Theroux travels with Africans in conditions which are unspeakable for those of us accustomed to jet travel, high speed trains and air-conditioned vehicles. He meets with many of Africa's literary icons, numerous dignitaries, and contacts from time spent in Africa 40 years previously. He is also not afraid to use his renown to gain access and audience where the rest of us would have no chance. Combine these factors with his considerable literary skill, and the result is an unrivalled publication.

His descriptions (notably the sunset on the East African plains) are breathtaking without being long-winded. He is able to contrast this with descriptions of squalor, hardship, the disintegrated infrastructure of the towns, and the transport used to travel between them . The various colleagues and friends he visits along the way, including the vice-president of Uganda, represent Africa's intellectual and political elite. Mostly, these people are enlightened, pro-active and deeply aware of the problems facing their countries. It is encouraging to read their discourse, as it is so easy to dismiss Africa as the stereotype of disenfranchised paupers governed by despotic tyrants.

His time spent in Africa during the 1960's was a time of liberation. Nationalist movements were gaining momentum, and Africans were giddy at the prospect of independence from their colonial overlords. Theroux is almost certainly unique in that he witnessed the Africa of then, and the Africa of now (but nothing of the in between) and is able to communicate his observations to a large, receptive audience. This perspective adds another level to the book which sets it apart.

Much is said about charities, missionaries and NGO's, both by Theroux, and the various others who have reviewed this book. I agree entirely with Theroux's observations. I found that the personnel working with these agencies seemed disdainful towards those of us who were really enjoying Africa, and often arrogant towards those they were professing to help. Their efforts nurture some of the most contemptible qualities of the African condition, turning them into subjugated beggars rather than empowering their independence. The deployment of aid does not improve lives, but merely provides the necessary resources required for reproduction - more aid recipients, all now living at the previous, lowest common denominator. Much of the aid is taken by the local chiefs, and is traded in the markets (lest we forget, America fought a battle in Somalia over this very issue, see the movie `Black Hawk Down'). It may seem anathema to our sensibilities that Theroux is so scathing of these worthy men and women who have given up so much to go and help the dispossessed, but if the aid is counter-productive, even if only by Theroux's estimation, then he has the right (obligation?) to communicate it to us.

Theroux is particularly scathing of one missionary whose efforts involve reforming the `sinful' ways of African prostitutes. In the USA prostitution may be a crime, but in Africa, he points out, it is the only channel of independence and financial freedom for women. It should be considered criminal that we are going there and preaching some dogma based on our value system, which is intended to deprive them of their livelihood. And this goes to the root of the issue, Theroux says. We are trying to solve their problems from our perspective, while driving around in a fancy white Landcruiser, the value of which is the entire life's earnings of a whole African family. African problems need African solutions run by Africans (with help from outside if necessary). They need dignity, empowerment and education - not grain, medicine and preaching. I think Theroux does a great job of communicating this - even if it does ruffle some philanthropic feathers in the process.

Why didn't I give the book five stars? Well, I feel that Theroux didn't give sufficient credence to the majority of proud Africans who lead the free and happy existence to which we all aspire. As a white traveler in Africa one is continuously exposed to the `Give me money' syndrome. But this represents only a minute percentage of the population - those who await foreign travelers at bus stations, hotels and markets. These hustlers are a by-product of most societies - there were 8 million in Los Angeles by my last estimation. It took me at least two months of cultural immersion before I was able to transcend this exposure, and meet real Africans who were interested in my travels and reasons for being in Africa - people who I had to seek out. Indeed, most Africans are contented, hard-working individuals unaffected by the tribulations of modern western society, let alone of their own autocratic governments whose influence over their own population is token compared to what we are used to in the west. African society thrived for millennia before the ancestors of western society even left the continent. It is cultural arrogance to assume that we need to impose our new-found values on them. Sure there are pockets of famine, abusive dictators and colonial fall-out - but for the vast majority of the continent's population, life goes on unabated. It is mostly their exposure to our society (fancy white landcruisers, satellite TV etc.) that might give them cause to kowtow. It is Theroux' failure to acknowledge this, or at least comment upon it, that I feel is the only shortcoming of an otherwise outstanding account.


