The best audiobook reading I have ever listened to

The book had me yearning to get on a train in a time before I was born and in a place before phones and social media. The story is great and each of the chapters function alone, and since I finished it a month ago I have found myself going back to my favourite journies repeatedly since. The performance by the reader is like nothing i have ever listened to. Not sure if I ought to be troubled by the full frontal Indian, Chinese and Japanese accents imitated throughout but the reality is i am not - the whole reading is fantastic theatre, a real one-man show and the dark comedy of Theroux's writing comes out through the incredible performance. The constant stream of consciousness of pomposity, alcoholism and colonial overhangs that pervade this book somehow don't come across as tasteless but rather as a guilty pleasure, feeling somehow terribly indulgent; I want to be boozed up, probably wearing all linen, in a first class sleeper, somewhere between Afghanistan and Pakistan without the sheer terror that would naturally come with doing that in the 21st century. Inevitably, I have the strong feeling this book is Marmite however and other listeners will either love it or hate it. Personally, like Marmite, I love it and I wish Frank Muller had narrated some of Theroux's other work but unfortunately this is the only one

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A dream of dreams.

One of Theroux’s best. This time without moaning and just bearing the discomforts as they come. It is lovely to relive the places and tracks in lazy listening.

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brilliant

really excellent a classic excellent a classic excellent a classic excellent a classic excellent a classic read it today

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I was on the train

The narrator of this story made it all come to life and it felt as though I was on the train travelling alongside and could smell and feel all the pleasures and discomforts afforded to the traveller. I have purchased the second part his return and already it has highlighted how the passing of time along with age makes you value and appreciate different things even after compensating and making allowances for memories being a ghost train and bringing about a sense of melancholy sense of loss.

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15 people found this helpful

Good story. Did not like the narrator.

Enjoyed the journey of this book but could have done with a better narrator. The voice grated and actually meant I didn't listen as often as I would have as it put me off. A very sardonic delivery gave a strange experience to the book. I had to work hard to get past that. That was a shame.

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Excellent

Great book made all better by a superb narrator. It feels like you’re actually there.

Thanks

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Great to listen to while on a train

Enjoyed this book. Don't think long distance trains have changed much. Knowing in my lifetime I won't be able to take the trans Siberian is sad, but Paul's description doesn't leaving me wanting!

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1 person found this helpful

A fascinating rail travel book

This book gave me an excellent insight into travel through many countries in the 1970’s and their cultures. My only slight criticism is the writer is at times quite disparaging of others.

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Detailed train journey but sometimes overly graphic

I did enjoy the story mostly, I just didn’t care at all for the overly graphic “adult” descriptions, mostly in chapter 26. Very, very graphic.

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Train travel - human passage at its rawest

Brilliant evocation of life on a train through senseless bureaucracy, corruption, violence and random acts of kindness - I was a student in the USSR and took many long train journeys in various classes - he captures the ugliness and hypocrisy of that system perfectly with its anti-west sloganeering - people of all ages and backgrounds drinking to escape the grimness.
And I remember that relief of leaving.

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