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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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Avg. Customer Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 615
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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Condition: NEW: NEVER READ...!!!!.(may have faint shelf wear from bookstore)..ALL ORDERS SHIP SAME OR NEXT BUSINESS DAY, FREE POSTAL DELIVERY CONFIRMATION FOR U.S. ORDERS, TOP CUSTOMER SERVICE !!!!
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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 18 more reviews...
 Good, but exasperating at times October 12, 2008
Look, I enjoy reading travel books and Theroux is always interesting and worth the read.
But it struck me while reading this book that it must pain Theroux to ever say something nice about the U.S. This is a book that is about the other side of the world so, with the exception of his chapter on Vietnam, I didn't really expect to read much about America. I wanted to read what people thought of their own countries, their own realities, and so forth.
However, what shocked me was an exchange Theroux had with a man in Perm named Sergei. Theroux, Sergei, V. Shmirov (a historian of the gulag system), and a woman who served as the translator were heading to Perm 36, the only intact gulag prison in Russia. On the way there, the three Russians were talking to Theroux about what the Russians had experienced over the decades: the spying, murder, fear, torture, imprisonment, terror, and quashing of any hint of freedom or rights.
And what did Theroux say in response?
"The paradox is that at exactly the same time - the 1950s - we had McCarthy in the U.S. persecuting people for sympathizing with the Soviet Union."
Sergei did not let Theroux go on and reminded him that the comparison was not the same.
But Theroux would not be deterred. He agreed but still put forth that, ". . . the motives, the witch-hunts, the betrayals, the stink of fear - of ruined lives and lost jobs and disgrace - that hung over McCarthyism were similar." (pp. 477-478).
Please.
My jaw fell open when I read that. I was embarrassed. You would have thought that, if for no other reason than politeness, Theroux would have simply listened to what these three Russians had to say and not try to minimize the severity of their reality by making some ridiculous comparison to a brief and limited moment in American history. Anyone with just a cursory understanding of Soviet history during the 20th century would have been humbled and appreciative of what those poor people endured. The fact that they survived is a testament to their spirit and strength.
If Theroux feels it so necessary to highlight America's sins, then he should write a book about that subject. But he shouldn't go abroad and try to ingratiate himself with people from other countries by attempting to equate our experiences with theirs. These people are not ignorant - they know American history and know that we have not experienced the horrors that many countries have experienced.
 how the mighty have fallen October 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
i picked up this book because as a reprise of his first book, The Great Railway Bazaar, it happened to take in many countries that i had visited in a seven week trip across Asia from Bucharest in summer 2007. I was deeply saddened by what i read especially in his comments on Budapest, Hungary and Romania. He seened to set our to say as many ugly surface things as he possible could about his journey which began in March 2006...and he dismissed both countries in a few awful pages choosing to see only the tawdry, corrupt, and dirty aspects. He continues in this vein and comes across as very condescending in everything. he almost seems to have gotten too old to travel, as he kvetches like an old man at everything...while intermittently dropping into first-class travel and luxury hotels which rarely show the real face of the countries he is visiting. Throughout the book, which i struggle to finish, he seems obsessed about sex-for-sale as if this is some important barometer of the places he visits. Altogether, a huge disappointment and not a book to be recommended. Interestingly, i have been concurrently reading another 'travel' book, 'River Town..Two Years on the Yangste' by Peter Hessler which is about his two years as a TEFL Peace Corps Volunteer in China. This book is very good and completely un-condescending as the author describes his struggles to learn the language and to really understand China and the Chinese. it is such a welcome relief to read this after struggling with Theroux's bile-driven offering.
 The Return of an Old Friend October 8, 2008
I'm a big fan of Paul Theroux. I like both his fiction and his travel books. Having read the Great Railway Bazaar years ago, I reread it to refresh my memory before I read Ghost Train. Paul shows a bit of sentimentality on this trip, but it is not overdone or maudlin in any way. He's trying to reconnect with his past and his youth, taking stock of his life. He's does so in such a successful way. The chapter on Burma broke my heart: Paul's generosity and humanity shone through in his effort to turn one life around. The most memorable chapters for me are of his travels through Japan. I'm also a big fan of Haruki Murakami; so, what an added value to the book to hear Murakami expound on Japan and Japanese modernity! Paul is also a perceptive observer and reader of literature. There are several books that he mentioned throughout his travels that I will soon purchase and read. I cannot say enough good things about Paul Theroux. I'm eagerly awaiting his next book, and so should you. He is one of our our most underrated writers in America.
Should Be Rated Fiction October 6, 2008
0 out of 4 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.
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