The 3 best books by Paul Theroux

There are writers who seem to base themselves on their traveling spirit to find new arguments with which to write novels or, of course, consequent travel books. In Spain we have Javier Reverte. On the part of the United States, one of the greatest references of this type of traveling storyteller is Paul Theroux.

The truth is that traveling seems a very appropriate activity to be open, receptive, empathetic ..., and thus end up writing so many good books in their fiction aspect or as brilliant blogs in which we are made aware of particular aspects of many other cultures from any other part of the world.

Enviable isn't it? For our part, who else who least tries to indulge in tourism or adventure to achieve that pleasant feeling of feeling traveled, of knowing, of being able to provide nuances in a good conversation here or there.

But as long as our pockets are being put back together with each new trip, it never hurts to consider getting lost in some of Theroux's books to get a sense of the sensation of sitting in the carriage of a remote train, notebook in hand, noting the sketches of what will become an interesting book.

Top 3 recommended books by Paul Theroux

The Mosquito Coast

Do you remember that ad of a guy who is taking a tonic and, while savoring it, ends up responding to someone's invitation with a dry and determined: "I'm not going"? Allie Fox is that good man who one day decides that he is fed up with his world, with Western civilization, with conventions and general boredom.

Without telling anyone his final destination, he decides to go to the coast of mosquitoes, in Honduras. In that place, Allie Fox strives to become Robinson Crusoe, only through the prism of a premeditated abandonment of the world. The story details the curious determination of a family man, with his notes of humor included, to build his own new world in a space conquered for the cause.

Undoubtedly a novel that raises the dilemmas involved in seeking freedom in a world invaded by conventions, customs and by the call of the last of your tribe, also determined that you return to what is supposed to be your real world.

The Mosquito Coast

The Grand Railroad Bazaar

Without a doubt, this is one of the travel books par excellence. Back in 1975, Paul Theroux took a first trip from London, determined to be guided by the caminhos de Ferro (as they can still be called poetically in Portugal), without establishing a very clear itinerary.

I was just looking to get away from London (fantastic concept of the ideal of traveling: to escape as far as possible from the origin). The end of the journey was Russia, having left behind Turkey, Afghanistan, India, Vietnam, Burma, China and Japan.

What emerges from this book is that the trip was precisely that, the time taken, the approach to other travelers, the curious traveler miscegenation and the particular harmony between those who move in a medium that allows them time to speak, to exchange impressions, perhaps to live more fully surrendering to nothing to do while I go from one place to another ... Theroux, as he said: I was looking for trains and I was finding passengers.

The Grand Railroad Bazaar

Mother earth

In this novel the traveler Theroux puts his foot down and stops to think about his roots, about the family, about the essential figure of his mother, and the mother of each one ... A mother is self-denial but can also become tyranny .

It is not about discovering a pernicious figure in the mother, but for Paul Theroux it is an act of recognition of reality in the fact that ties can end up drawing firm knots. Fred, Floyd and JP are three of the children who have been able to escape in their own way from those firm ties that hold children or cattle.

But there are more brothers ..., two girls completely subdued and annulled in their personality, another sister, Angela, of whom it is barely known if she came to breathe in this world a few seconds of life and the father who assumes existence as denial.

In little tragedies like these, the humor of estrangement and alienation is also revealed, and Theroux knows that humor is always necessary to loosen knots.

Mother earth

Other recommended books by Paul Theroux

Family relationships are sometimes the task of psychoanalysts as speleologists in search of the essential mineral that everyone hides. For greater coincidence in this case in which a brother is the geologist in search of essential origins between chasms and other depths of the Earth that we tread.

Things can go between metaphors to venture into the darkest cavities of the familiar, towards that very core that not even Verne could fathom.

Pascal Belanger, "Cal," hates his older brother, Frank, who is so domineering and manipulative that it makes him question even the reasons for his animosity. It is the reason he escaped from Littleford, his hometown, and may have motivated his nomadic life ever since.

They both have a story in common, but none of their anecdotes seem to match. Did Cal rescue Frank from drowning one summer or was it the other way around? Does Frank owe his brother money or not? While Cal, an experienced geologist, has spent years traveling the world and married Vita, his brother has stayed at home as a doting son and became a lawyer. When he finally settles in Littleford with her wife, Cal often has to be away for work, which her brother takes advantage of to get closer to her. Is Frank the nice guy everyone thinks he is?

The geologist, Theroux
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