PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Paul Theroux was born in Medford, Massachusetts, in 1941, and published his first novel, Waldo, in 1967. His subsequent novels include Picture Palace, winner of the Whitbread Prize for Fiction, The Mosquito Coast, and the hugely acclaimed, Kowloon Tong. His travel books include The Great Railway Bazaar and The Pillars of Hercules.
After The Great Railway Bazaar and The Old Patagonian Express, Bournemouth and Aberdeen are pretty tame - and fairly depressing - territory. But Theroux, tired of London and surprisingly little-traveled after eleven years of largely English residence, decided to follow the British coast, on foot or by train; and his annotated itinerary, though neither as exotic nor as memorably peopled as those previous journeys, offers a gently engaging, utterly unromantic look at eroding shorelines . . .and ways of life. Things are unlovely right from the start: on the May Day train to Margate skinheads assault the genteel seaside-goers with noisy obscenity. ( Daddy, why are those men saying 'fuck off'? ) Dreary resort-towns predominate as Theroux trudges clockwise. The bed-and-breakfast phenomenon is, at its rare best, like a perfect marriage; at its worst, it was like a night with terrible in-laws. All along the coast there seem to be old people in parked cars staring seaward, as sad captains fixing their attention upon the waves. And so it goes - from Portsmouth to Plymouth to tourist-hating Cornwall - with talk of the new Falklands War, a tense little dialogue with a racist South African couple, and one or two nice surprises. (Grand, elegant Weymouth; the Teignmouth Operatic Society's production of The Pajama Game.) Then, after a visit to a holiday camp that reminds Theroux of Jonestown, it's on to Wales: the ubiquitous caravans, the mildly stunned and slaphappy people, a visit with Jan Morris, and a nightmarish night in an empty hotel (one of many) among the drunken savages of Cardigan. Next: up the west coast - from Liverpool's worst, racism-scarred neighborhood to Orwell's Wigan (no unjust working conditions now - because there's no work), with a glimpse of the scariest-looking nuclear reactor I had ever seen. And, after an unsympathetic side-trip to Ulster's tribal warfare, there's the scenic, Scottish-coast extravagaza, a fine ride in a post bus, fear and loathing in boom-town Aberdeen (expensive, dull, selfish), and - amid a rail strike - down the east coast to Southend's pier. The overall impression? If I had only one word to describe the expression on England's face I would have said: insulted. A trifle cute, a trifle patronizing - but often vivid, with that grand ear for dialogue, and an effective dark complement to Frank Entwisle's cheerier Abroad in England (p. 689). (Kirkus Reviews)
