- Mass Market Paperback: 464 pages
- Publisher: Ivy Books; Reprint edition (Mar 28 1989)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0804104549
- ISBN-13: 978-0804104548
- Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 2.6 x 17.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 204 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #304,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Theroux (The Old Patagonian Express, The Great Railway Bazaar) spent a year exploring China by train, and his impressions about what has and has not changed in the country, as gathered in hundreds of conversations with Chinese citizens, make up a large portion of the book. The Cultural Revolution and the vandalism of the Red Guards have left scars on both the land and the people. Mao's death brought a collective sigh of relief from the population; reforms brought about under Deng Xiaoping have generally been welcomed. Still, this is not a political book. Whether describing his dealings with a rock-hard bureaucracy, musing over the Chinese flirtation with capitalismthey've "turned the free market into a flea market"or commenting on the process of traveling, Theroux conducts the reader through this enormous country with wisdom, humor and a crusty warmth. Along the way are anecdotes about classic Chinese pornography (forbidden to the citizenry, but all right for "foreign friends"); 35-below-zero weather; the Chinese penchant for restructuring nature; and the omnipresent thermos of hot water for making tea. The last chapter, "The Train to Tibet," deals with the extremes to which the Chinese have gone in their attempts to subjugate the Tibetan people. Theroux develops an understanding of China through his travels, but he falls in love with Tibet. As in his previous works, he gives the reader much to relish and think about. BOMC featured selection.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Theroux's penchant for train travel is well knownhis Great Railway Bazaar and The Old Patagonian Express are modern travel classics. On his latest jaunt he takes almost a year to crisscross China, traveling on 40 trains from the southern tropics to the wastelands of the Gobi in western Xinjiang to the dense metropolises of Shanghai, Beijing, and Canton. What emerges is a curious melange of ancient and modern: while some things are literally changing overnight, the Chinese still manufacture spittoons and steam engines. For Theroux, traveling is both about peopletheir thoughts, customs, and peculiaritiesand a form of autobiography, and here we learn as much about his own quirks and fancies as we do about the intriguing world of contemporary China. Laurence Hull, Cannon Memorial Lib., Concord, N.C.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Travel Writing Offers Insight Into the Soul of a People,
By
This review is from: Riding the Iron Rooster (Mass Market Paperback)
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and found many familiar moments in it from my own, somewhat later and signficantly shorter travels in China (including multi-day train trips from Hong Kong to Shanghai, and onward to Beijing).Theroux rightly focuses his attention on the Chinese characters in his little drama, though there would be interest enough in the foreigners. There are in these short encounters many interesting insights into the unreasonably unexpected variety of people in a nation too many view as homogenous and monolithic. Interesting times for China, and to be Chinese - no less for the rest of us sharing this world with them. Highly recommended read.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unpleasant or Not, It's the Truth,
By
This review is from: Riding the Iron Rooster (Mass Market Paperback)
Paul Theroux has always had an extremely sharp eye for detail, and an even sharper pen with which to mold these observations into telling, sometimes ascerbic commentary. In "Riding The Iron Rooster", Theroux is at the top of his form in capturing the flavor and collective psyche of mainland China during the last quarter of the 20th Century.One of the more revealing angles put forth in "Iron Rooster" is the face-saving that the Chinese government has engaged in with respect to The Cultural Revolution. Everyone knows that what Mao Tse Tung did was monstrous, but few in China appear willing to own up to the magnitude of the sin in any public way; so half-measures are taken to pay "proper respect" to Mao at just the appropriate place and just the appropriate time. The author also nicely captures the first wave of pro-capitalist fervor that began engulfing China in the late 80's. But the core of Theroux's book, as always, are the vivid snapshots of the customs, foibles and mores that constitute a culture. Reading "Iron Rooster" as I boarded a plane in Hong Kong in 1994, I discovered I was about to experience, first-hand, the aeronautical and social turbulence that the author ascribed to Chinese plane travel. By the time I landed in Guangxi Province, all of his observations had been confirmed. "Riding The Iron Rooster" is vintage Theroux - insightful, droll, always pleasurable.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Theroux's Riding the Iron Rooster still relevant in 2006,
By Karen in Mississauga (Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Riding the Iron Rooster (Mass Market Paperback)
With the opening of the new railway in July, 2006 (it's the highest in the world) that links Beijing to Lhasa in Tibet, Theroux's account of his trip to Tibet by road nearly a decade ago is all that more remarkable. The altitude issues concern all who plan to travel that route. On Oct 1, the Chinese government will no longer require foreign tourists to have special permits to enter the 'Highest region on Earth'.The Tibet part of his journey by rail through China comes late in the book, and makes his prior train trips seem a walk in the park. If you want to more fully appreciate the import of this new rail line, read Riding the Iron Rooster. That the book is being re-released in December, 2006, shows it is still of interest and relevance. This new railway gives travelers another option. I have to wonder, given Theroux's love of rail travel, if he would go back to China to ride this newest of 'Iron Roosters'.
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