Welcome Back

An underrated pleasure in life: something familiar, pleasurable, accessible, and reasonably high quality that we can visit and revisit as we please.  Like having a special restaurant in the neighborhood, a place you know well and enjoy when the time is right.  The food is very good if not five-star, you’re a known and valued customer, you’ve never had a bad meal, and you feel at home.  You can stop by for a comforting and pleasing experience and get a little bit of the relaxation of coming home.

That’s how I feel about Paul Theroux.  He’s written lots of books, and he’s still producing.  I always enjoy reading his work.  I think I know his strengths, and I also know what his fiction is not and probably never will be. But I keep coming back for more, and I’m rarely disappointed.  He has a special talent for getting across the essence of an exotic locale at a particular time in history.  OK, so maybe the plot is sometimes a little contrived.  Maybe the characters don’t exactly resonate with the depth of Tolstoy or Flaubert.  Maybe the language doesn’t have quite the sophistication of Banville or Trevor.  But I don’t know another living author that can give such a sparkling and detailed sense of place and time.

Malawi

‘The Lower River’ is his latest novel.  It deals with the backwater of Malawi.  We learn about how the country has changed in the last forty years (not for the better, despite the all-too-good intentions of many) through the life of Ellis Hoch, an American who spent several years working there in his early twenties, then returns at the age of sixty after his traditional life in Massachusetts explodes.  There are some aspects of plot and character that don’t ring quite true.  But I now feel that I know something about Malawi, its people, its precarious position in the world today.  Not somewhere I’m anxious to visit, but I almost feel that I have, thanks to Theroux’s writing.

We’ve all had the experience of reading a good general newspaper or magazine and learning about this and that.  Until we read something there about a subject we know well; then we suddenly think that the publication is superficial and misleading.  Is that what’s happening about Theroux and Malawi?  I’ve never been there so I guess I’ll never know.  But I do find the portrayal convincing, and I guess that will have to suffice.  Theroux offers no easy answers to the country’s serious problems, nor does he take sides in the various conflicts he portrays.  It’s frankly quite a mess.  That makes the Hollywood ending all the more improbable, but who cares about the last two pages?  The rest is well worth reading.  And it would make a very good movie.

So sit back at your favorite table, have a friendly chat with the waiter you’ve known for years, and order something from the menu you haven’t had before.  The kitchen you know so well will not disappoint you.