

S'està carregant… Riding the Iron Rooster (1988)de Paul Theroux
![]()
No hi ha cap discussió a Converses sobre aquesta obra. Otro ejemplar en la colecció Lis libros de Siete Leguas. SLTBL5 Ceuta, Junio 2002 Noted travel writer Theroux traveled through China by train in the 1980s, after Mao's Cultural Revolution. Having been there during the Cultural Revolution, he was able to make comparisons. Much had changed. Yet he was still monitored, accompanied, followed, by government officials. Travel was not particularly easy or comfortable on most of the trips. Accommodations were often sketchy. The Chinese disregard for the lives of other animals was prominently displayed - but he notes that the peasants most responsible for using animals any way they could were themselves in not much different circumstances. China's people embraced capitalism but did not call it that. One of the more interesting parts of the book came near the end, when Theroux visited Tibet. Long under the thumb of the Chinese, the Tibetans were experienced in resistance, continuing to work and live as they always had regardless of pressure. The area is remote, cut off, difficult to visit, yet stunningly beautiful. Theroux endured a heart-stopping trek by car because there were no trains. Insightful, thoughtful, intelligently written, even many years later this book is worth reading. Very dated. He likes emptiness. Rushed to get out of cities like Peking. Theroux spent a massive amount of time in the 1980s travelling around the People's Republic, and the result is this enormously readable, entertaining, and informative book. I was worried that, after a few hundred pages, my appetite for his travelogue would begin to dim, but in fact the opposite happened. He is so insightfully critical that every page seemed to hold something new, and the fact that he was in-country when the Tiananmen Square protests were staged says much about the resoluteness of his character.
''Riding the Iron Rooster'' is Mr. Theroux's account of a journey that would drive most people insane. Traveling in China (which is different from living in China) for even a week can be exhausting; how he managed to do it for a year is beyond my comprehension. As one has come to expect of him, Mr. Theroux never wastes a word when re-creating his adventures. He is in top form as he describes the barren deserts of Mongolia and Xinjiang, the ice forests of Manchuria and the dry hills of Tibet. He captures their otherworldly, haunting appearances perfectly. He is also right on target when he talks about the ugliness of China's poorly planned, hastily built cities. But his book is mainly about Chinese people, and it appears that Mr. Theroux didn't like them much Pertany a aquestes col·leccions editorialsGrote ABC (714)
Paul Theroux, the author of the train travel classics The Great Railway Bazaar and The Old Patagonian Express, takes to the rails once again in this account of his epic journey through China. He hops aboard as part of a tour group in London and sets out for China's border. He then spends a year traversing the country, where he pieces together a fascinating snapshot of a unique moment in history. From the barren deserts of Xinjiang to the ice forests of Manchuria, from the dense metropolises of Shanghai, Beijing, and Canton to the dry hills of Tibet, Theroux offers an unforgettable portrait of a magnificent land and an extraordinary people. No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
Cobertes populars
![]() GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)915 — History and Geography Geography and Travel AsiaLCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana:![]()
Ets tu?Fes-te Autor del LibraryThing.
|