Reading yet another Paul Theroux travel book, this time The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific. Different from the other Paul Theroux books I've read in that the autobiography part is more clearly on display here - it's about a man whose marriage ends, who feels his family ends, and then he cracks and paddles around Oceania in a kayak for a long time, getting over his midlife crisis - the point where, as he puts it, his life broke in half. Also different as he's in a kayak instead of in a train. Even Doctor Slaughter had a getaway train scene. Result of the midlife crisis and the kayak is it's more macho than the train books - lots of facing down Melanesian/Polynesian punk kids and battling against the elements.
Anyways, it's pretty good, and fills me with rage at the French and makes me not want to go to Oceania. But I liked Riding the Iron Rooster better. I already have The Pillars of Hercules and we'll see how that goes - I know he writes about Calabria there and I'm preparing to be offended. So far I like his books less the more recent they get. I have a feeling he's like the Rolling Stones of travel writers and Bruce Chatwin was like the Beatles - dead before it was possible to get crappy.
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