Paul Theroux Books

Theroux is a master observer with a keen eye and a sharp wit. In this book he delves deep into Polynesia and Oceana and it's characters and culture.

He uses a collapsible kayak that he packs from place to place to help him get away from the troubles in his life. Along the way, he has plenty of encounters. The result of which is a funny and interesting look behind the scenes and in out of the way places at the way people on these islands live, what they believe and how they go about their lives.

It's a great read, and has inspired more than a few of my own adventures !

A terrific read, Theroux has the courage to be politically incorrect in an age where Americans fear speaking the truth of their own experience.
As a travel writer myself, I am always astonished when someone is angered because my travel experience does not mirror his own, as is the case with other reviewers here.

Paul Theroux is a great travel writer, and among my favorite books is his look inside China in "Riding the Iron Rooster." This book, however, centers on his adventures paddling his way around the South Pacific. Among the places Theroux visits are Fiji, Samoa, Tahiti, the Marquesas, and Easter Island; in all, he travels among fifty some islands, from large areas to tiny islets without habitation. Using a traditional form of transport to the area (well, an updated version anyway), he covers a huge area of water and land that few people (except those native to the area) ever see.

His reporting style is the true measure of his worth: Theroux has an unflinching eye for both the beauty and the horrors of the places he visits. You won't get a romanticized version of these locations (no Peter Mayle here), but you will learn a lot about the people and places of the South Seas. His traveling style is fearless, and this is apparent from many of the adventures he chronicles in this volume. Theroux sets out to meet the people of the islands without knowing what their response to him might be, and it is not always a welcoming one.

I highly recommend any of Theroux's books, including his novels. However, it's in his tales of travel in which his true skills shine. His gift to readers is that he reports the truth as he sees it (good and bad), and he isn't afraid to make you uncomfortable. The adventure will not be what you expect but you will enjoy it all the same. In "The Happy Isles of Oceania," his unflinching eye will take readers to fascinating places they are unlikely to visit on their own, and it makes for some unbelievably wonderful reading.

It's been some years since I read this book but it still comes back loud and clear - what a bitter person he was. He "toured" the South Pacific right after he got divorced - and he distrusted and hated everybody. The book was published as we (me, wife and 2 teenagers) we sailing thru the SoPac in our sailboat - and having a wonderful time with the people, the islands, the beautiful environment - where people were happy and environmentally concerned - and this was 1991-1995. We loved it all and he was a bitter fool to miss it all.

Good grief, if I wanted a tale filled with hours of tooth-gnashing hatred and bitter invective I can just go to work. It's certainly not the sort of atmosphere I enjoy when reading a travelogue to try and escape my workaday existence.

I understand that the South Pacific is not the ideal place, but it is depressing to read Theroux' constant struggle to express any sense of joy in his travels or the people he meets along the way.

For an alternative, more light-hearted, still realistic take on the South Pacific with far less spleen, I highly recommend Tony Horowitz' "Blue Latitudes".

I have always enjoyed Paul Theroux's writing, hence the three stars, however here, he is one angry man. This book was quite a surprise to me. I bought it at Barnes and Noble and paid full price, assuming that I would like anything by this author. The cover states that this is a New York Times and Washington Post notable book of the year. They refer to Theroux as 'irascible'. I guess I would say this is one misanthropic, misogynistic, racist diatribe. We are told in the information on the author that he now lives in Hawaii and Cape Cod. After reading Hotel Honolulu I would guess he might have more friends on Cape Cod; but even there it is questionable.
It purports to be a novel, however it is more a collection of vignettes, observations by the protagonist about his employer, his fellow employees and assorted guests and visitors. There are two people who come out somewhat intact, Henry James' biographer, with whom the writer claims a civilized affinity,and the Chinese/Vietnamese bartender, Tran. The writing is Paul Theroux's so it is not bad, the problem is the jaundiced eye of the writer.

This is not really a novel, and as soon as I realized that I was able to enjoy it. Really, it is a series of interlocking short stories which progress inevitably toward a conclusion but remain more or less self contained. The tone is pure Theroux; aloof but self mocking, with the capacity to be tender or surprisingly mean. Theroux's main characters are often himself; an educated foreigner, misanthropic and past middle age, searching for and shunning social acceptance. This book is an easy read, and fun, but it has a gleeful mean-spiritedness that may be off-putting and some moments of geniunely deep and touching sadness.
Paul Theroux is often accused of misanthropy, and this is probably not the book that will disprove those allegations. He is less frequently called a racist, but I think it's clear that Theroux is not slamming natives of Hawaii any more than the white immigrants, Asian tourists, or any other group.
I deducted one star since some of the vignettes have a bit of a lackluster feel, especially those that are necessary to advance the meta-plot. This is not his best novel, but it is very good.

Paul Theroux writing on autopilot is still better than many other authors at the top of their form. His well-known ability to describe a place or person in just a few perfect words, his creation of believable characters with clear motivations, his ironic detachment as these same characters mess up their lives, and his depiction of a writer's battle with the demons of his craft are among his many brilliant qualities, all on vibrant display here.

