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Magazine
Road less travelled
K. SRILATA
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In this exclusive interview, American travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux talks about his books, his writing and his life in Hawaii.
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Photo: The Hindu Photo Library
Interested in people: Paul Theroux.
Paul Theroux, whose best known works are The Old Patagonian Express and The Great Railway Bazaar, walks into one of the business rooms of the Taj Connemara where I am waiting. He gives me the impression of being a restless man, the sort who might well be a difficult interview customer. But then, the restlessness perhaps is an extension of his wanderlust. Excerpts from an interview:
In The Old Patagonian Express, you have this line about travel being a vanishing act, while a travel book is the opposite. Don’t you ever find it burdensome to have to come back and tell it all or is it the eventual telling that drives you to travel in the first place?
When I am travelling, I am going with the motive of bringing as much back as possible. For instance, two years ago when I was in Chennai, I did a continuous trip: Uzbekistan to Jodhpur, Jaipur, Delhi, Amritsar, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and then Tiruchi and Colombo. Every day I woke up and wrote my notes intending to find out something about where I am. That is different from what I am doing on this trip. I am doing a lot of talking, very little listening. If I am planning to write a travel book, it is a mission. The travel writing is deliberate. So is the information gathering. I am offering myself as a sacrifice to experience…
How do you approach fiction writing? For instance, in The Old Patagonian Express, you speak disapprovingly of the convention in some travel writing to start in the middle of things, landing the reader in a place you haven’t guided him to. You write of how travel really begins the second you wake up …
It is a deliberate thing. Fiction again is deliberate. But with fiction, you are groping towards a conclusion of which you are unaware. So you have character, situation, story but you are never quite sure where you are going. That is the pleasure and also the anxiety of fiction. That you wake up in the morning and instead of going somewhere you are thinking, now what?
What happens to the notion of plotting in your travel writing?
The plot of the travel book is its itinerary. It is a straight narrative of starting here and ending there. Travel writing is also a form of autobiography. I am writing about everything that happened to me, leaving very little out.
The “I” in travel writing; doesn’t it become a character too?
Yes. You can pretend that you have a personality, which you really don’t. But you can’t carry that off book after book. After a while, the truth comes out. In fiction, you can disappear…
After all, both fiction and travel literature offer you ways of leaving the familiar behind or of seeing the familiar in fresh ways.
The Ice house in Chennai for instance… The ice came all the way from Maine, New England… It is a great connection between Chennai and the United States…
How much do you read up about a place before you set off?
Quite a lot. But I don’t read travel books. I do factual reading, study maps. I like reading novels by people who live in a place and know all about it.
It becomes apparent quickly enough that, for you, travel writing is not about pretty landscapes but about people. But you leave them behind, the way one doesn’t in fiction.
The English writer Pritchett said that he was not really interested in churches and museums but in human architecture, the complexity of the people in Spain. I would say the same thing. The idea, as a travel writer, is to be an anonymous person. I talk to you, we talk about where you have been, what you have done, your family, your hopes, your experiences, your disappointments, your education, books you like… and and I write it down. What I am doing now is the opposite. I am the focus of attention. That is a very bad thing for a traveller.
Do you find that travel writing, more than fiction, frees you up to say what you wish?
Probably less. With travel writing, you have to stick to facts and you have to stick to chronology. You are a slave to the framework. There is much more freedom in fiction, much more invention. The writer can pretend to be anyone. You just need to be persuasive. But unless you are unusual, you can’t write fiction your whole career. George Simenon was an exception. He wrote 75 detective novels and 200 plus psychological novels. He was a serious novelist.
You are a fairly prolific writer yourself with 15 non-fiction and 31 fiction titles to your credit.
I have 43 books in all. But then I published my first book in 1967, have been at it 40 years. I don’t have a full-time job. So I wake up in the morning and sit down to it…
You did teach, didn’t you?
Yes, very early on. Since 1967, I have published a book every year. Some are longer than the others. Some more ambitious. Yes, if you google me, you will come up with a long list. But then I am an old man!
What does it boil down to in terms of writing discipline? Hours a day, word counts, number of chapters…
I work every day when I am at home. Even when I am not at home. It involves having breakfast, reading the newspaper, doing the crossword and then working till lunch time. And then afternoons, I work too. I like working outside. I live in Hawaii
You have done some work on Naipaul and he is one of your inspirations…
Yes, I would urge you to read my book Sir Vidia’s Shadow. Let me ask you something. You have done some work on Indian writers, Indian women writers… Naipaul in his book A Writer’s People has been fairly critical of Indian writers, Indian women writers. He attacks their novels; says they are about Indian women who go to the U.S. and write about their families. Who are they writing for? Who is going to read their books? It is attack, attack, attack…
Well, Naipaul is not one of my favourites! And I feel, like others, that Naipaul has not really looked at Indian writers who write in the regional languages. Some of these writers cannot be globalised easily, marketed all over the world. But it doesn’t make their work less significant.
Yes, writing is a mirror that a person is holding up to his society. So he has a readership right here. But in criticism, you have got to read the most savage and Naipaul is provocative. But I agree with you totally.
The sheer range of your writing is impressive from The Mosquito Coast, which is an adventure story of a family that rejects its homeland and tries to find a happier and simpler life in the jungles of Central America to The Elephanta Suite. There is a lot of “India” in your books. Is there a unifying thread somewhere?
India is big, complex. Like the States with its West, East and empty spaces and complexities. America was created. It was a deliberate construction. It is based on the constitution, not on religion. India is an ancient place but in terms of largeness and complexity the two are similar. About the unifying thread, I am very fascinated by the idea of an isolated person. I was fascinated by the idea of a little American in Africa. But I haven’t analysed it too much. If you get too conversant with your work, you begin writing to prove that that is your theme. I don’t re-read my books. I try not to take in interest in the thematic or in motifs I like to think that everything I write is new.
What is it like to live in Hawaii, knowing that it is set up to cater to tourists?
If you drive 40 miles north of Honolulu, you are in the countryside. Honolulu is a busy place. I live on a farm, six acres. I don’t see my neighbours. More than seven million tourists come to Honolulu. You don’t see them. We have an efficient society that processes seven million tourists and most local people don’t notice.
One last question. A standard one: What would you tell aspiring writers?
I would say: Go away from home. College doesn’t matter. But read. If you come from Chennai, go to Assam... The first thing is to go away. You need to be independent... Don’t stay home and take lessons on writing. Every night, your mother will say to you: “You are a great writer!” or “Get yourself a real job.”…
Writers associated with colleges and universities tend to have a very different career. I am not saying that it is better or worse. But it helps to go away. More precarious but, in the long run, more satisfying.
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