Fresh Air Fiend: Travel Writings

Front Cover
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001 - Travel - 466 pages

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.

 

Contents

III
17
IV
35
V
40
VI
46
VII
49
VIII
55
IX
57
X
62
XXXIII
298
XXXIV
312
XXXV
321
XXXVI
323
XXXVII
328
XXXVIII
330
XXXIX
336
XL
341

XI
65
XII
70
XIII
79
XIV
85
XV
91
XVI
93
XVII
102
XIX
106
XX
113
XXI
120
XXII
126
XXIII
148
XXIV
151
XXV
155
XXVI
157
XXVII
189
XXVIII
236
XXIX
269
XXX
271
XXXI
283
XXXII
293
XLI
347
XLII
349
XLIII
355
XLIV
363
XLV
372
XLVI
378
XLVII
384
XLVIII
388
XLIX
393
L
395
LI
408
LII
419
LIII
423
LIV
432
LV
435
LVI
441
LVII
443
LVIII
454
LIX
459
LX
463
Copyright

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Page 8 - Augustine describes the learning of human language as if the child came into a strange country and did not understand the language of the country; that is, as if it already had a language, only not this one. Or again: as if the child could already think, only not yet speak. And 'think' would here mean something like 'talk to itself.
Page 12 - Many people - many nations can find themselves holding, more or less wittingly, that 'every stranger is an enemy'. For the most part this conviction lies deep down like some latent infection; it betrays itself only in random, disconnected acts, and does not lie at the base of a system of reason. But when this does come about, when the unspoken dogma becomes the major premiss in a syllogism, then, at the end of the chain, there is the Lager.
Page 3 - The port from which I set out was, I think, that of the essential loneliness of my life — and it seems to be the port also, in sooth, to which my course again finally directs itself! This loneliness (since I mention it!) — what is it still but the deepest thing about one? Deeper, about me, at any rate, than anything else; deeper than my "genius," deeper than my "discipline," deeper than my pride, deeper, above all, than the deep counterminings of art.

About the author (2001)

PAUL THEROUX is the author of many highly acclaimed books. His novels include The Bad Angel Brothers, The Lower River, Jungle Lovers, and The Mosquito Coast, and his renowned travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and Dark Star Safari. He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod.

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