Ultimately, however, this novel was a disappointment to me. Set in a 3rd-rate hotel in Honolulu, it has the characters and setting of a novel (and is called a novel on the cover), but it is so lacking in any sort of unifying plot, that it's not even possible to write a plot summary. The huge cast of characters has only one thing in common--they all live and/or work at the Hotel Honolulu. While some characters are complete enough that they could have been worked into a wonderful collection of short stories, others are seen only in tiny, three- or four-page vignettes and add nothing significant.

Like the author, the narrator is a writer who has had a failed marriage and difficult divorce in England and who has come to Hawaii hoping to escape his bad memories and the pressures of the writing life. He likes Hawaii "because it [is] a void"--almost no one recognizes his name, and those who do have not read his books. He works as the manager of the Hotel Honolulu.

Unfortunately, this fragmented book is shockingly mean-spirited in tone, going way beyond good-humored satire, and demeaning almost every aspect of Hawaii, its people, and its culture, while also taking pokes at some American icons. Virtually every woman in the book either is or has been a prostitute. All are dimwits. Even the narrator's wife is the product of a one-night stand between a Honolulu prostitute and John F. Kennedy, a man she supposedly never recognized in this most Democratic state. Hawaiian/Filipino girls are depicted as fair game, sexually, for their fathers, uncles, brothers, and other relatives.

Hawaiians who speak pidgin among themselves are mocked and their language derided. When he uses Hawaiian words, Theroux sometimes deliberately misspells them. Fellow-author Stephen King also takes a hit here, Theroux saying, "it takes only a modest talent to write about misery." In a particularly low blow, he comments on King's near-fatal accident by saying, "Gross reality [the accident] overwhelms his puerile and implausible fantasies." This novel may have its virtues, but modesty, tolerance, and good taste are not among them. Mary Whipple

where there was no way to turn aside either to the right hand or to the left." Numbers 22:26

Georges Simenon was nothing if not prolific in both his literary and public life. Born in Belgium in 1903, Simenon turned out hundreds of novels. Simenon's obsession with writing caused him to break off an affair (he was prolific in this area of his life as well) with the celebrated Josephine Baker in Paris when he could only write twelve novels in the twelve month period in which they were involved. Although best known for his Inspector Maigret detective novels, Simenon also wrote over a hundred novels that he referred to as `romans durs' (literally "hard novels"). NYRB Books is reissuing Simenon's hard novels. "The Widow" is their latest release. NYRB chooses its Simenons wisely. "The Widow" is a fine book.

I've sometimes thought of the arc of a person's life as one that consists of a series of narrowing options. On the day we are born the options available to us seem limitless. But the decisions made for us and the decisions we make every day serve to winnow out our options. It struck me, as I read "The Widow" that a typical Simenon story presents us with characters whose options seem so constrained to them that their actions, often desperate and violent, appear inevitable. "The Widow" is no exception. Tati is a middle-aged widow, living in a small village in a house owned by her aged father-in-law. She has clawed her way up to this not quite middle-class existence and will endure hard work and the infrequent sexual demands of the father-in-law to maintain her rightful place in this home. Jean, is a murderer, recently-released from a French prison. Unlike Tati, he comes from a solid, relatively wealthy local family. They meet on a bus and Tati decides without hesitation that Jean will provide her with help around the farm. Jean sees Tati as someone who can provide him with food, shelter, and a bedtime companion. This mutually beneficial relationship works out fine for a while, until Jean discovers the attractive young girl (Tati's niece) that lives on the adjacent property. From that point on the relationship between Jean and Tati takes a turn for the worse and continues to deteriorate. In a very real sense the options available to Jean and Tati are so dramatically narrowed in such a short span of time that each feels that his/her actions are inevitable, almost commanded by fate. The conclusion, while predictable, is powerful not because of the actions that bring about that conclusion but because of the overpowering sense of fate that drives the actions. Reading "The Widow" was like watching a storm at sea. You can see it a long ways off, you know it is coming, yet when it arrives it still manages to knock the wind out of you.

Paul Theroux's "Introduction" was interesting and on point. Theoroux points out the comparisons often made between Simenon and his contemporary, Albert Camus. Their writing shares much in terms of the sense of alienation and despair that infuses their characters. Theroux notes that Simenon never seemed to suffer the agony of the writer and believed that the ease with which words spilled out of him and on to paper were held against him by the literary establishment. He didn't suffer enough for his writing to be accorded the highest accolade. I tend to agree with that point. I don't believe, however, that Simenon's writing surpassed that of Camus. I do think that the comparison itself is valid and that each is good enough to be discussed in the company of the other.

"The Widow" is a fine example of the craft of Georges Simenon. Highly recommended. L. Fleisig

NYRB is reissuing many of the so-called, "romans durs" ("hard novels") written in haste but with great aplomb by the immensely prolific (400 plus novels) Georges Simenion. Obvious parallels exist between this novel and it's contemporary, "The Stranger", written by Albert Camus. In fact, Andre Gide found it the better of the two novels, which (to the chagrin of Simenon) despite that endorsement, failed to win the Nobel Prize in Literature for him.

