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Dream Trip: Siberian train, body odor and Paul Theroux

Got money? Interested in trains and books and conflict and Murmansk? We have the trip for you.

FACT 1: An upscale tour company is offering wealthy patrons an Arctic Circle steam train trip with none other than Paul Theroux, the clever, cranky novelist and travel writer behind “The Great Railway Bazaar,” “The Old Patagonian Express” and “Riding the Iron Rooster,” among other books.

The trip, to run June 13-26, 2009, will take travelers via the Trans Siberian Express from Moscow including stops in Pavlovsk, St. Petersburg, Pskov, Petrozavodsk, the Kola Peninsula, Murmansk, Nikel, Archangel, Vologda and, of course, Uglich. Theroux “is actually taking the entire journey with them,” said Jade Moore, a spokeswoman for co-organizer Exeter International.

The 4,200-mile journey carries a price tag of $12,795 to $22,195 per person, and there’s room for about 90 travelers. “Gold Class” cabins include plasma-screen TVs, private showers and toilets. Meals are included.

FACT 2: Theroux’s latest book, “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star,” (Houghton Mifflin, $28) has just hit stores, prompting spectacularly mixed reviews. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Tim Rutten called Theroux a “compelling writer who is essentially unlikable.” But that was nothing compared with the way the author was savaged in the New York Times by British author and traveler Robert Macfarlane.

The idea of the new book was to retrace the route of the old book that made Theroux famous as a writer and rail passenger, “The Great Railway Bazaar” of 1975. Naturally, a degree of introspection was involved.

The problem, Macfarlane wrote in the Aug. 24 piece, is that Theroux’s travel tales “have all been pungent with self-regard,” and the new one suffers from recurrent eruptions of egotism, repetition, intellectually intolerable generalization and “systemic laziness of thought.”

But wait, there’s more.

“Certain writers have a style that can be likened to body odor: irresistible to some, obnoxious to many and apparently imperceptible to the writer himself,” concludes Macfarlane. “Theroux’s lack of self-awareness, his failure to observe the basic hygiene of modesty, is compelling in its way. How can anyone be this narcissistic, you wonder in disbelief, in appalled fascination.”

A MODEST PROPOSAL: Somebody needs to buy Macfarlane’s way onto this Arctic trip (he seems so ready for a fight, I’ll bet he’d say yes) and book him as Theroux’s cabinmate. Then their fellow travelers need only sip their vodka, watch the outskirts of Pskov shudder past, and wait for the sixtysomething American writer guy and the thirtysomething British writer guy to tap their inner warriors. With luck, the tour could feature something like these tender moments in “From Russia With Love” (1963).

But maybe we’re underestimating the fitness of the writers and the pace of development between Vologda and Uglich these days. Maybe the Macfarlane-Theroux smackdown will look more like this bit from “Spider-Man 2″ (2004).

Now that might be worth $22,000 per person.

– Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times staff writer

[Photo: Chicago Tribune archives]

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 6, 2008 at 1:00 pm by Christopher Reynolds and is filed under Arts & Culture, Asia, Book Reviews, Celebrity, Europe, Luxury Travel, Rail Travel, Tours & Cruises. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

One Comment on “Dream Trip: Siberian train, body odor and Paul Theroux”

marianne pereira Says:
September 27th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Hello!

I met Theroux face to face when he was on his retrace journey through Southeast Asia. He stopped over in Singapore as one assumed that he must have been in dire need for a crazy city that has it all … car alarms, police alarms, loud voices, laughter, radios, blaring television sets, and every other music of metropolitan life. He must have kicked himself blue on his lack of better judgment.

He did a book-signing session at the National Library Board for his “Blinding Light.” And I gave him my business card so he could spell my name right and perhaps this may have been one of those rare times when he did practice “the hygiene of modesty” and he asked “What is Oracle?”

He did not know the just-as-abrasive-as-Paul-Theroux, Larry Ellison’s ORACLE, the multi-million dollar multi-national organisation. It didn’t bother me a tot and lapped up that moment and still cherish the experience of having been so close to his volcanic presence.