Paul Theroux

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's Archive. For rights' reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen seventy six, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:29

This week, our castaway is the American novelist and travel writer Paul Theroux.

Presenter0:35

Well, any more trips like your last one, the one to Tokyo, which produced the Great Railway Bazaar, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if you did finish as a castaway. Have you ever daydreamed about being a Robinson Crusoe?

Paul Theroux0:46

I've daydreamed about it and I've even had a bash at uh being Robinson Crusoe. There's an island off the coast of Kenya called Lamu. This is very romantic sounding, but it's a terrible place to be if you were uh like me, I think.

Presenter0:59

Well, it really wasn't a deserted island by any means.

Paul Theroux1:02

No, no. How much does music mean in your life?

Paul Theroux1:07

Well, a certain amount. I will say that um while I enjoy music, I'm a fairly ignorant uh music lover. But I find it's incompatible with most of the things I do.

Paul Theroux1:16

such as reading and writing. I can't read or write with the the radio going or with music going.

Presenter1:22

What was your plan in choosing your eight record?

Paul Theroux1:25

I think uh nostalgia really. Th it just uh songs that I've heard and happen to like. But uh n I don't associate them with anything except a particular period in my life.

Presenter1:38

Where do we start?

Paul Theroux1:39

I think start when when I was about uh eight years old and I used to listen to the radio very, very late at night. I'm from Massachusetts and uh the only station that was on the radio was WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia. And I used to listen to Earl Scruggs in Leicester Flat uh playing banjo music.

Presenter2:27

Banjo music by Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt, Shocking the Corn.

Presenter2:32

Let's go straight on to your second record.

Paul Theroux2:34

Well, the second one I associate with being at university and I really the discovery of uh poetry and reading and that uh the the kind of pleasure that uh that poetry gives. And it's E. E. Cummings reading What if a much of a witch of a wind.

Speaker 22:50

What if a much of a witch of a wind Gives the truth to summer's lie?

Speaker 22:57

Bloodies with dizzying leaves the sun, And Yank's immortal stars awry.

Speaker 23:06

Blow king to beggar, and queen to seem Blow friend to fiend, blow space to time

Speaker 23:17

When skies are hanged and oceans drowned, The single secret will still be man.

Presenter3:28

E. E. Cummings, reading his own poem, What if a Much of a Witch of a Wind?

Presenter3:33

Now you come from Massachusetts of French stock.

Paul Theroux3:36

Yes, my father is uh French Canadian. My mother is Italian.

Presenter3:41

Youngster, what did you want to be?

Paul Theroux3:42

Yeah.

Paul Theroux3:42

I wanted to be a doctor actually, or a kind of medical missionary. I saw myself uh going to distant places and doing good.

Presenter3:49

You did in fact start to read medicine.

Paul Theroux3:51

Yes, I was a medical student for about four years, but uh gave it up because uh in the States one is d uh discouraged. You know uh American doctors don't operate on you unless you've swallowed a lot of money. Then then they uh they remove it in this major operation. But um it was also uh more positive than that that I that I I really wanted to be a writer and I saw writing as incompatible with with being a doctor. So with a certain amount of reluctance I gave up being a doctor.

Speaker 14:03

It's a major operation.

Presenter4:18

So you switched to reading English with a view to writing. What happened after Graduation Day?

Paul Theroux4:24

Well this was uh in 1962. I thought I was going to be drafted into the army and so I decided uh that I would go as far away as possible, not to hide, but maybe uh an alternative uh occupation, you see. Uh so I decided on Central Africa, uh went there and even got letters from my draft board saying um report for your physical in Boston, you know, on Friday. I'd rather saying um you know, owing to the spring rains, your letter only just arrived, I can't be in Boston. Where were you? I was in Nyasaland, actually, which later became Malawi. Mm-hmm. Doing what? Teaching. And then shortly after I arrived they had uh what for them was a revolution, which is not a revolution at all, but it was it was just a a little bit of uh you know spot of trouble in the capital. But a lot of people were uh deported and uh and some people were persecuted. The upshot of it was that I was um uh kicked upstairs and I was made headmaster of a school and I eventually ended up uh on the inspectorate. But in Africa you see everyone did much better, moved much higher.

Speaker 14:40

Mm-hmm.