"Hoping for the picturesque, expecting misery..."   February 5, 2005
 50 out of 52 found this review helpful

Forty years after being a Peace Corps worker in Malawi and a teacher in Uganda, Paul Theroux returns to Africa and finds things changed--for the worse. Now approaching his sixtieth birthday and wanting to escape from cell phones, answering machines, the daily newspaper, and being "put on hold," he is determined to travel from Cairo to Cape Town. He believes that the continent "contain[s] many untold tales and some hope and comedy and sweetness, too," and that there is "more to Africa than misery and terror."

Traveling alone by cattle truck, "chicken bus," bush train, matatu, rental car, ferry, and even dugout canoe, he tries to blend in as much as possible, buying clothing at secondhand stalls in public markets, carrying only one small bag, and avoiding the tourist destinations. He is an observant and insightful writer, and his descriptions of his travails are so vivid the reader can experience them vicariously. His interviews with residents are perceptive and very revealing of the political and social climate of these places, and his character sketches of Sister Alexandra from Ethiopia (a nun who "has loved") and of two charming Ethiopian traders, a father and son, who take Theroux to the Kenyan border, are delightful.

For most of the countries of Africa, however, he has no kind words. Kenya is "one of the most corrupt...countries in Africa," everything in Kampala, Uganda, has changed for the worse, and in Tanzania "there was only decline--simple linear decrepitude, and in some villages collapse." At the U.S. embassy in Malawi, he finds an "overpaid, officious, disingenuous, blame-shifting...embassy hack" and, in pique, he wonders, "Had she, like me, been abused, terrified, stranded, harassed, cheated, bitten, flooded, insulted, exhausted, robbed, browbeaten, poisoned?"

Theroux has become curmudgeonly over time, and it is difficult to "travel with" a man who sees himself as a hero for making the trip at all, but who also refuses to give a half-eaten apple to a hungry child when she begs for it. He is very critical in his comments about other writers. He admires Rimbaud, who lived in Ethiopia in the 1880's, he visits Naguib Mahfouz in Egypt, and he spends his sixtieth birthday with Nadine Gordimer, an old friend. But Hemingway ("bent on proving his manhood"), Isak Dinesen ("a sentimental memoirist"), Kuki Gallman (a "mythomaniac of the present day"), and V.S. Naipaul ("an outsider who feels weak") are abruptly dismissed. When he ultimately refers to his own "safari-as-struggle," it is hard not compare his temporary and entirely voluntary struggles to those of the African people he meets along the way. "Being in Africa was like being on a dark star," he says. His book reflects this darkness.




Dark Star Safari   December 13, 2005
 31 out of 54 found this review helpful

With Dark Star Safari, Paul Theroux has accomplished in his practice of travel writing what Robert Mugabe has accomplished in his practice of statesmanship in Zimbabwe. He has taken what began as a rather promising career marked by flashes of brilliance, and has demonstrated that when one runs out of good ideas, one simply flaunts bad ones.

His basic premise in Dark Star Safari is that he is getting old, bored, and cranky, and that as therapy, he has to travel across Africa from north to south and write a bad book to get over it. Or to get even with it. His solution may have worked. He feels better by the end of the book, but the reader feels a whole lot worse.

To call this travel writing is at times a stretch. It is traveling, taking daily notes, and at several long stretches, just putting them verbatim into book form. Anyone can do this, but not everyone can do it and have a best seller, and get paid for it, so give him credit. A quick perusal of reviews reveals that readers describe Theroux with pejoratives such as "misanthrope" and "curmudgeon." A Grumpy Old Man. So, I am not alone in this view.

At this point, it is obvious that this reader found the book irritating and disappointing. But one must prove one's point to be credible, mustn't one? I will make the case that many parts of the book are not only badly written, but marked by flawed thinking.

First, the bad writing. His premise is silly. He is going to travel by land from Cairo to Cape Town. He will not fly even if it's faster and more efficient. He will not even rent a safe car. Why? Just because. The book is about nothing. It is the Seinfeld show of travel writing. Start with a silly premise, and follow it through and silly things happen. He goes from one miserable mode of transportation to another. In and out of fleabag hotels. He eats bad meals almost everywhere he goes. Boy, this guy really knows how to live!