This brief novel is beautifully written. For example, "...the summer was spoiled. Every two days, every three days at most, a storm rumbled in the distance without even bringing a cooling shower. It could be felt far off in the air, somewhere in the direction of Morvan. The atmosphere was heavy. The rays of the sun, suddenly, seemed painted in oils." It also has the air of objective detachment that permeates, "The Stranger". As in that book, the protagonist of this one, Jean Passerat-Monnoyeur, commits a crime (in the closing pages, he murders "the widow", Mrs Couderc), but has little apparent motive; he, in essence, just "felt like it", in a phrase. The murder could not even pass as an impulse. There are implications of "predestination" throughout the book which become grating, as if Simenon was attempting to interject psychoanalytic elements into the otherwise spare story.

Unlike Camus' novel, however, the denouement seems clumsy and unexplained. Simeonon drops portentious hints of forthcoming violence, such as Jean repeatedly mentally reviewing elements of the French criminal code on murder; he's been there before, having killed a man over gaming loses. The second crime, the murder of Madame Couderc, could be construed as having been vaguely provoked by her jealousy over his dalliance with a neighbor girl. Because it is abrupt and therefore hard to fathom and given that it is not the culmination of a series of events, but rather a tenuous extension from them (beforehand, the jealous nagging was received with equanimity), the reader is left with the impression that Simenon was ready to move to another novel and simply chose to end this one with a jarring crime.

In summary, this is a good novel, certainly on par with his others in NYRB. Unlike Gide, I did not consider it first rank.

Seeing the highly positive and negative reviews here I have to offer a mixed opinion. This is definitely on the very dark side, and at times it seems so disconnected from reality that you have to ask what the point is. But it's beautifully written, and if you're the type who doesn't ask that fiction be hunky-dory it's quite readable. I took it on vacation, which may seem perverse, but it's a page-turner in its way. It features what may be the kinkiest marriage in the history of literature. The book is a period piece from the late 1980s with effective use of icons of that time such as Robert Mapplethorpe's photography.

The few negative reviews posted here can, in my opinion, be discounted. If you're looking for likeable characters or a taut crime sage, er... you picked up the book. This is as chilling an account of a psychotic's interior life as one is likely to read (it buries Ellis' similarly-themed, far less insightful "American Psycho). The protagonist, Parker, isn't simply unlikeable, he is - for a time - eerily unknowable, and the book's greatest acheivement is how it mirrors this notion in the cunning narrative tricks Theroux employs. Once Parker's soul is indeed laid bare to him and us, the descent is a harrowing one, but worth the journey.

The main character here may be the perfect "dual" personality, that we read about in psychiatric texts. A successful,handsome, fit 35 year old with a nice (slightly kinky) wife, who seems to love him, a happy 6 month old boy,BMW, House in the "Burbs, good job in real estate development. One wonders how this guy even began on his quest to Singles Scene Ads, violence, cross dressing, and general bizarre behavior. When he strolls thru a Mapplethorpe exhibit with his wife, and a friend of the "artist", he seems as normal as you or I. Granted, he has some strange "dates" in a sleazy Chicago Hotel room, but they are with his wife, after all! So you wonder how this guy gets to be so weird! Mr. Theroux pulls off this difficult task of convincing the reader that it all happens, and the reader gets a grand tour through some of the seamiest sides of Chicago, not to mention humanity itself! Another star in the vast opus of the supertalented Mr. Paul Theroux!

Having read Chicago Loop a few years ago, I felt compelled to offer my 2 cents due to the overly negative reviews posted here. It is a very good book by a great author, dealing with sexual desires and thoughts that some might find disturbing. I get the idea that this is what the author intended, and the hellish ride through the main character's psyche as he descends into the depths of despair and depravity is a hell of a good read.

I have been transported by Theroux's fiction, especially his Collected Stories and My Other Life. But this book has problems. As an exploration of the anguish of a man trying to face the innate aggression of male sexuality, it sometimes succeeds. But the main character does not cohere, and his psychosis is no excuse for the author's failure. It reads as though the character had been rewritten at least twice, but was never integrated.
There are also problems with the setting. It might seem petty and provincial to quibble about details of local color, but Theroux is after all a famous travel writer. The neighborhoods and buildings depicted exist, but the businesses and people he describes would never occupy them. A Polish-American woman says she is from "Milwaukee Avenue," which would be like a New Yorker saying he came from "Third Avenue." Most unforgiveably, she puts ketchup on her sausage. This horrifying lapse makes me wonder whether he visited Chicago at all, or just referred at a map.

