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Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown, by Paul Theroux
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In Dark Star Safari the wittily observant and endearingly irascible Paul Theroux takes readers the length of Africa by rattletrap bus, dugout canoe, cattle truck, armed convoy, ferry, and train. In the course of his epic and enlightening journey, he endures danger, delay, and dismaying circumstances.
Gauging the state of affairs, he talks to Africans, aid workers, missionaries, and tourists. What results is an insightful meditation on the history, politics, and beauty of Africa and its people, and "a vivid portrayal of the secret sweetness, the hidden vitality, and the long-patient hope that lies just beneath the surface" (Rocky Mountain News). In a new postscript, Theroux recounts the dramatic events of a return to Africa to visit Zimbabwe.
- Sales Rank: #128033 in eBooks
- Published on: 2004-04-05
- Released on: 2004-04-05
- Format: Kindle eBook
From Publishers Weekly
"You'll have a terrible time," one diplomat tells Theroux upon discovering the prolific writer's plans to hitch a ride hundreds of miles along a desolate road to Nairobi instead of taking a plane. "You'll have some great stuff for your book." That seems to be the strategy for Theroux's extended "experience of vanishing" into the African continent, where disparate incidents reveal Theroux as well as the people he meets. At times, he goes out of his way to satisfy some perverse curmudgeonly desire to pick theological disputes with Christian missionaries. But his encounters with the natives, aid workers and occasional tourists make for rollicking entertainment, even as they offer a sobering look at the social and political chaos in which much of Africa finds itself. Theroux occasionally strays into theorizing about the underlying causes for the conditions he finds, but his cogent insights are well integrated. He doesn't shy away from the literary aspects of his tale, either, frequently invoking Conrad and Rimbaud, and dropping in at the homes of Naguib Mahfouz and Nadine Gordimer at the beginning and end of his trip. He also returns to many of the places where he lived and worked as a Peace Corps volunteer and teacher in the 1960s, locations that have cropped up in earlier novels. These visits fuel the book's ongoing obsession with his approaching 60th birthday and his insistence that he isn't old yet. As a travel guide, Theroux can both rankle and beguile, but after reading this marvelous report, readers will probably agree with the priest who observes, "Wonderful people. Terrible government. The African story."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Theroux groans his way through Africa; the first single trip since The Pillars of Hercules.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Theroux returns to East Africa--he taught in Uganda and Malawi in the 1960s--both because he wants to see if there is hope behind the horrific headlines and because he wants to drop off the map for a while. He discovers that in Ethiopia the ivory trade is alive and well; in Uganda, Makerere University still hasn't recovered from the despotism of Idi Amin; and in Zimbabwe, absurd land seizures continue unabated. The countries are poorer than he last saw them, while beset by the same intractable problems of corruption and violence. Most men he meets have spent time in prison. Besides frequent rumination on what it means to be a traveler, readers know they can expect a stimulating exploration of history, geography, politics, and society from Theroux, an intellectual with dirty fingernails who's expert at getting the first-person story. He can be caustic toward less-enlightened travelers who want simply to enjoy themselves, and to aid workers, whom he sees as universally self-serving. It's a shame that someone who strives so mightily to understand Africans can be so dismissive of his own people. A traveler who sympathizes with the downtrodden would do well to remember his own privileges of time, money, and education. Nonetheless, his book contains page after page of eye-opening and insightful observations. And for those of us who might squander our two weeks off on a predictable cruise, Theroux's vantage point from the dusty road is very useful indeed. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Interesting, but a bit self-righteous
By Ken Simmons
An interesting read about the dangers and pitfalls of overland travel in Africa, BUT.... be prepared for the author to explain his dislike for every group of people who aren't, well, him. He has little respect for those who come to Africa without crossing a border on foot, even though he basically says it's foolish to do so. He rails against the politicians, hunters, aid workers, cruise customers, missionaries, charities, and most of all those people who come to see the wildlife with their "pith helmets and designer khakis." He did go to one game park, but found the owner more interesting than the wildlife. When he was late for dinner, he described the other guests in this way, "The eaters' canines flashed in the firelight, their fingers gleamed with meat fat, and after they swallowed they sighed with satisfaction, rejoicing in their safari." A bit of literary license I suspect,
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
If I ever wanted to go to interior Africa I wouldn't now
By James Reynolds
I admire the author who took this most taxing trip at the age of sixty from Cairo to Cape Town in early 2001
Vivid descriptions of places and people I will never experience with controversial and unfortunately repetitive opinions about aid workers and put downs of tourists, probably most of his readers
I tend to believe him about aid workers because I've met a few back home living very well and resent him about tourists because I am one, plus he ends his book going on a five trophy safari himself so hypocrisy is not a fault he avoids
However accurate his depiction of aid workers in their brand new range rovers is, it is hard to believe they are the cause of African poverty and corruption and he ends with a glowing description of South Africa that would more logically lead you to conclude that blacks are the problem and they should have kept whites in charge
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
A gutsy venture brilliantly documented
By William J. Fickling
Theroux is not everyone's cup of tea. He is opinionated--curmudgeonly is a word very frequently used to describe him--and will often shock readers who expect the usual "cultural relativist" pap with his unflinching willingness to hold the residents of other lands he is writing about accountable for their own inability or unwillingness to assume some sense of responsibility. I have read many of Theroux's books--I have been reading Theroux since he first wrote an article in Esquire in the 1960s about getting kicked out of the Peace Corps--and this is one of his best. He has written many books in the travel narrative genre, and this one is about Africa. I also feel well qualified to comment on the book, since I, like Theroux, was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Africa in the 1960s and, also like Theroux, have many vivid memories of those times.