As mentioned, in many places, this book is not travel writing per se, but a transcription of his notes. To write about travel implies that one has experienced a place and then has done something with that experience, interpreted it for others, embellished it, drawn out of it the meaning, the symbolism, the exoticism. Theroux often just dumps his notes in the book.

He does not always bother to check his travel facts. At one point he refers to "Lake Tanganyika," one of the largest lakes in the world, as "Lake Tanzania." Or at least I think that is what he is referring to. The map in the book shows Lake Tanganyika, but not Lake Tanzania. How can an experienced travel writer and his editor make this mistake? He also claims that illiteracy in Africa is up, when in fact it is down. Disease is up, he says, but other than HIV/AIDS, trends for most diseases have improved over time in Africa.

But this is minor compared to the sloppiness of his writing about development. Theroux is a writer, and that is all he has ever done. But, he presumes that he knows much about underdevelopment in Africa, and more importantly, about foreign aid and "aid workers" or "agents of virtue" as he calls them. As proof of this knowledge, he cites at least two books that he has read. Both were critical about foreign aid. Graham Hancock, Lords of Poverty, and Michael Maren, The Road to Hell. Two whole books. That does it for Theroux. He has an almost pathological dislike for foreign aid and "aid workers."

On a personal level, this animosity seems to be because the aid workers do not give him rides when he is stuck in the middle of nowhere and tries to hitchhike. Could this because he is wearing second hand clothes from the local market and looks like a bum? Does he know that most of these organizations have rules that prohibit staff from picking up stragglers on the road, in remote areas, for their own safety? He does not ask himself whether it is racist to expect a ride merely because he is a white man in the middle of nowhere in black Africa. He travels in many vehicles that pass lone stragglers, but does not mention asking the driver of his vehicle to stop to pick any of them up. The nerve!

Also it seems to irritate him that the aid workers have a reason to be there in the middle of nowhere, and that they have things to do, and they don't have time for him. No time for Paul Theroux! Imagine that. What if they found out who he was? They'd be sorry!

Interestingly, Theroux travels to Zimbabwe and South Africa, two countries where whites created and maintained vicious racist regimes. Who does he meet and befriend? Blacks? No, whites! After savaging aid workers throughout the book, you would expect him to be brutal on unrepentant white racists. But not so. He describes them. He repeats the words they utter. But he doesn't venture any opinion about them. He gives them a free pass.

Theroux doesn't really find out anything significant. No major revelations. But this isn't a surprise. He isn't out to prove anything to himself or anyone else. He doesn't focus on important people or influential thinkers. He doesn't go places that are of interest to others. Instead, he simply travels by the cheapest means and stays at the cheapest places. And what does he conclude? That Africa seems tawdry and dirty and broken down. Well, if you traveled by the cheapest means and stayed in the cheapest places anywhere in the world, you'd reach pretty much the same conclusion. Get a clue, Paul.

Rising above his personal animosity, consider his argument against foreign aid and aid workers. He claims that because the millions of dollars given to African countries have not ended poverty, disease and war, it proves the aid is wasted, and has corrupted the people of Africa. He claims that the aid workers are only there for themselves, and that they are part of a vast conspiracy to make Africans lazy through dependency on aid.

This argument is so specious that it is laughable. It reminds me of a cartoon lampooning the right wing in America when they fought against welfare under Clinton. They argued that because we still had poverty in America, it proved welfare had failed. The cartoon took this argument further. It suggested that since we still have crime, get rid of police. Fires? Get rid of the fire department! War! Abolish the army. Obviously, faulty logic.

The failure of foreign aid and aid workers to solve all of Africa's problems proves nothing, except that foreign aid alone is not enough. We have not found the solution yet. America has spent far more on its poor than we have on foreign aid in Africa, but we still have poor people. Sorry Paul, but poverty in Africa, or anywhere, is just not a simple problem, as much as you want it to be. It seems that Theroux just wants someone to blame, and he finds foreign aid and aid workers to be a convenient target.