What a fantasy life both lived, the master and the copyroom boy who wanted to be what he wasn't, thus creating a secret history which was all based on made-up events from an old book he just couldn't turn loose of -- and other fiction he could use as his own. Prompted by those who could use this unassuming-looking young man to be a front for their hypocrisy and money to manufacture a history which didn't exist. Rudyard Kipling was the master of deception back in 1899 with books like KIM and other pieces of fiction. There is a followup a century later with someone calling himself Neely. First, he self-published a book of news columns purportedly by him but now he is giving credit to others as follows: #1 was Knoxville's Secret History by Jack Neely, Aaron Jay, and Lisa Horstman (Paperback - Nov 1, 1995), #2 was Secret History II: Stories About Knoxville, Tennessee by Jack Neely, Ed Richardson, and Lisa Horstman (Paperback - Nov 20, 1998). Lisa Horstman must be the maiden name of Karen, but who is Ed Richardson. That's a new one on me.

What was supposedly history of old happenings in this town he admits to me is pure fiction based on the book, Sutree. Sordid and scandalous events which never happened except in his imagination. He is no Kipling but "borrowed" Paul Theroux's Secret History book as the title of the tabloid columns since 1995. He has created a sordid and scathing "past" which didn't happen. He has been on a sex craze from times gone by also which didn't happen as he wrote. He even promoted a fictional account of a prominent person who helped to write Harbrace Handbook for English. He is merely the office boy and others do the writing for which he gets credit. When he tries to talk to literary groups, he hems and haws and never says anything substantial. He tricked me, as he has tricked the newcomers to this sordid town. It is turning into a drug culture in the downtown area. One of them (actually two counting the wife) are now in prison for marjuiana sales and the properties they managed to pull over the officials as legitimate. People like them have ruined this town. And they have used the services of one Neely who is a pretender for old men who pull the wool over the eyes of unknowing foreigners.

Caution: Starlet contains much female nudity of the torso and derriere. The images are intended to be provocative, without being in poor taste. The book also contains occasional coarse words. If such things offend you, avoid this book.

If Starlet had a larger page size and a lower price, this would be a five-star book. It contains the writing and photography to warrant a five-star rating.

Starlet's theme is how an aspiring young actress or actor goes about defining herself or himself to attract the attention of Hollywood producers, directors, and casting executives while then going on to grab a mass audience in the theaters.

In the days of the studio system, the studio hired hundreds of such youngsters and tried to build them into stars around a preconceived marketing concept. Today, the youngsters have to do the same thing, but by relying on their own resources. It makes the odds much more difficult to overcome.

Ms. Nancy Ellison's photography from 1970-1995 shows a remarkable ability to capture the uniqueness of her strivers, rather than putting them all into simple molds. Her results seemed best at capturing the subtleties of personality, body type, and acting ability of the subjects when women were involved. But a few of her male photographs are quite remarkable, too.

Ms. Ellison's opening essay on her philosophy is very well done, and explains her work quite well. "To the viewer, the starlet holds this problem, availability, surrender, and finally, possession." "With another woman, I choose to be in collusion with her -- to seduce the world with her beauty." "What has she got that no one else has?" "It is the imagery that creates the desirability of the subject." "Starlet is an homage to all those beautiful creatures who posed for my camera hoping for stardom, and to their youthful dreams."

As fine as her essay is, it is easily outshone by Mr. Paul Theroux's musings about what a starlet is. He begins by recalling his experience as a youngster spotting Marilyn Monroe in Scubba-Hoo! Scubba-Hay! listed in the credits as "girl in rowboat" (which was actually a canoe). From there he describes the Margot Peters character in Vladimir Nabokov's Laughter in the Dark. Mr. Theroux puts up many contradictory, but partially accurate, dictionary definitions. These ideas are contrasted with popular conceptions and how directors think about starlets. Ultimately, he feels that a starlet is many things including "the siren, the waif, the girl with screen potential, the babe, the expressive face, the eloquent [derriere] . . . ."

You will recognize and be interested in many of the photographs in the book. Most of the subjects went on to have noteworthy careers, but there are also unknowns who are probably out of the industry now.

My favorite female images were of Rosanna Arquette, Shari Belafonte, Jamie Lee Curtis, Geena Davis, Molly Ringwald, Jennifer Tilly, Grace Jones, Isabelle Adjani, Kim Bassinger, Catherine Hicks, Isabelle Huppart, Isabella Rosellini, Margot Kidder, Maud Adams, Heather Locklear, Sharon Stone, Glenn Close, and Arielle Dombasle. In terms of acting skill for the camera, Rosanna Arquette, Isabelle Adjani, Isabelle Huppart, Sharon Stone, and Glenn Close will make the biggest impressions on you. These women were all quite young in these photographs (although clearly over 18) so there's a dewiness that you may not have seen before. On the other hand, strong character is also clearly present in some of these women at quite a young age. In others, emotional maturity is evident also.

My favorite male photographs were of Pierce Brosnan (the best in my opinion), Christopher Reeve, River Phoenix, and Nicholas Cage.

The page size for these images should have had an area about 40 percent larger. The details would have reproduced much better if that had been the case.

In many cases, a two page layout has five or six images on it. These images are really too small to do justice to the work.

