Paul Theroux Books

I assumed this would be a travel book as so many of his titles are. It is, in a way, but it's fiction. I liked the book quite a lot, particularly the first chapter, entitled Altar Boy (1956), which dealt with clashing views of religion and how some people's, however well meant, can have a debilitating affect on others'. I was struck by how much it reminded me of some Mormon fiction, particularly Levi Peterson's.

What he means by his 'secret history', by the way, is his considerable appetite for sexual exploits. This activity dominates the book, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong. I have as healthy an appetite for sex as anyone, but I'm not really all that interested in hearing others brag about their own exploits.

There are worse things, though. It's one thing to read about such things in a novel or a pornographic magazine which one can choose to read or not, but it's worse to have it foisted on you in public in the form of billboard ads such as the infamous Calvin Klein underwear ads of a few years ago.

Anyway, back to the point. The first chapter of this book is, to my mind, a true literary masterpiece. But Theroux is a great travel writer, and the rest is worth reading for the descriptions of places in Africa and India if nothing else. Toward the end of the book, Theroux makes an interesting observation on travel which rang true for me. The story makes a moving tribute to the religion of Islam, as well.

The scene takes place in a hotel room where he and his wife are staying, above a mosque in Madras (Chennai) just before the call to prayer. I include here some additional text to give the quote some context:

"Below us the faithful were gathering. I watched Jenny's intense concentration and admired her reverence. She picked up her camera quickly and fingered and focused. But she did not shoot a picture -- out of respect, I felt. She said nothing, only watched, and I kept looking at her, the way she scrutinized the scene at the mosque. I thought how travel was composed of moments like this: discoveries and reverences separated by great inconvenience. These encounters, taken together, added up to one's experiences of a place -- the inconvenience had to be forgotten and displaced by the epiphany -- like this call to prayer."