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Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar | 
 enlarge | Author: Paul Theroux
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Category: Book
List Price: $28.00
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Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 827
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 512
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.7
ISBN: 0618418873
Dewey Decimal Number: 915.04425092
EAN: 9780618418879
ASIN: 0618418873
Publication Date: August 18, 2008
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Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, August 2008: Way back in the dark pre-Internet, limited-air-travel world of 1975, the way to get from Europe to Asia was by train. A young and ambitious writer named Paul Theroux made his literary mark by taking the 28,000-mile intercontinental journey via rail from London to Tokyo and back home again. His book, The Great Railway Bazaar, became a travel-lit classic. Thirty years later, an older, wiser, and even less sanguine Theroux decided to retrace his steps. The result is Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, a fascinating account of the places you vaguely knew existed (Tbilisi), probably won't ever go to (Bangalore), but definitely should know something about (Mandalay). Get on board Theroux's fast-moving travelogue, which features some of the most astute commentary on our distorted notions of time, space, and each other in the age of jet speed, broadband connections, and cultural extinction. --Lauren Nemroff
Product Description
Thirty years after the epic journey chronicled in his classic work The Great Railway Bazaar, the world's most acclaimed travel writer re-creates his 25,000-mile journey through eastern Europe, central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, China, Japan, and Siberia.
Half a lifetime ago, Paul Theroux virtually invented the modern travel narrative by recounting his grand tour by train through Asia. In the three decades since, the world he recorded in that book has undergone phenomenal change. The Soviet Union has collapsed and China has risen; India booms while Burma smothers under dictatorship; Vietnam flourishes in the aftermath of the havoc America was unleashing on it the last time Theroux passed through. And no one is better able to capture the texture, sights, smells, and sounds of that changing landscape than Theroux.
Theroux's odyssey takes him from eastern Europe, still hung-over from communism, through tense but thriving Turkey into the Caucasus, where Georgia limps back toward feudalism while its neighbor Azerbaijan revels in oil-fueled capitalism. Theroux is firsthand witness to it all, traveling as the locals do?by stifling train, rattletrap bus, illicit taxi, and mud-caked foot?encountering adventures only he could have: from the literary (sparring with the incisive Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk) to the dissolute (surviving a week-long bender on the Trans-Siberian Railroad). And wherever he goes, his omnivorous curiosity and unerring eye for detail never fail to inspire, enlighten, inform, and entertain.
PAUL THEROUX was born in Medford, Massachusetts, in 1941 and published his first novel, Waldo, in 1967. His fiction includes The Mosquito Coast, My Secret History, My Other Life, Kowloon Tong, Blinding Light, and most recently, The Elephanta Suite. His highly acclaimed travel books include Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, Fresh Air Fiend, and Dark Star Safari. He has been the guest editor of The Best American Travel Writing and is a frequent contributor to various magazines, including The New Yorker. He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 Should Be Rated Fiction October 6, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
If what Paul Theroux mentions in the rest of his book is as far from fact as the part he writes on Vietnam and Cambodia; then this book should be in the fiction section of book stores.
Hanoi was never daily bombed by B52s for years on end as he states. Pot Pol and his reign of terror can not in any way be compared with the American Anti-Terroist Effort by any right headed thinking individual, as he states.
I think Paul Theroux should have quit writting when he became senile. This book is long, it is tedious and it a misrepresentation of fact. For the first time in my long life I will throw a book into the trash can.
 ghost train to the eastern star October 5, 2008
Anyone who enjoyed Paul Theroux's "The Great Raiway Bazaar" will find this book a faszinating read.In his attempt to retrace the train journey he undertook more than 30 years ago we learn about the great changes Europe and Asia have undergone ,and the changes he himself experienced in that time.His great curiosity and eye for detail make him the most interesting and -in my opinion -the greatest travel writer today ,and the most literary.His candid comments about himself,other writers and the world around him add delicious spice and made me wish this book would have no ending.
A Writer Reflects on His Life and Humanity by Revisiting His Past October 4, 2008
If you want a book about how to travel by train, skip this one.
If you want a book about what you'll discover about yourself if you revisit old haunts, you may find this book intriguing enough to propel you back to your former hangouts and to review your memories . . . both painful and pleasant.
If you enjoy literary pilgrimages, you'll enjoy several entertaining moments.