I would like to mention that the captions were excellent. Ms. Ellison discusses the subject, the issues involved with the shooting, and makes broader observations about starlets in these captions.

For the number of pages in this volume, I thought the price was excessive. The volume felt more like one that should have had a suggested retail price of $27.50 to me.

Despite my quibbles, most people who love to look at beautiful women and handsome men will find this to be an outstanding volume.

I suggest that you take out photographs of yourself at various ages, and look objectively to see what these images tell you about how you represent yourself. In which ones are you playing a role? In which ones are you being yourself? What lessons do you draw from these observations and from seeing Starlet about how you should portray yourself in the future?

Let the beauty of your soul shine through!

Paul Theroux is a very talented writer. He writes excellent stories, he's written some good novels, and he used to write good travel books too. I've enjoyed plenty of them over the years. Who am I ? I am just a reader out there in small town Massachusetts who's had a few experiences in life and who likes to read books about faraway places, or maybe about the human comedy. I'm not a hot-shot critic. I can't expound on the literary qualities of this or that writer with the expertise gleaned from English departments, because I didn't attend any courses in those English departments. But life is in the eye of the beholder. As Mr. Theroux has grown older, his view of life has become more and more pessimistic. Nothing gives him pleasure, everything leads to disappointment, failure, and frustration. He sees many people trying to make up for the nature of his world through lies, delusions, and retreat. He has become a man who sees only the garbage on the beach of life. All relationships must end badly in this world---they are disappointing right from the start usually. The maggot of indecision and betrayal always appears, it can be squeezed and ejected from under the skin as in the story "White Lies", but never avoided. Your closest friends and heroes will fall short of your expectations, your loves will fade, and nothing can replace them. Life---in these stories---is indeed a rotten, desperate situation. But at least, Theroux can write about it, tear it apart, and send it out in sad, unpleasant little pieces. Even if it's your old friend and mentor, you can turn on him and publish a whole book telling us what a rat he always was. Maybe he was. If I ever met Mr. Theroux, I'd make like "Roadrunner" and disappear in a flash, rather than risk winding up a crabbed, contemptible suburbanite in some story.

OK, these are my remarks. If you've read this far, then I can tell you that taking into account these feelings of mine, there are some excellent stories in this collection, though some are not up to his usual high standard. "The Odd-Job Man", about an American academic in England, "The Greenest Island", a long story about an inexperienced American youth in Puerto Rico, and "Clapham Junction", a short but powerful story about the depths of human foibles stand out. Personally, I think you'd do better with "The Consul's File" or with some of the earlier novels. If you already know Theroux and like his style, you'll probably find this collection excellent. I find his view of the world too jaundiced, too cynical, too negative. The brightest day, the happiest moment, the most beautiful scene always carries a vague menace and the seed of major failure. I agree that it is possible, but always ???

Set in the year or two just before the British handover, this book really brings back that strange period of a few years when noone knew quite what was going to happen. Would the Chinese move in with their tanks 1 month early just to make a point? Would capitalism in Hong Kong end? Would the progress made under the British be rolled back and the province absorbed into the mother country without trace? Well of course none of that happened (at least not yet).

As usual Theroux's characters are vivid and his style matter-of-fact yet very informative. I would have liked a bit of a happier ending but I guess that just reflects the chances of a happy ending for HK at that time. Also the mainland Chinese are portrayed as somewhat pantomime villains. This work doesn't quite stand out like his travel books but still definitely worth reading.

This Hong Kong classic is both a great read and a great help for Westerners planning to live in, or visit Hong Kong. I first read it when I lived there in the late 90's, even began reading it on the Star Ferry when it came out in early 1997. Bunt is an old "Hong Kong Belonger", British, lives atop Victoria Peak ("the" address to have), has a factory in the district of Kowloon Tong, and has a pretty easy life thanks to the protection of British rule and law in a region better known for dictatorships. But all that is coming to an end, with Britain handing over Hong Kong to China. The Chinese military bureaucrat Hung arrives to force Bunt to sell the Chinese Army his business - the Red Army wants to start making some cash, and Bunt is bewildered and soft due to his life in the colony and can't cope well. The harshness of Hunt and the fuddy-duddyness of Bunt are well-drawn depictions of actual Hong Kong types. The ending is very Hong Kong. Also very Hong Kong are the myriads of other types depicted here - Chinese, British, American. The Chinese bigot yelling "Gweilo!" Bunt's horrible mother yelling "Chinky-Chonk!" The American trying to buy a new nationality to avoid paying US taxes. Many of the anecdotes and scenes perfectly capture the harsh underbelly of the place which has its origins in the tragic influx of all those millions of Chinese refugees fleeing China to the safety of then-British Hong Kong and the huge insecurities that created. This is a book to read both before you go AND after you've lived there for a year, many of the subtler aspects of the book will be revealed to you. One thing the book the makes no concessions to is the important concept in Chinese culture of "Face" - there is nothing more importatnat than NOT losing face in China, so warts-and-all books like this are not appreciated. But the book is written for any readers who like a good read to contain accuracy of description rather than a tourist bureau spin account. The book was banned in the People's Republic for just this reason (minor shades of Tiannamen Square!) There are also several in-house jokes which will become apparent after you've been in Hong Kong awhile - for example the placing of a factory in the district of Kowloon Tong, a subtle comment on how awful that residential district was to live in - locally reffered to as "exclusive" (this is "face" at work again), it sat under the final landing path of the international airport which was next door!