Presenter5:29

There's a story that you were eventually thrown out because you were accused of conspiring to assassinate the President.

Paul Theroux5:35

Uh yes, unfortunately. It's not a true story. It was a misunderstanding, a a frame up. It would take much too long to tell. But it's an interesting story, if I may write it.

Presenter5:44

Where did you move on to?

Paul Theroux5:45

Yeah.

Paul Theroux5:46

I was in fact deported for Malawi in nineteen sixty five. I joined uh the rest of the uh Malawi refugees in uh in Uganda. All of them had had got very fat uh jobs there, and they offered me uh quite a good job as a lecturer at the university, where I stayed for four uh fairly happy years.

Presenter6:03

You met your English wife there. What was she doing in Uganda?

Paul Theroux6:06

She was uh studying and also teaching.

Presenter6:09

And you also published while you were there your first novel, Waldo. What was that about?

Paul Theroux6:14

It's set in America, Waldo. It's not a book that I'm very happy with. But it was my first book. I feel a certain kind of affection for it, but I don't think that it was a huge, if I can use the word, artistic success. But I moved on to other things. I found that my style was changing much too rapidly and eventually arrived at a point where I could see what what I was writing. I didn't really know what I was writing at that point.

Presenter6:29

I found

Presenter6:37

The second book, a comic novel about the East African nations, Thong and the Indians.

Paul Theroux6:42

Yes, it came out in in sixty eight and uh is is appearing really for the first time in England uh this year. Well that's uh that was written at a time when not many people outside Uganda knew that there were Indians in in Uganda and really they were the backbone of of the economy and I I think uh the salt of the earth there. But um they ran into a certain amount of opposition. Uh they were criticized, eventually persecuted and finally thrown out. A very unfortunate thing.

Presenter7:09

Yes. And then it was time to move on again.

Paul Theroux7:13

Yes, at that point I needed another job. I had resigned uh over a a Fraka at the um they were they were having a demonstration. They burnt my car, the students that was.

Presenter7:23

Your own students.

Paul Theroux7:25

Well, yes, they I don't know whether they recognize me. Maybe we all look alike to them, I don't know. But uh th th they um they're very troublesome actually. And and then I f I also felt uh that that it was time to move. I began to see great discrepancies between what I was teaching and what I was seeing happen. I didn't feel that my work was getting me anywhere there, so I went to Singapore and taught there.

Presenter7:28

No, but uh

Speaker 17:29

Yeah.

Presenter7:45

And taught the what did you teach this time?

Paul Theroux7:48

Well, I had uh to uh come up with a field really. The job going was a lecturer in seventeenth century uh drama and uh I mugged that up and uh and taught that for the next three years.

Presenter8:00

You've been teaching the twentieth century novel, I gather, at Uganda.

Paul Theroux8:03

That might have been the name of the course, but in fact you we're teaching a few short stories and and hoping for the best.

Presenter8:09

Yes. Uh right, now several novels about Africa. Um, Girls at Play, Jungle Lovers. One set in the United States, what was that called?

Paul Theroux8:19

There's one called uh Murder in Mount Holly, is that the one you said? Yes, yes.

Presenter8:21

Yes, yes. And one about Singapore?

Paul Theroux8:25

Yes, uh Saint Jack uh is set in Singapore. Um another one I wrote in Singapore I was j generally one country uh b behind. So one of the African novels I wrote in Singapore and the Singapore novel I in fact I wrote in England.

Presenter8:28

Uh

Presenter8:39

Yes. And then you decided to come and and live in England. Uh you had been travelling for what, seven or eight years?

Paul Theroux8:47

Yes, yes. And by then the danger of my being d uh drafted had passed. Had passed at a time when I think I would have uh joined the army. I I uh went to Africa uh a conscientious objector and emerged uh well not exactly a hawk, but but I I'm not uh I wouldn't describe myself as a pacifist now.

Presenter9:07

Second.

Paul Theroux9:07

Number three. Well that i is really a record that I associate with Singapore and um India. And uh it's the sound of of the Bazaar, the the uh the song from the Indian film, sung by one of the most popular Indian singers, Asha Bosele. It's this kind of song I associate with dust on a hot day.

Presenter9:26

Be JP

Paul Theroux9:32

John he hit your father.

