Paul Theroux may be pompous, self-important, cynical, and grumpy. He may even be, as accused by a heckler in Australia, "a wanker." So what? The man is prolific--having penned 36 books--and when he's inspired, his insights and sparkling writing are so startling that it's easy to forgive him for his occasional crankiness. Besides, as he reminds readers frequently, he is a man who takes pen to paper for a living; as the title essay points out: "Normal, happy, well-balanced individuals seldom become imaginative writers...."

In Fresh Air Fiend, Theroux's pen serves him well with astute, lively pieces that stray far beyond simple "travel essays" and reveal his self-inflicted lifestyle of compulsive travel, writing, and alienation. In this collection--containing mostly previously published magazine pieces written over the past 15 years--there's a strong autobiographical streak, as well as historical perspectives and a sardonic view on aging. "One of the more bewildering aspects of growing older," he writes in "'Memory and Creation,'" "is that people constantly remind you of things that never happened."

Now nearly 60, Theroux has lived a rich, varied life: the book jumps from post-Mao China and years spent as an Africa-based Peace Corps volunteer in the '60s to turtle watching in Hawaii and kayaking on Cape Cod; the jumbled collection even includes pieces on other travel writers (Bruce Chatwin, Graham Greene, and William Least Heat-Moon) and the film adaptation of his novel The Mosquito Coast. A chronic sense of aloneness permeates all these pieces--be it the lost traveler paddling through fog, the lone writer living without a phone, or the hermetic trekker who can't speak the native language. Most touching: a short sketch of a road trip when he's lost, his wife is anxious, and the children are fighting; Theroux doesn't want the moment to end and soon enough he returns to his self-imposed alienation. It's that perpetual sense of loneliness and not fitting in that seems to motivate Theroux in many of these essays. Theroux may be getting older, even nostalgic, but as these vibrant essays show, he sure isn't getting stale. --Melissa Rossi


From Publishers Weekly
In the 15 years since his first collection, Sunrise with Seamonsters, novelist and travel writer Theroux has gotten around. He's sailed the Yangtze River in China, crossed the U.S. in the comfort of a private rail car and camped during an ice storm in Maine. This collection gathers more than three dozen essays about these adventures and others, along with some book reviews. There is wide variety here, but Theroux's excellent observations of factory life in China rest uncomfortably on the same pages as his pride in exploring such places as Uganda, Honduras and Sicily before the "deluge" of other visitors (especially the "supine" tourists) swept in. Beyond the fun of learning about different parasites and reveling in his home turf around Cape Cod, these essays reveal much about the author himself. A solitary experience that requires self-imposed exile, optimism and a fair amount of "self-delusion," travel is also, as Theroux notes, "almost entirely an inner experience." At its best, travel writing lends insight into the human experience; at its worst, it settles for lighthearted navel-gazing. This collection encompasses both ends of the spectrum--from Theroux's revelation that "travel always involves a degree of trespass" to his whimsical declaration that he reached the peak of "fresh air fiendishness" on a hot, moonlit night on the Filipino island of Palawan: "Fulfilled, content, naked, alone, happy. I thought: I am a monkey." Author tour. (May) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
An author as prolific and entertaining as novelist/travel writer Theroux should be forgiven the occasional lapse of effort. His latest wobbles in quality but reveals more about him as a person than he may have intended. Theroux, who has more than 20 works of fiction to his credit, plus a dozen travel books (e.g., Riding the Red Rooster), cleans out his writer's closet to produce a collection of previously published essays, articles, book introductions, and short stories. The book contains more truth than fiction, more opinion than adventure. For those familiar with his work, much of the book will seem recycled. However, since it is nearly 500 pages, one can skip the boring bits and enjoy the journey as Theroux hits the road or rides the waves. The sections on China and the Pacific are fascinating reading, and "Down the Zambezi" is equally excellent. The strengths of Theroux's writing are the nuggets of information he casually, but skillfully, inserts in his narratives. We learn about such diverse subjects as H-bomb testing on Christmas Island and the life of artist/travel writer William Simpson. Still, this is recommended only for larger travel collections.-Janet N. Ross, Washoe Cty. Lib. Sys., Sparks, NV Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Adam Goodheart
Theroux is far more appealing when he's talking about other people--especially when he lets his sense of humor gain the upper hand.


The New York Times
"Theroux has established himself in the tradition of Conrad, or perhaps Somerset Maugham."


The Washington Post
"Theroux the traveler is serious in his energy and in his boundless determination to see what he wants to see . . . He is an indefatigable voyager."