Here's another great argument. At one point, he claims that prostitution in Africa exists because of aid workers. Let's examine that one. Prostitution is often referred to as "the world's oldest profession." I think it predates foreign aid and aid workers by a few years. Even if every single male aid worker frequented prostitutes regularly, which is a rather extreme assumption, let's consider how many aid workers there are in any given place (not very many!), and compare that to the alarming number of poor women working as prostitutes in any given poor country in Africa. Voila, you will find that it is simply not possible to explain the level of prostitution through the presence of a relatively small number of aid workers. Theroux apparently has not noticed that there are also many local and expatriate businessmen, politicians, workers, military and other men patronizing prostitutes and doing so with impunity. The truth is that a juxtaposition of extremes of massive poverty among women, and relative wealth in the hands of men with few scruples, is what foments the sex trade, particularly since the police do almost nothing to discourage or penalize the men. And this juxtaposition exists in much of Africa. In much of the world, sadly.

Theroux should know something about the sex trade. He wrote an offensive book about a young man who goes off to teach in an African country, and ends up having sex with as many poor young African women as he can. It's called My Secret History. The book seems patently autobiographical. Theroux joined the Peace Corps and went to Malawi as a teacher when he was a young man. Did these women desire "Paul" because he was sexy and irresistible? Don't flatter yourself "Paul." It was because he had money and they didn't. Where does Theroux get the nerve to criticize anyone ?

This inconsistency in his values and standards is not the only one. He writes ahead to Malawi, where he was a Peace Corps volunteer, to let the American Embassy know he is coming. He asks them to set up a speaking tour and offers to teach a few classes at the local university for old times' sake. On arrival, he finds that the Embassy Public Affairs Officer has done nothing. He feigns surprise and irritation. Then he requests, and gets, a private meeting with the US Ambassador, who is likewise lukewarm. Theroux acts as if he cannot understand why he is not received more congenially in spite of his kind offer!

Let's examine this hidden hypocrisy. Theroux admits later in the book that he was thrown out of Peace Corps in Malawi for getting involved in local politics. He may have had good reasons, but it still violated Peace Corps rules. The story I heard is that his political activities almost got the whole Peace Corps program thrown out of Malawi. Doubtless, the Embassy would have heard this story. Add to this the fact that Theroux has written an offensive book about the seedy sex life of a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi (himself?), and it is not hard to imagine why the American Embassy officials there did not want to touch him with a ten foot pole, let alone sponsor a public speaking tour. Theroux is too smart not to realize what is going through their minds, but he feigns ignorance. This is a sourpuss of a guy, with a huge ego and a chip on his shoulder.

So why did I finish reading the book? Maybe because in spite of it all, I did want to find out how the book ends, and to be able to write this review and trash him and his book. If you must read the book, don't buy it, you'll encourage him. Just borrow it from a library.


Not the Africa I know, plus glaring inaccuracies   January 3, 2005
 21 out of 25 found this review helpful

Dark Star Safari captures many of Africa's problems, but none of its magic. While I have only lived and traveled in East Africa, his dubious descriptions of this region leave me doubting the worth of his accounts of the other regions in this book. For instance, his description of Zanzibar, one of the most sublime and fascinating places to visit in the world, can be summed up as "it smells like cloves and they have ugly apartment buildings". Well, obviously, it is a third world country after all - but what about Zanzibar's rich history, unique architecture, stunning beaches, friendly people, and cultural melting pot? Does this crotchety man even enjoy traveling?

I've always wondered at the popularity of Theroux as a travel writer, because of this negativity and the sense that he doesn't much enjoy what he does. But I never knew his work to contain such inaccuracies until I read the East Africa section of Dark Star Safari. For example, in a single paragraph he completely bungled the geography/geology of the entire region when he tried to explain the region's volcanism. First, he claims that Oldoinyo Lengai is in Rwanda, while it actually lies in Tanzania, and though he is correct in stating that it is still an active volcano, it does not regularly displace villages like he claims since major eruptions only happen once or twice a century and besides, there are no "villages" within a six-hour drive, but rather the temporary bomas of the nomadic Maasai. Then, while he accurately stated that Kilimanjaro is a dormant volcano, he also claimed that Uganda's Mountains of the Moon (aka Rwenzoris) are "dormant" - except that they are a non-volcanic range!