If you're going to Hong Kong, also consider reading the other *Hong Kong classics* most expats have on their shelves: Jan Morris's *Hong Kong* has loads of information on Hong Kong up to 1997, including an important account of the tragic influx of all those millions of Chinese refugees fleeing China for Hong Kong, how that situation vastly overcrowded the place and made for a pressure-cooker atmosphere, and how even today it is embarressing for Hong Kong Chinese to talk about (again, it causes loss of "face"). Great info on the British days, too, and evocative descriptions of the wonderful hill-hiking Hong Kong has to offer (don't miss Plover Cove!).

Bo Yang's *The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis in Chinese Culture* is a fascinating account by a Taiwanese journalist of the stultifying effect many aspects of Chinese culture has had on the Chinese - especially the worship of the past during imperial times that led to the near-death of critical thinking. The author relates this legacy to many of the unpleasant "underbelly" - side of things in day-today Hong Kong
life - the rude crowds, bad public behaviour, spitting, etc. Though that may sound harsh, it actually helped me to appreciate things Chinese better knowing the tragic origin of these things. I appreciated more the great aspects of China - the poetry of Li Po, the classic novels Story of the Stone, etc - because of Bo Yang's book. Sadly, Bo's book is also banned in China proper.

Timothy Mo's novel *The Monkey King* is a great account of an eccentric Hong Kong Chinese family - I felt I met these people again and again while living there.

National Geographic's video *Hong Kong* is a must see portrait of the real Hong Kong - not some tourist bureau fantasy but a remarkable look into the millions of refugees who escaped to Hong Kong after the Chinese revolution.

The film *China Box*, by a local Hong Kong boy who made it to the West, is essential for potential expats - watch it for the *depiction* of the city, which is perfectly rendered. The story is a little so-so, but if you're going to live there, watch the visuals. This is what Hong Kong looks like. The depiction of the young Chinses refugee (played by Gong Li) being ridiculed for her bad accent buy older, "more established" refugees is harrowingly accurate.

Lastly, check out Austin Coate's classic, *Myself A Mandarin*, a memoir of a colonial judge in the 1950's trying to sort out the culture clashes between British Law and Chinese sensibilities.

If you're going to live in Hong Kong, ALL these books are even more illuminating read a second time after you've lived there a year.

Paul Theroux's Kowloon Tong (meaning nine-dragon pond, a district in Hong Kong) is a novel of Hong Kong on the verge of the 1997 handover. Written against the historical backdrop of handing a free Chinese city back to a totalitarian Chinese state, Kowloon Tong is far less glittering from the inevitably rip-roaring story for the global media, it is a piece of cobbled (opportunistic, maybe) fiction.

Neville "Bunt" Mullard was born and raised in Hong Kong, went to the posh Queen's College, and inherited the almost-monopolizing Imperial Stitching Company, which manufactured badges sewn on breast pockets of sports-jackets from his late father and his partner Henry Chuck. At 40, Bunt was not married, devoid of friends, frequented bars and brothels, but felt the pressure of his dead brother, dead father, and the late avuncular Chuck hovering near him at work.

A pathetic mama's boy, Bunt lived a life that synchronized with his mother's, so confining and dull. She knew so much (too much) about his life, his daily routine and his where about that he deliberately contrived to create secrets (the topless bar and an affair with an employee Mei-Ping) and manipulated his mother's mood.

As the British prepared to hand over Hong Kong to the Chinese motherland, the much-talked-about upheaval did not concern the Mullards, who lived nonchalantly at the Peak (a rich-and-famous, on-top-of-the-city neighbor which afforded panoramic view of the city and was away from, say, 95% of the colonial population). They executed their social fares with the small band of Brits at the Cricket Club, the English tea ritual at the Hong Kong club, outings to horse races by taxi, and lived as if the city and majority of its inhabitants (meaning the Chinese) didn't exist. The Cantonese was such grating noise that was remotely similar to any human speech. The Chinese food made them retch.

When a Mr. Hung, who spoke perfect English with an American accent, on behalf of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (soon to station in Hong Kong), offered 9 million to purchase the building of Imperial Stitching, the Mullards' world of insouciance was jolted. Through a series of minatory gestures that might have attributed to the missing employee Ah Fu and janitor Woo, for the first time in their life the Mullards learned the truth of the colony's prospect-smiling but threatening and know-it-all Chinese officials behind a system of bribes and disloyalty.

