 | | |
| Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown | 
 enlarge | Author: Paul Theroux
Publisher: Mariner Books
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $2.74
You Save: $13.21 (83%)
Buy New/Used from $2.74
Avg. Customer Rating:  (68 reviews)
Sales Rank: 21880
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 496
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 0618446877
Dewey Decimal Number: 916.04329
EAN: 9780618446872
ASIN: 0618446877
Publication Date: April 5, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In Dark Star Safari the wittily observant and endearingly irascible Paul Theroux takes readers the length of Africa by rattletrap bus, dugout canoe, cattle truck, armed convoy, ferry, and train. In the course of his epic and enlightening journey, he endures danger, delay, and dismaying circumstances. Gauging the state of affairs, he talks to Africans, aid workers, missionaries, and tourists. What results is an insightful meditation on the history, politics, and beauty of Africa and its people, and "a vivid portrayal of the secret sweetness, the hidden vitality, and the long-patient hope that lies just beneath the surface" (Rocky Mountain News). In a new postscript, Theroux recounts the dramatic events of a return to Africa to visit Zimbabwe.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 63 more reviews...
 Snapshot of a Dying Continent November 16, 2008
In his odyssey from Cairo to Cape Town, Theroux ventures through the best and the worst that this fabled continent has to offer. And if there's one overriding message that comes through it is that Africa is doomed. It is fading back into the bush and you get the feeling that perhaps that is the only answer to it. Make the continent a nature preserve and forget about it. Theroux is unstinting in his descriptions of the good and bad things he encounters in Africa and his fearlessness in getting behind the story is journalism at its best. It's also travel writing at its best and the reader comes away feeling he has personally accompanied the author on this epic journey. Theroux has done a heroic job here and his efforts and ordeals should be rewarded with the broadest readership.
"Globetrotter Avoids Bus Plunge Horror" November 3, 2008
I've been reading Paul Theroux for over 20 years and have always enjoyed both his fiction and his travel books and still like seeing how they intersect sometimes (he gives updates on writing THE STRANGER AT THE PALAZO D'ORO during this trip).
DARK STAR SAFARI is a fascinating and challenging addition to his travels.
The book has confirmed a fear and suspicion I've had about Africa: what good is all this charity really doing? I've supported an African charity until recently and maybe I'll go back to it...but...I just have this nagging feeling that I'm supporting the brand new white Range Rovers Theroux describes zipping all around Africa while the continent itself sinks lower and lower into despair and dependence. Every government sounds like a thug-dom where a dictator buys fleets of Mercedes Benz vehicles while starving kids beseige any visitor at every station. Which is exactly what Theroux describes at nearly every stop.
You end up feeling like you're being duped into helping a brutal Mafia and empowering them over the very people we're trying to help. The chaos and corruption is dispiriting. Although the world still celebrates the end of Apartheid (as it should), the Africans who have since then been murdering and mutilating and stealing the land of the white farmers only to leave the farms as nonproductive shanty towns is a harsh reality to face. Believe it or not, it gets even more absurd!
(I still support the clothing drives to Africa at my church--something I'm sure Theroux, given his anti-Christian rants--would roll his eyes at).
What I've always appreciated about Theroux is his passion for portraying the truth about any place he visits. Although a lot of people resort to name-calling here about his ego or his criticisms (even as they give him four stars!), I like that about his writing: it shows a genuine experience, an authentic point of view, a honest portrayal.
My only quibble: I was put off by his pestering of a young Christian missionary girl on a train. He has no trouble listening to Africans who commit horrific atrocities or war veterans who have done the same...but he seems to relish mugging a young girl over gay rights. Theroux is very well read on the Bible and is very good at twisting their verses but a better read Christian could undo every rant he hits this girl with.
But that doesn't offset what an eye-opening experience this book is. The Africa of HEART OF DARKNESS is still just as dense and dangerous as it is here in DARK STAR SAFARI.
A Book to Read and Reread September 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I read this a chapter or two chapter at a time over a period of 2 months. It is a book to savor. There are not many books I read again, but this one is on my list.
This is a difficult journey and Theroux, traveling alone, might not have emerged from it alive. His advantages were years of travel and previous aquaintance with the continent.
The most interesting vignettes were his visit with Mahfouz in Egypt, the boat trip across Lake Victoria, entering any country, visiting friends from his former school, and the descriptions of the situations in Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Theroux shares his strong opinion about the role of aid in Africa. It does seem that the aid is misdirected. The attitude, "I am poor because no one helps me" certainly pervades the latter part of the book. I don't see how the situation can continue, nor how withdrawl of aid will bring about a sustainable society.
This trip will be hard to replicate, by Theroux, or anyone, in the forseeable future. This and other Theroux travelogues are bound to be classics. I recommend them for armchair and real travelers everywhere.
It doesn't get more real than this. July 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've loved every travel book that Paul Theroux has ever written. This is no exception. Wonderfully colorful writing. Given a thirty to forty year perspective, it has real impact. Buy it, get it at the library, but read it.
Travelogue from a sour-minded writer June 19, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I think I know why Theroux wrote such a whining book about his trip. I have enjoyed thoroughly his other travel books, Iron Rooster, Patagonian Express, etc, but this one...! His constant assertion that aid workers, missionaries, volunteer educators are doing more harm than good gets old quickly, whether one agrees or not. Strange, as he had been one himself in Malawi in the '60s. Repeatedly, he tells us that he is seeing things that tourists (bad word) flying into the airport never see. In Mbenga, the volunteer aid workers had the best rooms! He heard a couple say the word "Paul," and he thought Oh No, he was recognized as a famous writer, and was miffed to find that they were speaking of another writer, the lesser Paul who wrote part of the New Testament. There are too many generalized statements: "Every structure in Africa was in a state of deterioration." (p. 225) Again and again we read of his encounters with delicious looking young prostitutes and of their pleading with him for business, but his virtue remains intact. And at least twenty times along the way we read of his return to writing his "erotic novella." Straining all this out, his travels are both courageous and interesting, and I think I know why he was so negative in his writing. His last week in Africa, his beloved bag with artifacts and passport and money and radio is stolen, and worse, he gets a severe case of the diarretic squirts. The latter stays with him for months after his return home, all during the writing of the book. Had these two unfortunate events not happened the very last days of his great journey, I think we would have been able to read a more pleasant, and I suspect more realistic, account of his travels.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| | |