Theroux set out to take an overland journey from Cairo to Capetown, and to write about it. In doing so he manages, in slightly less than 500 pages, to encapsulate the sad story of the last 40+ years of African history. In many ways, this is a sad, even tragic book. Theroux remembers when Africa was full of hope. Newly freed from the ravages and exploitation of colonialism, Africa was full of optimism. Determined to free themselves from dependence on the west, most newly independent countries opted for socialism and were very cozy with the Soviet Union and Maoist China. This, according to Theroux, was what led to their downfall. Central planning led to one party dictatorships throughout the continent, and in turn to incompetence and corruption, and in some cases, tyranny and mass murder. Theroux's journey documents many of the aftereffects of these events.
Most of the people Theroux meets on his journey are ordinary people who have no idea who he is. However, Theroux is not remiss to use his stature as a world famous writer to gain access to literary gatherings, to public officials, some of whom are old friends from his Peace Corps days, and on one occasion to the U.S. embassy. Good for him; the book is better as a result. It was difficult not to seethe with rage at the pompous African official who mocks the Indian merchants who were kicked out of the country for going through their stores with a calculator tallying the value of each item in the store. Theroux explains that this is simply taking inventory, a basic tool necessary to the efficient running of a business. The official scoffs at this, saying that Africans just aren't cut out for that sort of thing, something Theroux bluntly characterizes as "bullshit." As a result of this type of thinking, the merchant shops which used to appear in nearly every village in Africa, and which were intended to be run by Africans after the Indians were forced to leave, now lie vacant.
This is a theme that Theroux pursues relentlessly: the unwillingness of Africans to learn the skills and to put in the effort needed to remedy their dire situation. He places the blame for this not only on the governments, but also on aid organizations, NGOs, and missionaries, all of whom engage in handouts, resulting in the Africans' failure to help themselves. Theroux seems personally stressed by this as well. At one point he snaps at a man who asks him for money just after Theroux has been very ill, asking the man why he should give him money. Aren't you a man, he says, can't you take care of himself? He also paints a harrowing picture of the takeover of white-owned farms by government sanctioned squatters in Zimbabwe, with the expected result that the farms become much less productive than they were before, with the squatters expecting the farmers to do everything from giving them seeds to helping them plant to threshing the grain.
I don't wish to give the impression that Theroux's portrayal of present day Africa is totally negative. He meets many individuals, black and white, of whom he paints a positive picture. There are an African father and son who help him travel by canoe across a national boundary. There is even a nun for whom Theroux seems to have a very high regard. And he esteems Nadine Gordimer. But most of his portraits are scathing.
In spite of my praise and high regard for the book, I did not give it 5 stars because I think Theroux fails to mention anything at all about indigenous African society, by which I mean society at the tribal level. I think Theroux knows very well that African societies function very well at this level. The blunt truth is that the mess that Africa finds itself in today is the direct result of colonialism, and that the western forms of government that Africans seem unable to get to function well are artificial forms imposed on their indigenous cultures. This does not excuse present day Africans from their responsibility to learn to cope with the situation as it is, but Theroux lets the west off the hook far too easily. He also fails to mention that there is a kind of rough justice involved in the African squatters taking over the white-owned farms, because in most cases the ancestors of the present day farmers themselves stole the land from Africans. But the positives of this book far outweigh the negatives. Highly recommended for anyone interested in contemporary Africa.
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