From Booklist
The latest book from Theroux is billed as a collection of his travel writings, but that characterization seems too straightforward. The book is about travel, and it's about Theroux; it's like the memoirs of a travel writer. The essays were written since 1985, with the exception of an essay about the Yangtze. One of the more recent is on Bruce Chatwin, whose masterfully conceived and written biography by Nicholas Shakespeare (Bruce Chatwin ) conveys the slight role Theroux had in its subject's life. Here Theroux opportunistically attempts to tell his side of their story, ala his exposeof his ex-friend V. S. Naipaul (Sir Vidia's Shadow [1998]). The "travel writings" are arranged thematically. In the first and second parts, Theroux posits his philosophy about the writer's life and highlights some themes that surface in subsequent essays, such as the ascetic existence of the traveler and the concept of otherness, which "can be like an illness." In these sections, too, he covers his split from his wife and his return to the U.S. after living in England for nearly 18 years. When the book actually settles into the travel pieces, including travels to Nyasaland, Malawi, northern Scotland, and New Zealand, it picks up steam, and Theroux demonstrates his power to carry readers into different worlds and make those worlds "realer" through his agile and incisive prose. The section on China is most revealing of that culture and worth the price of the book by itself. Bonnie Smothers


From Kirkus Reviews
The prolific Theroux (Sir Vidias Shadow, 1998, etc.) gives full vent to his wanderlust in this virtuoso collection of travel essays, all but one of which were written after his prior aggregation, Sunrise With Seamonsters (1984). Like Thoreau, who is something of a kindred spirit, Theroux combines a flinty individualism verging on crankiness, a curiosity about all manner of things, an almost pantheistic delight in nature, and a real grace of expression. Writing, he notes, is like digging a deep hole and not quite knowing what you are going to find, like groping in a dark well-furnished roomsurprises everywhere, and not just remarkable chairs but people murmuring in the weirdest postures. This description is just as apt, however, for explaining how he approaches the travel genre. As well as anyone writing in this deceptively narrow vein, Theroux understands how to filter the sights and sounds of such places as an African bush, the Yangtze River, or Christmas Island through the prism of his own personality. Essays are grouped thematically in sections dealing with his reminiscences, experiences as a kayaker and bicyclist, China, the Pacific, books of travel (by himself and others), profiles and appreciations of other writers, fugues about bizarre practices of other cultures, and other places in Europe, Asia, and the US. Theroux can assume all sorts of guises: reporter (sharp dissections of preTiananmen Square China and pre-takeover Hong Kong), Boswell to other writers similarly compelled to write about the world (Bruce Chatwin, Graham Greene), critic (a review of William Least Heat-Moons PrairyErth), and lover of solitude (too numerous to mention). He can be scathingly funny on his Peace Corps experiences, discerning on the rigors of polar exploration, clinical on illnesses hes contracted on five different continents, and lyrical on exotic lands threatened by commercialization. A feast for both Theroux aficionados and those lucky enough to experience his distinctive world-view and evocative prose for the first time. (Author tour)-- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


The Chicago Tribune
"An irresistible storyteller, able to hook you with his first few lines. He dazzles not just with the number of places he writes about but the number he can evoke as if they were home."


Review
"[Theroux's] books have enriched the travel literature of the century."


Book Description
In this remarkable collection of essays and articles written over the last fifteen years, Paul Theroux demonstrates how the traveling life and the writing life are intimately connected. Not simply an escape from the mundane, travel has always been a creative act for Theroux. His journeys in remote hinterlands and crowded foreign capitals provide the necessary perspective to "become a stranger" in order to discover the self. Wonderfully broad in scope, thought, and feeling, Fresh Air Fiend touches down on all five continents and floats through most of the seas in between. From the crisp quiet of a solitary week spent in the snow-bound Maine woods, to the expectant chaos of Hong Kong on the eve of the Hand-over, to a small Pacific island where atomic bombs were detonated, Theroux is the perfect guide -- casually informative, keenly observant, wry, and entertaining. As Time has written, Theroux "serves as both the camera and the eye, and both the details and the illusions are developed with brilliance." He also reaches back into his past to tell of his earliest ventures into Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer, treats us to insightful readings of his favorite travel books, and reveals the fascinating stories behind some of his own. Fresh Air Fiend is a companion volume to Theroux's earlier, much beloved Sunrise with Seamonsters, but this is his first collection devoted completely to travel writing, for which the author of such classics as The Great Railway Bazaar and Riding the Iron Rooster is justly famous. Traveling with Theroux is a literary adventure of the first order, never a languid luxury cruise, always an insightful journey to the heart and soul of a place and its people. Fresh Air Fiend is the ultimate good read for anyone fascinated by travel in the wider world or curious about the life of one of our most passionate travelers.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
I am not a Fresh Air Fiend. In fact, I detest the great outdoors. My idea of enjoying nature is to plant myself squarely in the middle of Central Park with my cell phone, Walkman, and a copy of The New York Times. I'm just about the last person you'd ever find kayaking in the Atlantic, camping out in the bush, or hunting in the wild.

But, as is the beauty of armchair travel, an excellent writer can turn even this hard-boiled, pavement-pounding woman into a fan of adventure travel. Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air and Into the Wild and Ernest Hemingway's " The Snows of Kilimanjaro" are among my favorite pieces of literature of all time.

I'm now prepared to add Paul Theroux's Fresh Air Fiend to that very short list. A collection of the masterful Theroux's travel writings since 1985, Fresh Air Fiend is a veritable encyclopedia of globe-trotting and adventure stories. Divided into seven sections, Fresh Air Fiend discusses the intellectual, theoretical, physical, psychological, literal, and emotional implications of a life of travel and the process of writing about these exploits.

