I'm prompted to write this review by one of the reviews already posted here, which accuses Theroux of negativity and a dislike of people. I had the opposite impression. He does indeed see much to be disturbed by in Africa--any compassionate person would be disturbed by it. Civil society has broken down in many of the countries he visits. Poverty, disease, crime, and corruption beset the cities, and Theroux shows clearly how aid workers who come to help, and the missionaries who want to foist their beliefs on the Africans, often make things worse. He is opinionated and sometimes testy, which makes his account interesting, never a dry recital of facts. He talks with people wherever he goes, and most important of all, he listens to them. As a result, he learns what few outsiders ever do, and gives us a view of Africa--a place he loves--that is a fascinating, deeply unsettling revelation.


A Fresh Look From A Professional Skeptic   May 10, 2004
 13 out of 15 found this review helpful

This may be the best of all of the Theroux travel books. Theroux, skeptical of everything, revisits the Africa he left 30 years before. Theroux concludes that things are worse in much of Africa and he strongly implies that Western aid; Western Charity and Western Liberal Do-Gooders have accomplished little or nothing in Africa. They have trained the local people to expect handouts instead of taking care of themselves. Here he sounds like a conservative Republican. However, Theroux is especially skeptical of the religious workers in Africa who, in his view, are wasting their time attempting to convert Africans to Christianity to save souls. This book caused me to rethink the African Charity issue.
As always, Theroux is fresh and unpredictable. He pokes fun at himself and his life, but he also concludes that his own journey through life has been very rewarding. You get the sense that no one handed Theroux any breaks in his career. He feels he had to earn every break he got.
He makes a few references to V.S. Naipaul in the book. He also interviews Nadine Gordimer, the South African novelist, and paints a portrait of an interesting and courageous woman.


A barebones trek through Africa   September 16, 2004
 13 out of 15 found this review helpful

It is hard to imagine a more engaging and perceptive book about traveling through Africa than Dark Star Safari. Paul Theroux is a renowned and prolific travel writer and this book shows he hasn't lost his touch. In this journey, he covers the distance from Cairo, Egypt to Cape Town, South Africa. He travels by bus, train, car and boat through cities, villages, wilderness and desert. Many of his travels are of the roughest kind, such as hazardous rides in broken down jitneys and excursions into high crime areas. Even when not dangerous, travel through Africa is never convenient. Delays, breakdowns and bureaucratic red tape are the norm.

Theroux starts the book with the sentence, "All news out of Africa is bad," and this serves as a warning that this is not going to be a sugarcoated tourist jaunt. In fact, the book is downright depressing in many ways. Theroux had spent time in Africa thirty years ago and he finds that things have mostly changed for the worse. Poverty, violence, political corruption and disease are rampant throughout the continent. What is especially frustrating about the situation is that relief organizations have been focusing their efforts on Africa for decades with no measurable success. As Theroux tells it, these attempts at charity may in fact be one cause for the decline. In many cases, money and supplies are seized by corrupt governments. They also have instilled in many Africans a lack of motivation, as they have come to rely on foreigners to solve their problems. Theroux also describes the relief workers he meets as arrogant, aloof and not very helpful.

Despite the grim realities of Africa, Theroux's journey is not all depressing. He meets many old acquaintances and finds that no matter how bad things appear, there is still hope for the future. Theroux also finds that in many places, people manage to get by despite living under what might be called primitive conditions. The implication is that it may not be such a good idea to impose alien notions of civilization on people who are doing fine on their own. Africa, of course, has been subjected to centuries of colonialism by the Portuguese, Dutch, English and other Europeans. Making the transition to independence was not easy for these nations and many are still struggling to find their identity in the modern world.

For people not familiar with the continent, Africa often sounds like one large and distant place. Theroux's journey reveals the many varieties of people, climate and culture that exist in African countries. Vivid descriptions of Egypt, Tanzania, Kenya, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa are given. Theroux's style is enjoyable to read as well as educational. On his trip, he meets people from all walks of life, from the poorest to the most powerful and recounts their (as well as his own) observations and opinions about their homelands. All in all, a compelling account of a fascinating trip.


