Last Train to Zona Verde Paperback Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
024114597X | Format: PDF, EPUB
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- Paperback
- Publisher: Penguin Export
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 024114597X
- ISBN-13: 978-0241145975
- Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
Paul Theroux entitled his book's last chapter with the subject line. No doubt, many of us have wondered the same thing, wherever we are; Theroux attributes the remark to Arthur Rimbaud, the French poet, when he was in one of the less salubrious cities in the world, Aden, in the Yemen. Rimbaud, like Theroux, was drawn to Africa, spending numerous years living in remote Harar, in Ethiopia Rimbaud en Abyssinie (French Edition). The Peace Corps gave Theroux his start in Africa; he taught for a number of years in Malawi, only a few years after it became an independent state (it had formerly been the Nyasaland part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland). Since his early teaching days, he went on to become a novelist and a renowned travel writer, most famous for (The Great Railway Bazaar), which I read some 40 years ago. The title, "The Last Train..." suggests a swan song for Theroux's African experiences, and so it is. As he was approaching the age of 70, in 2010, when he took his journey, he realized the body (and mind) reaches a limit; an independent traveler in Africa is subjected to many an inconvenience and even routine abuses, and to what purpose? Is there new knowledge to obtain, or rather, how strong does the subject question linger?
Theroux traveled in four countries: South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Angola. As I had traveled independently in the first two, and had a strong desire to see Angola, if only the "little matter" of 30 years of civil war, with heavy foreign intervention, would go away, I was strongly drawn to this book.
I am a fan of Theroux's travel books, and I have read them all. But, although this one is as erudite and perceptive as expected, it left me with the distinct impression that in certain ways it is skewed, a lopsided tale. I often wanted to ask the author, "But what are you really looking for? What will make you truly happy?" He does confess to small moments of happiness during this journey from Cape Town to Luanda, but his world-weariness often convey dissatisfaction, alienation, puzzlement and anger.
The last part of the book, his uncomfortable trip up the west coast of Angola, deeply distressed me, as the scenes he sketches are of a nightmare country -- as the world might look like during the last days before this planet implodes. I am a white Afrikaans-speaking South African and have not been to Angola. I did not know it is now a ruined place. Not that it needs to be: it earns billions from its oil resources. But as in so many African countries the government (who does not govern) and their cohorts are deeply corrupt. And millions of ordinary Angolans live, hungry and jobless, in messy, stinking shantytowns. But I do believe what he tells us, because of Angola's recent history of 30 years of wars.
But it is Theroux's actions and utterances while in Cape Town at the start of his journey which pulls this tale completely out of proportion. Here he makes exhaustive visits only to Cape Town's outlying squatter camps and shantytowns, populated mainly by black people. He seems to want to see improvement in conditions after the change-over to a black government in 1994. He does not find much difference -- only some new houses built in some areas. Strangely enough he does not comment upon the unbridled population increase, even when he comes across a single mother with 14 children.
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