Paul Theroux on Granta.com
|
Issue 114
English Hours: Nothing Personal
Paul Theroux
‘England does not have a climate; it has weather, seldom dramatic.’
|
Issue 114
Over There
Various Contributors
Americans, speaking of foreign lands, often say, 'It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.'
|
Issue 114
At The Villa Moro
Paul Theroux
‘This is my only story. Now that I am sixty I can tell it’.
|
Issue 114
The Lepers of Moyo
Paul Theroux
‘Boarding the train in the African darkness just before dawn was like climbing into the body of a huge, dusty monster'.
|
Issue 114
Unspeakable Rituals
Paul Theroux
‘Whenever people ask me about travel I always suspect they are buttonholing me, eager to relate amazing adventures of their own’.
|
Issue 114
Honolulu Hotel Stories
Paul Theroux
’The Christmas carols in Waikiki were being sung in Japanese‘.
|
Issue 114
Dear Old Dad
Paul Theroux
‘Playing a role gave him latitude and allowed him to overcome his reticence.’
|
Issue 114
Mother of the Year
Paul Theroux
‘The words ‘big family’ have the same ring for me as 'savage tribe', and I now know that every big family is savage in its own way.’
|
Issue 114
Scouting for Boys
Paul Theroux
‘Three figures came single file over a wooded hill of the Fells carrying their rifles one-handed and keeping their heads low. They were duckwalking, hunched like Indian trackers, with the same stealth in their footfall, toeing the mushy earth of early spring. I was one of them, the last, being careful, watching for the stranger, his black hat, his blue Studebaker. Walter Herkis and Chicky DePalma were the others. When we got to the clearing where the light slanted through the bare trees and into our squinting faces you could see we were twelve years old.’
|
Issue 114
The Lawyer’s Story
Paul Theroux
‘Bow tie, blue shirt, tight suit, cowboy boots—he was overdressed for Singapore.’
|
Issue 114
Chatwin Revisited
Paul Theroux
‘He was such a darter he seldom stayed still long enough for anyone to sum him up.’
|
Issue 114
Lady Max
Paul Theroux
‘You didn't become a Londoner simply by living there. After seven years I was still an alien.’
|
Issue 114
First Train Journey
Paul Theroux
‘I had been travelling for more than ten years – in Europe, Asia and Africa – and it had not occurred to me to write a travel book.‘
|
Issue 114
Subterranean Gothic
Paul Theroux
‘When people says the subway frightens them, they are not being silly or irrational.’