A book about Theroux, not Africa   September 9, 2005
 13 out of 17 found this review helpful

I once read an essay that claimed that books about foreign travel tell us about the traveler, not the place visited. I took that with a grain of salt, but that is certainly true in this detailed narration of a few months of Theroux's life, with Africa as a backdrop. I won't say that I knew a great deal about Africa before I read this, and I don't know much more afterwards. I am skeptical of someone who keeps telling us that he has brought his copy of Heart of Darkness; he's probably decided what he wants to see already. Obviously, from the other reviews, there are fans of Theroux who are happy just to read his prose or vicariously trot along in his footsteps. I hope such people have a good time with the book, I just don't recommend it to anyone primarily interested in Africa.

Theroux's account seems particularly pathetic when I compare it to my sociology professor's wise, witty and often self-deprecating accounts of his own time in village Africa. He wasn't the know-it-all that Theroux is, and he, and we, his students, learned a lot more from his experiences than from a book like this. I have often reflected on those lessons in the 30 years since I was in that class. If I had owned the copy I read of this book, it would have gone straight to the library donation cart.

I almost abandoned the book near the beginnning as Theroux whines all the way down the Nile while doing nothing in particular. Most of his writing is devoted to congratulating himself on being a superior tourist. I am not sure why we are supposed to care. I have never read a book by Theroux before, I won't read another, and I frankly don't care about him, his doings and his thoughts. One of my favorite parts of the book is when he writes ahead to an American consulate and orders them to arrange a series of lectures for him. Overwhelmed by his own magnanimousness at being willing to lecture for free, he is stunned to arrive and learn that they have done nothing. As he ponders this astounding development, it doesn't occur to him that perhaps the personnel were wondering who he is and why he supposes that they are his personal publicity agents.

Theroux has very little meaningful contact with average Africans and has little to tell us. I really don't care if he doesn't like luxury safaris - the only important question is how they affect the peoples of the countries hosting them. My understanding is that this varies, and that in some cases is well managed and eases the conflict between local villagers and wildlife preserves. To the extent that this is true, they are more valuable to Africans than he is. Theroux prefers traditional ways, but since he seems to see other people's lives as an aesthetic experience for himself, I am unconvinced by his uninformative pronouncements.

Except for a few conversations with individuals, the only worthwhile parts are the discussions about foreign aid, and this is chiefly useful as a guide to other books to read. It is telling that Theroux, congratulating himself on roughing it, thinks that he deserves special privileges in the form of free rides from aid workers. He doesn't get them, and his outrage at this affront to his self-importance makes me distrust his assessments. Is the problem chiefly that the aid-workers do a bad job or that they fail to recognize that Paul Theroux is a tremendously important person?

Theroux complains at great length that foreign aid doesn't do much to supply jobs and breeds dependency. So his comments on used clothing are very odd. He tells us at least twice that donated clothing is sold to used clothing dealers, who in turn sell it to the locals. This is apparently supposed to shock and dismay us. I think it's a great idea: unless Africa is being terrorized by a used-clothing cartel, or foreign organizations are getting rich off this, it provides work for the shopkeepers, defrays some of the transportation costs, and gets the clothing distributed at a price that he says the locals can afford. While it still subsidizes their clothing budget, it also places them in a less dependent situation that a straight giveaway would. So what is the problem? Giving the clothing away free would still cost money - little shops are probably more effective.

As for his descriptions of scenery, this is certainly a case where a picture is worth ten thousand words, and if I'm going to read about it, I'd rather read someone who can discuss the areas in depth.

If one wants to learn about Africa, I'd put this pretty low on the list. There are a few little nuggets about various literary figures that he met, but they aren't the sort of thing that I wanted to learn about when I picked up this book, and they are certainly not worth wading through the verbiage. I'd read this only if one thinks that Theroux possesses the curmudgeonly charm that his publishers attribute to him.


A new look on Africa   May 5, 2004
 9 out of 12 found this review helpful

While reading this book by Paul Theroux I had to pause a number of times. I had to let all the information he gave me settle into my brain and translate it into what I could understand for myself. They way I interpreted the story was pretty much not to judge a book by its cover. In onther words, when it comes to Africa many people judge this great continent just on what they hear on the News. About the AIDS epidemic and all that. But that's only a fraction of what Africa is all about. You really need to get to know the people in Africa and actually see it for yourself before you can make a judgment. That's exactly what Theroux did in this book. He went to Africa and really got to know the people and the actual continent. My only complaint about the book was that it was a little wordy, but in general it was an amazing book. I would recommend this book to anyone who is willing to throw all their preconceptions of Africa out the window and one who is open-minded and willing to learn a life-lesson and learn more about Africa as well.