Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, by Paul Theroux
When Paul Theroux set off from Victoria Station in 1973 his plan was to cross Europe and Asia, taking as many trains as he needed to get him to Tokyo, returning on the Trans-Siberian Express. From the four-month journey came a travel book that was not quite what he intended: ‘I sought trains. I found passengers.’
The Great Railway Bazaar sold 1.5 million copies in 20 languages. Thirty-three years and 40-odd books later, Theroux — ‘twice as old as the person who had ridden those trains’ — set off again, travelling in his own footsteps to see how much he and the world had changed. ‘Writing about travel,’ he says, ‘has become a way of making sense of my life, the nearest I will come to an autobiography.’
Theroux is not Thesiger or Thubron, venturing into the distant unknown, sinking himself into another culture.
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