to be hiding. He lands in India and resumes his train trip.
Arriving in Sri Lanka, he arranges a visit with the legendary science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, who passed away earlier this year. Clarke was quite ill, but they still managed to have a fascinating conversation.
After a quick flight across the Bay of Bengal, Theroux lands in Myanmar, formerly Burma, and revisits places he enjoyed on his first trip there.
He heads onward to bustling Thailand, primitive Laos, repressive Singapore, depressing Cambodia and vigorous Vietnam.
China merits barely half a page from Theroux: "Who wants to hear people boasting about their greed and promiscuity?"
The author is older and wiser, yet full of mischief. He is delighted to watch a passenger on his train car reading one of his books. He views her reading with the sense of vicarious delight that we experience as this exotic journey unfolds through his eyes.
Posted by Vick Mickunas on 8/29/08; 9:27:57 PM
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