I have to applause to Theroux's keen eye on the geographical and cultural details of Hong Kong that are usually accessible to those who live in the city, the natives. His effort in nailing down the Hong Kong Chinese to the root is admirable and formidable-the inveterate trait to look after family, to not to say the thing that was no the heart, to say "I don't know" when you knew, to not to show feelings and emotion and (this is my favorite) to mob the exit on arrival in any transportation mean as if it was a panicky evacuation under an emergency. That's Hong Kong, in addition to all the incessant noise-the clanking of trams, the beeping of cell phones, and the ubiquitous charivari of Cantonese conversations that sounded like a hair-pulling argument, serenaded the city.

The book also deftly captures Hong Konger's despondency of the uncertain future. For over 100 years, under the British governance, Hong Kong stood as the only Chinese society that lived an ideal never experienced and realized at any time in the history of any Chinese society. The colony, which practiced capitalism, provided a stable home for refugees from turbulent events of Chinese history such as the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. Inhabitants of Hong Kong were those who fled the Communists in 1949 and their descendants. Thus in the proximity of 1997, a taut atmosphere hovered over the colony as everyone tried to secure an escape route, which usually manifested in the form of a foreign passport, a green card, a relative in Canada, or a marriage of convenience. Theroux has astutely seen to this political tension in his novel.

What infuriates me about this book and thus makes it a cobbled piece of fiction is the puerile plot. Theroux portrayed the Hong Kong Chinese women as some of the most naïve and gullible and stupidest species of the human. Women were constantly abased, manipulated, used, and sexually abused. As a native of Hong Kong, I could vouch that the chance of an affair between a foreigner and a factory worker is infinitesimal. The affair itself was stuck in a deadlock and the characters that involved in the affair were one-dimensional. Betty Mullard's ruler-ver-subject attitude toward the Hong Kongers was also snobbish and obnoxious. If the Chinese were really so out-of-focus and were like riddles to her, why couldn't she at least try to know the Chinese people? It was true the British were rulers and the Chinese the subjects, but what infuriates me is the arrogance on her part, not knowing she was in Hong Kong, where the majority was the Chinese people.

It occurred to me toward the end that the stitching company and its fate might have served as a symbolism of Hong Kong but I prefer not to give away. The ending was disappointing and ambivalent. It is a cobbled piece of fiction that astutely delves in the significance of the historical backdrop but sacrifices the backbone of the story. Readers will learn more about the culture of Hong Kong but disappoint at the story. 2.5 stars.

I first read Kowloon Tong while living in Stanley, Hong Kong, just a few months before the Hand-over. I have found its rendering of attitudes of expatriates and chinese by far the most accurate account of the Hong Kong I experienced on a day to day basis. Theroux is equally fair (and equally blunt) about British, Chinese and American residents in Hong Kong - I encountered the boorish behaviour described here everyday - that was Hong Kong, a place where people went to make money, or to escape from China (or both). Not everyone, of course, was like Bunt and Hung, but these are recognizable types.
The plot is that of Graham Greene thriller, with the sarcasm of Evelyn Waugh and Gore Vidal thrown in. I should add that I find many of the comments on this page highly evocative of the Hong Kong I knew, too - the novel was banned in China and was a painful read for some Hong Kong British, Chines and Americans I knew (especially the types well-described here -chiefly long-term residents). The detached reader should enjoy a good read that's also highly accurate in its description.
The Hong Kong I knew was about the most un-literary place on the planet. "Criticism" of Hong Kong was thought of as a pamphlet from the Tourist Bureau, an announcement from the Government Publicity Office, or the Website of a company wanting to do business in China. But that is not what novelists do.

Theroux's early travel writing places him firmly alongside Lewis and Newby; his middle period novels only a little below Greene. This novel, however, makes 'Nobel House' seem well-researched and insightful.

The plot of Kowloon Tong is loose and although the novel is thankfully short, Theroux seems to anticipate his reader's ennui with the whole concept well before the middle of the book. It is the sort of thing you would expect of someone who'd paid a fortnight's vist to the Territory to stay with friends who didn't go out much.

The characterisation of both the English and Chinese is wholely unbelievable and the energy and 'vividness' of Hong Kong which has always been unconnected with ownership of the place is totally lacking.

Clearly a piece of opportunism on the part of his publisher, which Theroux should be ashamed of himself for going along with.

This is the first book that I have read by Paul Theroux. I am generally a Stephen King reader but unfortunally my English teacher does not allow him for a book report. Anyways, I had an oral presentation to do today on The Black House, and since this book didn't catch my intrest, I only read to page 25. Come on! I was falling asleep. I still give all regards to the author but I just couldn't stand the boring lit.

achilles heel -not truly the black hous

I could only bear the first 110 pages. I can't stand reading anymore. Argh! I gave it this much time of my life because he is a renowned author and deserved some respect, but, one can only take so much boredom. Sorry to all the Theroux lovers.