If you want keen insights into nations you haven't visited, you won't find enough to warrant reading the book.
If you want a book of great writing, you will probably be disappointed. Mr. Theroux will wow you now and then with brilliant passages . . . particularly in the beginning and end . . . but mostly it's plain vanilla writing.
Why then did I like the book a lot? Mr. Theroux reminded me of a fresh way to look at the world, a way that I used to employ quite often.
Let me explain. When I was growing up, my father worked for the Santa Fe Railway and our family had a pass for free travel from California to Illinois. Most of our long trips were by train. In college, I also traveled across the United States several times to save a few pennies. During those trips, I grew to appreciate places that you never see from an airplane or an interstate highway. Railway travel allowed me to meet many memorable people and to have experiences I otherwise wouldn't have had.
Writers live solitary lives, often more so when they are in a crowd. Railway travel is a buffer between the writer and the world that allows the writer to venture out amongst everyone in a comfortable way. I realized that leaving the writer's cocoon more often is good for the writer and the writer's readers.
Mr. Theroux is generous in sharing his observations during his much earlier trip along a similar route, as well as his feelings as his marriage fell apart. Those perspectives make the observations much more powerful and interesting. He is most comfortable talking about places and times in terms of other authors and conversing with authors. I found those interludes to be particularly intriguing.
Although I didn't learn enough to make me want to organize a particular kind of trip to any of these places, I did gain a sense of how a writer might react to each of the locales. From those observations, I think I know which of these places I would like to visit and which ones not. That aspect was a pleasant surprise.
I was fascinated by the differences in national character demonstrated among the ordinary people he met, most moving in his description of the forgiveness of the Vietnamese people towards ordinary Americans. As he traveled around, people in one country would be happy and enjoying life, while in the next country misery existed regardless of material comforts. As a result, I read the book very slowly. I needed time to digest what he said about each country before I could go on to the next one. To me, that's a sign of good writing: He made me think a lot.
Like many travelers, Mr. Theroux likes to report on some things more than others. I wasn't quite sure why he gives such an encyclopedic description about the sex trade in each nation, but perhaps as a man traveling alone that stood out more than the helpfulness of ordinary people. I could have done with less of that element. I also didn't enjoy his angry dismissal of anyone who is a missionary. What is that all about?
I was especially intrigued to realize that you can get to know people better during a train trip than during other casual contacts in travel. I plan to take advantage of that during my future trips.
All aboard for more understanding!
The Classic Misanthrope September 23, 2008
Ghost Train to the Eastern Star represents nothing new for Mr. Thoreau, but it reminds us in all the best ways just what a wonderful and quirky writer he is. in retracing the steps that started his series of shared journeys as well as inspiring some of his best writing, he reminds us constantly of the changes that life has brought socially, economically and personally.
Mr. Thoreau's insights into himself and the ways that his views have changed with age are compelling and as usual, his observations of the cities and cultures he passes through as well as his tellingly misanthropic views of his fellow passengers are ironic and amusing. As one who has read nearly all the Thoreau "travel" books, this was a welcome addition and I am slowly savoring it as one lingers over the last bites of a deep and complex meal.
Travel writing as an act of personal illumination September 17, 2008
I am a great fan of Paul Theroux's travel writing (interesting to note that I have never read one of his novels). His last two travel books, GHOST TRAIN and DARK STAR SAFARI, have an added unique pleasure to them. In each he re-visits a prior trip. In the case of GHOST TRAIN he attempts to retrace his route taken and written about in his first travel book, THE GREAT RAILWAY BAZAAR (1975). Want to talk about inflation my copy of BAZAAR sold for $10, GHOST is $28. Theroux is now 66 and twice as old as he was when he took the journey last at the age of 33. It is always great fun to read Theroux's rifts on countries revisited and here you have the added treat that he is a bit more honest about what makes him tick. Theroux is always the unique everyman who never seems to really enjoy traveling as a tourist, but he behaves more as an observer with a critical eye. I'm not sure this latest book is quite up to the high standards of DARK STAR SAFARI which was just outstanding, but GHOST is certainly high among his finest journals because it is an act of self discovery and of personal illumination. If you have any interest at all in the very finest travel writing today you must add GHOST TRAIN to your library.
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