Review by New York Times Review
THERE'S A CONVENTIONAL question when it comes to the travel writer Paul Theroux. How can he seem so cranky on the page, yet keep sending himself out into the world to endure the indignities of third-class travel and endless conversations with random passers-by. Why does he bother? "Figures in a Landscape," his new collection of essays and magazine articles, doesn't completely solve the puzzle of his dyspeptic pose, but it goes a long way toward dispelling the image of Theroux as a long-suffering misanthrope setting out on the rails and the roads yet again. What emerges instead is a portrait of an optimist with curiosity and affection for humanity in all its forms, as well as a ravenous appetite for the literary efforts of others. Some of the best reading in this collection, in fact, comes from Theroux's critical essays and reported pieces on the likes of Graham Greene, Muriel Spark, Joseph Conrad, Henry David Thoreau and Paul Bowles. On a trek to Monroeville, Ala., he calls on a nearly deaf Harper Lee, who only shouts, "What kind of a fool question is that?" in response to an opening pleasantry shown to her on a flashcard. He is thus fated to produce what magazine editors call a "write-around" - that is, searching the margins for a composite of the truth that possibly fills an uncooperative center. But Theroux's sweet spot happens to be spinning a convincing narrative through wandering conversations with any citizens who cross his path: barbers, sharecroppers' children, retired salesmen, gas pumpers and preachers, at least a few of whom still recalled Harper's neighbor Truman Capote as a temperamental "smartass." The astoundingly prolific Theroux once described the act of writing a book as "turning the big wooden crank on my chomping meat grinder," and though his prose can read like the pressed Wienerwurst of whatever happened to him that day, he's also capable of executing a pointed celebrity profile with the formalism the genre requires, along with a little something extra. While riding in a helicopter over Santa Barbara, Calif., with Elizabeth Taylor on assignment for the now defunct Talk magazine, he first notes her childishly delighted squeal at flying low enough for the windows to be nearly splashed with sea foam. But in the next moment Taylor shifts into a learned observation about the sunset, made in "a different tone, thoughtful, adult, a little sad, with the characteristic Elizabethan semiquaver, from a lifetime of lotus eating." One pitfall with republished-essay collections is that they can read like authorial shelf-cleanings or, worse, attempts at a career retrospective without an obvious thread. But with Theroux, a clear throughline was never the point; he is a master of elliptical maximalism. Taken together, these essays draw a picture of a cheerful polymath thoroughly enjoying even those conversations that he later pretends to find tiresome. The most emotionally affective writing in this collection, in fact, comes from one of its longest entries: a recollection of the author's father, written during a trip on the 5,772-mile Trans-Siberian Railway. The elder Theroux was a leather salesman, a kind man who never swore, believed in forgiveness and declined to read any of his son's books. The son has an abundance of recollections, but no answers to the enigma that was his father. "On reflection, I see he was strange, and he seems to recede as I write, as sometimes when I asked him a question about himself, he backed away. In writing about him like this, I realize I do not know what was in his heart." Appropriately enough, Theroux professes irritation with writers who draw road maps to their souls, even as he compulsively writes about himself. Thus the final essay is titled "The Trouble With Autobiography," which he derides as "a hinting form." He coquettishly denies that he will ever write one. But he doesn't need to. His essence has been captured by indirection, via a gigantic lifetime write-around. If you seek his monument, look at the "also by" page in the front of this book. TOM zoellner'S most recent book is "Train: Riding the Rails That Created the Modern World - From the Trans-Siberian to the Southwest Chief."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 3, 2018]
Review by Booklist Review
Essays from profiles and short travel pieces to book reviews and book introductions surely seem quaternary to the prolific Theroux's novels, short stories, and travel books. And yet these pieces, written to make a reasonable living and produce the illusion of respectable employment, now make up a respectable portion of his output: this third collection brings his total to 134 essays over 53 years. Those who've missed these 30 pieces where previously published will be impressed by the breadth of his interests, the depth of his research, and the scrupulousness of his prose. A profile of Elizabeth Taylor (Liz in Neverland) works a miracle, allowing us to view the icon with unjaded eyes. A lengthy profile of a dominatrix (Nurse Wolf) offers genuine insight into both spanker and spanked. Appreciations of Conrad, Greene, Maugham, and Simenon show how book introductions ought to be done. And the closing, more personal pieces the most powerful of which, Dear Old Dad: Memories of My Father, formed the basis for his novel Mother Land (2017) add emotional heft and shape to this wide-ranging, thought-provoking, and eminently browsable collection.--Graff, Keir Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Novelist and travel writer Theroux (Mother Land) is at the top of his game with his third collection of essays, a magisterial grouping of intimate remembrances, globe-trotting adventures, and incisive literary critiques. The 30 essays are culled from national publications and book introductions over a 15-year period, melding vivid narratives with shaded renderings of Theroux's inner life. The deeply personal "Dear Old Dad: Memories of My Father," reminisces about a loving yet remote parent who never read any of his son's work. "My Life as a Reader" explores Theroux's love affair with reading as a bookish child, and, later, as a teacher in Africa. "Trespassing in Africa" is his frightening tale of sex and recklessness during a booze-driven bender one Christmas in Zambia. His travels take him to Asia, Africa, Hawaii (now his home), and Morocco. Paul Bowles Michael Jackson, Oliver Sacks, Muriel Spark, Elizabeth Taylor, and Robin Williams are profiled, as well as a dominatrix whose vulnerability comes through amid the salacious details of her work in "Nurse Wolf, the Hurter." A highly versatile, appealing writer, Theroux casts a wide net with pleasing and entertaining results. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A retrospective of the prolific writer's essays, travel stories, and reflections.In his latest work of nonfiction, Theroux (Mother Land, 2017, etc.) intersperses feature-length articles, essays, and celebrity portraits with miscellaneous shorter pieces on writing, love, and life, including one unforgettable character sketch of his enigmatic father. His many self-assigned subjects during this 15-year span include several complex and contradictory personalities, such as his close friend Hunter S. Thompson, "a boisterous recluse who also needed to be seen and heard," and a professional dominatrix, "Nurse Wolf," whom the author admires for her levelheadedness and her striking degree of empathy. When traveling abroad, Theroux prefers to be "humble, patient, solitary, anonymous, and alert," and he downplays his own moderate celebrity, preferring public transit to state-sponsored tourism. Whether recounting a "drug tour" of the Amazon or describing the many guises of corruption and exploitation that he witnessed during the 1960s in Africahe served in the Peace Corps in what is now Malawihis stories are less travelogues than well-curated meditations on some of the places, people, and moments he has experienced in a lifetime of rambles. Although Theroux claims to avoid all contemporary novels, lest their voices intrude on his creative process, he portrays himself as the last in a long tradition of travel-writing novelists, among them Somerset Maugham and Joseph Conrad, whose work he enjoyed discussing with Michael Jackson. Theroux manages an easygoing, self-effacing presence in his essays, as though his ego were spent somewhere around his 15th novel, and he locates his often witless or mystified self squarely within the frame of each encounter. His spare, unhurried prose style, which is rarely long-winded, betrays a novelist's relish for illuminating details and devastating turns of phrase. Yet despite his long and prolific career, Theroux still finds himself gobsmacked by wonder at what life has shown him, whether traipsing through the Neverland ranch with Elizabeth Taylor or trying to interview Robin Williams while caught up in the cloud of his obsessive, frenetic improvising.A masterfully simple and satisfying collection. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
