Dark Star
Safari - Overland from Cairo to Cape Town (2002) is a travelogue of Paul
Theroux’s travels in continental Africa by rail and road from Cairo, Egypt, in
the north to Cape Town, South Africa, in the south. It is 2001 and he is 59
years old and travelling alone.
In 1963, almost
40 years before his travels, he was a teacher in the peace corps, working in
Malawi, and a lecturer at Makerere University in Uganda.
In 2001 he
wanted to resurrect the wonderful memories he had when he was working in Africa
as a young man. In 2001 Theroux travels from Egypt to Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya,
Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.
He has
comments such as, ‘’Urban life is nasty all over the world, but it is nastiest
in Africa – better a year in Tabora than a day in Nairobi. None of the African
cities I had so far seen … seemed fit for human habitation.’’ Well, I am
reading his book while I am in Nairobi, and I beg to differ.
I have read two
of Theroux’s books: Mosquito Coast (1981) and The Lower River (2012) and
enjoyed both of them. However, Dark Star Safari was not enjoyable. It was long,
pretentious, annoying, cynical, and rambling. Theroux appears to be just a
note-taker in Africa, passing through.
A more
adventurous feat was that of 24-year-old Ewart Scott Grogan who, in 1900,
walked from Cape Town to Cairo, taking two-and-a-half years, eventually
settling in Kenya to live, in a country he loved.
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different
in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament
(2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a
Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
Comments
Post a Comment