While these inaccuracies could be overlooked or chalked up to Mr. Theroux and the publishing house's fact-checkers not knowing their geology, more troubling is Theroux's seeming lack of understanding of Tanzanian culture. While being constantly called "mzungu" ("white person" or "foreigner" in Swahili, and by the way Theroux spells it wrong) can be an annoyance, it is not at all a word of disrespect, let alone racial profiling as Theroux has the audacity to refer to it. And while he is annoyed at being called "wewe, mzee" (you, old man), the word "mzee" is generally reserved for those who command respect. While Theroux's bellyaching over being called old may have been a weak attempt at self-effacing humor, it was out of place and showed a shocking lack of understanding for someone who supposedly lived on the continent as a peace corps worker. The warmth and friendliness of East Africa's people is completely ignored, and it seems the only dialogues included in Theroux's work are conversations with locals who are as down on the place as he is. In reality the majority of East Africans are extremely proud of their home.

I get the impression Theroux thinks awfully highly of himself as a traveler, but his slamming of young backpackers and rich safari-goers as not encountering or understanding the real Africa like he does comes across as laughable considering he really misses the boat a number of times himself. At least some of us lowly backpackers take the time to appreciate the people, culture and wonderful things to be experienced there.



Theroux's Heart of Darkness   October 7, 2005
 17 out of 18 found this review helpful

With his 60th birthday approaching, Paul Theroux decided to give up the comforts of his home in Hawaii and take a trip overland from Cairo to Capetown. He travels through some of the most forbidding locales in some of the world's poorest countries; and he travels alone, without a cell phone or internet connection, and without a plan.

Along the way he makes many literary references, mostly to Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which he reads over and over again. There are also some entertaining encounters with Nobel laureates, Naguib Mafouz at the beginning of his journey and Nadine Gordimer at the end.

Theroux describes the poverty and depravation of what he sees, which he claims is worse now than it was 40 years ago when he was a Peace Corps volunteer. Over the past 40 years, Africa has undergone urbanization just like the rest of the world. Today about 75% of Africa's population live in urban areas, many in squatter settlements on the outskirts of cities. Theroux writes: "Even at their best, African cities seemed to me miserable impoverished anthills, attracting the poor and desparate from the bush and turning them into theives and devisers of cruel scams."

As people leave the villages, the civil society of the tribal life disappears altogether. And since there are no jobs in the city, scamming and theivery become the only means of survival. The only thing standing in their way are the local police, who Theroux claims are no more than "licensed theives" themselves.

Theroux has some very uncharitable opinions about much of what he sees in Africa, many other writers have described these conditions as well. However, he unleashes most of his vitriol at the foreign aid workers. He refers to them as "in general oafish self-dramatizing pigs, and often complete bastards."

It is not off the mark to criticize the foreign aid bureaucracy as it exits today in Africa. It is true that aid corrupts both donors and recipients. Aid programs have turned African problems into permanent conditions. If the streets were lined with beggars before, the beggars now expect such aid with a sense of entitlement. I think, however, that Theroux goes overboard in attributing most of Africa's problems to foreign aid, especially when he writes that the sharpest lesson foreign aid workers could teach is to turn their backs and go home.

Abandoning Africa as Theroux suggests is not the answer. A more hopeful, but controversial, approach is outlined in Jeffrey Sach's "The End of Poverty." Africa will need more aid in the future, not less. Africa needs economic development so that they can reach "the first rung of the economic ladder." This means going beyond the subsistence level of the village, which Theroux romanticizes, and producing goods for export which will allow them to participate in the current wave of globalization. Only when they reach this level of development should anyone speak realistically about reducing foreign aid.

The way aid is currently administered it constitutes a large portion of revenue for many African governments. And when governments get their revenues from abroad, and do not draw their revenues from the commerce and industry of their citizens, they usually take little interest in their citizens. The result is always corrupt a government and an impoverish citizenry. Many of the Arab countries in the Middle East that derive most of their revenue from oil are facing similar problems.

Although it is true that aid has not accomplished much in Africa in the last 40 years, it would be a tragedy to withdraw it at this point. Aid must be administered in a way that would enable Africans to participate in the global economy rather than being its victims. This is no small task, outsiders have thus far been unable to change things no matter how good their intentions. Even with aid, Theroux is correct when he says that only Africans are capable of making a difference in Africa.