In part, this is because of his refusal to provide the tourist board sanctioned version of the countries through which he travels. With his pitch perfect evocation a “southbound train” Theroux invites us to share in his fantasy of adventure, only, it is an adventure that he is really about to take.įantasy, however, is not a word often associated with Theroux’s writing: curmudgeonly is the adjective more often reached for. This beginning typifies much of what people look for in travel literature: escapism. Already, we are aboard the Patagonian Express. Theroux will not stop at the end of this line, instead he plans to switch to another, and then another and so on, until he leaves the icy cage of domestic North America behind, and is lost into tropical adventure. Why? Because for him this is not the commuter train to Sullivan Square or Orient Heights, it is a train to Patagonia, for that is his final destination. Winter storm clouds are gathered overheard, the faces of his fellow passengers are ashen or yellow grey because of the cold, but on his face he wears a “vagrant expression of smugness he seems to have a secret in his mouth - he looks as if he is about to blow a bubble.” In what is one of the great opening scenes in all travel literature, the prolific American writer describes being on board a packed local train in his home town of Boston.
This is precisely what Paul Theroux does in The Old Patagonian Express. What better place, then, to begin a travel book than a commuter train? The journey becomes a kind of prison break. Commuting is a parody of travel it is a bloodless, necessary chore that, because it involves motion, suggests the very freedom it denies.
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