English anthropologist Alfred Munday has returned to his homeland for health reasons after a decade in Uganda studying the Bwamba tribe. Frustrated by this forced change in his life, Munday finds himself unable to begin preparing his research for publication. His marriage sits on precarious ground, and he and his wife have just taken on a domestic disaster: the home they leased site-unseen--Bowood House, "the Black House" to locals--is ruinous, inhospitable, and apparently haunted. Munday's superior, intellectual airs quickly alienate the couple from their neighbors in the town of Four Ashes. Then the beautiful Caroline appears, and she initiates a torrid, reckless affair with Munday, whose old troubles are quickly exchanged for new ones.

There is a prevailing tone of despair, even damnation, to Paul Theroux's ghost story, THE BLACK HOUSE. Munday is a pathetic creature, a surly egoist unable to make or keep friends or to fill his roles as husband and scholar. He allows the trappings of his identity slowly to be stripped away until he is only a shadow of his formerly serious and professional self. He invites an African acquaintance to Four Ashes for a visit, but Munday, under the influence of this growing malaise, becomes suddenly embarrassed by the very sight of the man and abuses him at every turn. Though clearly he needs no help at it, some of his new neighbors are more than willing to aid Munday's decline: while giving a presentation at a local church about his anthropological work in Africa, a valuable and dangerous Bwamba artifact is stolen from him; the theft drives Munday to distraction, sensing that if he should ever see the object again it will not be under happy circumstances. The great irony which unfolds over the course of the novel is that this anthropologist, who considers it his vocation to make one African tribe comprehensible to the outside world, cannot himself adapt to the simple community of Four Ashes. In placing himself above small town life, Munday rejects the basic principals of social integration, thus making himself ideal prey for the mysterious Caroline.

The quality of Theroux's writing and the dark mix of psychology, intense sensuality, and metaphysical unease place THE BLACK HOUSE in the estimable company of Richard Adams' THE GIRL IN A SWING and Robert Aickman's "strange stories." This is a territory in which unexpected and inexplicable episodes drive the narrative: Munday glimpses two mutilated dogs under a tarp in a local man's garden; a woman applying for a maid's position at Bowood House leaves information leading the Mundays to the wrong address; the scorching eroticism of Caroline's surprise visits threaten to leave the Mundays' home in flames. Such incidents accumulate over the course of the novel, tempered by Theroux's cool but entrancing prose. From this grows a palpable tension that--perhaps in keeping with its nature--never actually resolves. One almost anticipates the novel's vague, indecipherable ending, a point at which Theroux compels his readers to share, for a moment, Munday's banishment to a maddening limbo.

I love Paul Theroux, I've read most of his work, but this cruelly disappoints. He can write great fiction : look at The Family Arsenal, but this is not great fiction. I couldn't get into the book at all, the characters didn't grab me, the plot seemed forced, and the sex scenes towards the close of the book seemed almost to be there to encourage the reader to actually finish the book. Disappointed.

Paul Theroux's travel book soften being out strong opinions in readers- particulrly those who have visited a place he has written about. Many of the most critical seem to focus on a few details and miss the overall tenor of the piece.

As Theroux makes quite clear in this book, he loves the English seacoast, and he met many warm people along the way. At the same time, he unflinchingly relates every detail of his experience, every rude comment, every unpleasant encounter. As he notes, most travel writing is boring; we went to Egypt, we saw the pyramids, et cetera. What makes for interesting reading is the minutia, the detail that makes my trip different from your trip. My England is nothing like Theroux's, but then, I wasn't there for 17 years, I didn't tour the coast, and I am not Paul Theroux.

I recently re-read "Kingdom", while thinking about a bicycle tracing some of the ground covered by Theroux, and what struck me was how much there was that Theroux truely liked about his trip, the things he saw, and the people he met. The more unpleasant encounters only served to make the pleasant ones more so.

"Kingdom By The Sea" is for me, at least, a thouroughly enjoyable tour, a look into the British and into Theroux, and as always, a terrific piece of writing by one of the modern masters.

I found "The Kingdom by the Sea", read by William Hootkins, snooty and offensive. Its picture of the British is projected right out of the jerkish Theroux's psyche, and does not represent the way one sees a country if one wishes to UNDERSTAND it, which is to see it as it is through the frame of mind of the inhabitants, and with transcendent human sympathy and a great deal of imagination. One goes to another country, first of all, to learn something about ONESELF.

Britain is a country to love, not to hate. Having lived there a year, in 1977-8, it still has my heart, and my embarrassed admiration as an American.

This is the second Theroux audiobook I have found a failure, the first being his book on Latin America.

- Patrick Gunkel (Woods Hole, Massachusetts)

Theroux's interesting but illstarred plan was to meet the English by travelling around the coast, on foot and by train. Real English, real conversations. He was twenty years too late. About a month into this disaster it's becoming obvious that even the lower middle class have abandoned the gray, chilly English coastal towns for cheap jumbo jets to sunny climes. The old resorts have become God's Waiting Room and battlegrounds for the skinhead urban poor. Chapters go by without him seeing a child, or a real family, only potty old people who hate foreigners. These aren't "the English." Poor Theroux. Read his fine book on China instead.