Western Writers in Bangkok: Paul Theroux

Paul Theroux in 2008 (Photo by Rupal Agrawal, CC BY 3.0 Wikimedia)

Paul Theroux (°1941) is one of the writers I would like to join right away if I could draw up a guest list for an ultimate dinner. Okay, he's arrogant and know-it-all, but what a writing style that man has…!

In his unique mix of reportage and travelogue, he usually knows how to characterize a country, region or people in a few well-formulated sentences. Theroux is a prolific writer, but his extensive oeuvre does not, in my opinion, contain one weak work. Moreover, like me, he has a healthy aversion to tourists and expats who are dropped in an exotic destination and then stubbornly refuse to learn anything about the local population, culture or history. To travel, for him and me, is learning and someone who sits down at the typewriter or computer with this attitude; I just have a bean for that.

I have had the privilege of meeting him in person only once during a lecture he gave in October 2009 in the beautiful and unique setting of the Nelson Hays Library on Surawong Road in Bangkok. And I readily admit that I was impressed with his knowledge of South East Asia in general and Thailand in particular. He said that he had already arrived in Thailand at the end of the sixties and how he had returned regularly. From 1968 to 1971 he taught Literature at the National University in Singapore which made traveling in the region much easier.

The first lines he dedicated to Thailand can be found in his classic 'The Great Railway Bazaar' which rolled off the presses in 1975 and in which he detailed his continental train journey that took him from London to Osaka. Read and enjoy how he accurately described Hua Lamphong Station in Bangkok almost half a century ago: 'It is one of the most carefully maintained buildings in Bangkok. A neat cool structure, with the shape and Ionic columns of a memorial gym at a wealthy American college, it was put up in 1916 by the Western-oriented King Rama V. The station is orderly and uncluttered, and, like the railway, it is run efficiently by men in khaki uniforms who are as fastidious as scoutmasters competing for good-conduct badges.'

in 'Ghost Train to the Eastern Star' In 2008, he not only did this four-month trip over again, but also chased the ghost of his younger self. During his train journey through Thailand, among other things, he spent more than 'a pleasant hour long 'observed a fellow female passenger reading one of his books'rapt – or nearly so – chewing her lips as she read'….

Paul Theroux has become a regular and noted appearance in Thailand since the start of his writing career in the XNUMXs, appearing clock-and-loop in interviews with the likes of 'The Bangkok Post' expresses his opinion about country and people. In 1985 he took the honors as the guest speaker at the presentation of the prestigious South East Asian Writer Awards at the equally prestigious Oriental Hotel in Bangkok.

In 2012 he wrote for 'The Atlantic' the novella'Siamese Nights' in which Boyd Osier, an unhappily married American businessman from Maine in Bangkok in the figure of Song, a lady boy, meets the love of his life who also teaches him that life is too short. He becomes obsessed with her, but when the relationship ends, his amorous and exotic adventure certainly does not end in roses and roses ...