Yesterday I spent a pleasant hour listening to Paul Theroux on Sophy Roberts’ podcast “Gone to Timbuktu.” He talked about George Orwell (and why he was not the saint people think he was), Ernest Hemingway (a poseur, a tourist in Africa who shot a lion when he would have been better off learning Swahili), Bruce Chatwin (who never traveled alone and craved attention), his first bestseller The Great Railway Bazaar, the evolution of travel writing. I listened in admiration of his dedication (he writes every day), his wide-reading, his on-going curiosity (he’s off to Canada soon, to research a book about his ancestors), and, at 83, his ocean-paddling, his bike-riding, his daily swims, and his undimmed enthusiasm for people, places, books, life.
