Book Review: The Great Railroad Bazaar (I Was Bored)

I try to read at least 10 “classics” per year, books that are highly recommended and are either old tomes or more modern: The Great Railroad Bazaar fell into the “modern classics” bucket, the travelogue was published in 1975 and was Paul Theroux’s breakthrough book that really put him on the map.

Quick Synopsis Of “The Great Railroad Bazaar”

It’s about his four-month train journey, starting in London and looping all over the place: Europe, the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia (including Vietnam during the war). He documents passing conversations, observations of plight and poverty, the backwardness of third worlders, and some philosophy on travel.

I was simultaneously inspired and bored.

Inspired because I was looking up Amtrak routes, planning hypothetical journeys all over America (all paths lead to Chicago, FYI); and the book reminded me of my 2.5 years working cruise ships, mostly in the Caribbean, and with a little Alaska thrown in too.

Boring because, well, most of the book was “we’re on the train now, and now we are still on the train, I looked out the window and saw we were still on the train, moving down the train tracks.” Obviously, I’m exaggerating here, but you get the idea: the book was monotonous, a danger for all travelogues.

However, when reading classics, I always have to remind myself the book was written for a specific audience at a specific time, and I am far removed from that audience and time.

When this was released it was probably a groundbreaking travelogue into mystic and exotic countries, nobody had done something like this before, it was exciting! That’s probably why it sold 1.5 million copies when released.

Now (in my humble opinion) travelogue is done much better on YouTube than on any other format (and this is coming from a guy obsessed with reading and writing). I would rather see Luke from Outdoor Boys take this train journey on his YouTube channel than read about it in the pages of a book.

Every experience has an optimal presentation format, YouTube is superior for travelogue. Obviously, YouTube was not an option for Theroux, I’m just explaining why the book didn’t hit as hard for me as it probably did for the original 1975 audience.

Should You Read The Great Railroad Bazaar?

Yes, it is a classic, afterall, and we don’t read classics just for entertainment (although they can provide that), we read classics because they make us think and stay with us for years, and open our minds to new possibilities (I promise, like me, you will be looking up train routes and planning a future journey by rail).

Also, even though I stated the book was boring, I am probably going to read a few more of Theroux’s other books–Railroad Bazaar was the first of his I read. I know the novel Mosquito Coast was popular, and I’m interested in 2006’s Ghost Train To The Eastern Star, as he retraces his journey he took in Railroad Bazaar.

If you look at his Wikipedia you will see he has been a busy, busy man writing books for a long time and you have many titles to choose from.