Fresh Air Fiend is part autobiography, part historical commentary, part literary critique, and totally brilliant. Whether Theroux is tackling the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, the experience of being a Peace Corps volunteer/draft dodger in Africa in the mid-1960s, or the grueling responsibilities of being an author on tour to promote a book, he uses meticulously chosen words to detail his past in the most entertaining and invigorating way.

"Who are the great travelers?" Theroux asks, as much of himself as of the reader. "They are all sorts, of course. A large number have been depressives, bipolar types capable of serious gloom...but at their best they are curious, contented, patient, courageous, and paragons of self-sufficiency. Their passion is visiting the unknown. Travel, which is nearly always regarded as an attempt to escape the ego, is in my opinion the opposite: nothing induces concentration or stimulates memory like an alien landscape or a foreign culture."

That Theroux can so dexterously transport the reader from New England to old England to the old haunts of the British Empire is a testament to his skill as a writer. In fact, reading Fresh Air Fiend is a bit like reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book. The book is incredibly broad in its scope -- covering Theroux's adventures on five continents and in and out of the waters in between them. You can thumb through the table of contents and pick a destination you'd like to visit, and then let the talented Mr. Theroux be your guide.

Feeling like a trip up the Yangtze River in China? Theroux will take you on a Heart of Darkness-esque journey into China and guide you through the country's turbulent clash between modernization, industrialization, communist beliefs, and free-market sensibility, contemplating the likely outcome of China's fight for a place in the world.

Want a glimpse at pre-independence Africa? The days when colonial bureaucrats were fighting to retain a shred of empirical self-importance amid the stirrings of nationalist sentiments? Theroux, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Nyasaland (now Malawi) and English teacher in Uganda, will offer you a detailed snapshot of the miserable ironies of being an outsider trying to make sense of the impending future of the continent.

Do you want to revisit Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe? Theroux will take you to an unnamed island off the coast of Guam, identified only by its global positioning coordinates, where he humorously tries to turn an unspoiled utopia into a wired world. Armed with a satellite phone, a Newton electronic notepad, beeper, and video camera, Theroux makes phone calls from the beach all over the world, makes a movie of himself, and tries to write out notes for a story, only to have his batteries run out within a half hour. But rather than express frustration, Theroux writes that "it seemed pathetic that the vitality of such sophisticated electronics depended upon such clumsy, feeble batteries.... My uplink was as useless as the doubloons that Robinson Crusoe mocks on his island."

Fresh Air Fiend is a truly incredible and inspiring read, so much so that you wouldn't want to thumb through it. You'll want to read it cover to cover, and then perhaps read it again, in order to fully absorb Theroux's intelligent thoughts and well-crafted sentences. His perspective on these manifold, far-flung locations is unique in its brilliance, and the pleasure you'll derive from taking a glimpse into his mind, and his view of the world, is enormous. (Emily Burg)

Emily Burg is a New York-based freelancer.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Paul Theroux's first collection of essays and articles devoted entirely to travel writing, Fresh Air Fiend touches down on five continents and floats through most seas in between to deliver a literary adventure of the first order, with the incomparable Paul Theroux as a guide. From the crisp quiet of a solitary week spent in the snowbound Maine woods to the expectant chaos of Hong Kong on the eve of the Hand-over. Theroux demonstrates how the traveling life and the writing life are intimately connected. His journeys in remote hinterlands and crowded foreign capitals provide the necessary perspective to "become a stranger" in order to discover the self. A companion volume to Sunrise with Seamonsters, Fresh Air Fiend is the ultimate good read for anyone fascinated by travel in the wider world or curious about the life of one of our most passionate travelers.

FROM THE CRITICS

"[Theroux's] books have enriched the travel literature of the century."

Library Journal

An author as prolific and entertaining as novelist/travel writer Theroux should be forgiven the occasional lapse of effort. His latest wobbles in quality but reveals more about him as a person than he may have intended. Theroux, who has more than 20 works of fiction to his credit, plus a dozen travel books (e.g., Riding the Red Rooster), cleans out his writer's closet to produce a collection of previously published essays, articles, book introductions, and short stories. The book contains more truth than fiction, more opinion than adventure. For those familiar with his work, much of the book will seem recycled. However, since it is nearly 500 pages, one can skip the boring bits and enjoy the journey as Theroux hits the road or rides the waves. The sections on China and the Pacific are fascinating reading, and "Down the Zambezi" is equally excellent. The strengths of Theroux's writing are the nuggets of information he casually, but skillfully, inserts in his narratives. We learn about such diverse subjects as H-bomb testing on Christmas Island and the life of artist/travel writer William Simpson. Still, this is recommended only for larger travel collections.--Janet N. Ross, Washoe Cty. Lib. Sys., Sparks, NV Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Booknews

Contains 54 travel essays and articles written over the last 15 years by travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux. The pieces include the author's musing about the point of travel writing, essays about his own experiences such as snow camping in Maine and sailing down China's Yangtze River, and a series of book reviews. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

USA Today

[Theroux's] books have enriched the travel literature of the century.

The New York Times