Speaker 29:39

Uh

Paul Theroux9:39

Oh dear.

Presenter9:56

The voice of Asher Bozley

Presenter9:58

You've been living in London now for what, four years? Your wife works for the BBC, doesn't she?

Paul Theroux10:03

Yes, she's at Bush House, uh English by Radio. She's a producer.

Presenter10:07

And you've written two novels with an English setting.

Paul Theroux10:10

Yes, one of which appeared a few years ago, the other which is appearing now. The first one, The Black House, is set in Dorset, where we went to live after we left Singapore. It was pure chance that we chose Dorset, but it turned out to be a very very interesting place, a much more interesting place than a lot of the uh than Uganda, for example, or Singapore. A very subtle, interesting place near Marshwood Vale. And then moved to London, and that's the setting actually for for uh the other English novel that I wrote, The Family Arsenal.

Presenter10:41

Now that you're writing full time, no lectures to worry about, what sort of discipline do you hold yourself to?

Paul Theroux10:48

I try to write every day and keep at it. In fact, I think sometimes that a that a writer's life is is nothing. It's just uh a very desk bound occupation. When it's going well, it's it that that's a marvelous feeling. If I'm not writing, I I feel very fretful and feel like travelling, in fact.

Presenter11:04

What are you working on now?

Paul Theroux11:06

I'm working on a film script, in fact, at the moment, but uh I would like to to write a novel because with a novel you

Paul Theroux11:13

You don't quite know what's coming next. You have an idea, but but there's a there's a kind of discovery every day.

Presenter11:18

Yes, you don't set out uh a pretty complex framework before you start. You get a situation and go from there.

Paul Theroux11:24

Yes, if you if you knew where you were going that would take uh most of the fun out of it. I mean the the pleasure of writing is like the pleasure of travel, uh of sort of open-ended travel. You don't quite know where you're going or uh what's going to happen when you get there, but you're going in it in a in a general direction. And with with writing a novel you have to have a direction.

Presenter11:42

You have a brother who's a writer, too.

Paul Theroux11:45

Yes, I have uh four brothers, uh uh one of whom is a writer, and he w he's also a university lecturer in the States at Harvard.

Presenter11:51

Do you compete at all?

Paul Theroux11:52

Oh no, no. I would say one of the va uh values of of writing is that there's no competition. It you have uh no opponent, no enemies, no no no uh competition whatsoever. That's that's certainly the pleasure of writing. It's uh absolutely fair and uh completely uncompetitive. It's it's not like a business at all, really. Only publishers uh sometimes think that, but it's not true.

Presenter12:17

Let's have record number four.

Paul Theroux12:18

Yeah.

Paul Theroux12:19

Record number four is a Mozart quintet, which I think is is an extremely pleasant noise.

Presenter13:23

The opening of the Mozart Quintetine Major for clarinet and strings, Gervaise de Paya, with members of the Milos Ensemble. Now, your very successful travel book, The Great Railway Bazaar, you set off from Victoria Station one afternoon to go to Tokyo by train. Whose idea was that?

Paul Theroux13:40

Mine. I I had uh been travelling on uh railways in Indonesia, Burma and Thailand uh when I was living in Singapore. And it just struck me as something that was both possible and pleasant to do. It was a most attractive prospect, very exciting weather, uh very exciting trains, simple. You sit down, you lie down, you sleep, you write, look out the window. I couldn't think of a better way of getting for getting to Tokyo.

Presenter14:06

What route did you choose, roughly?

Paul Theroux14:08

I looked at a map and wherever I saw a black line indicating a railway, tried to connect them up between Victoria and uh Tokyo Central. There are a few gaps. Uh there are no trains in Afghanistan. In Balochistan, in southeast Iran, uh there's the desert and there's a war going on and there's also no no no railway. But the rest of uh Asia is quite well connected with with railways.

Presenter14:29

When you ran out of rails y you had to fly.

Paul Theroux14:32

I took a bus first, then uh I found buses were making me ill and I f I flew, but there wasn't really a lot of flying or or buses. It was mainly railways. And back by another route? I came back by going to Vladivostok and then oh actually Nakhodka and taking the Trans-Siberian to Moscow and then coming back. You know, you can go down to Liverpool Street Station and get to to Tokyo that way with without a great deal of trouble.

Presenter14:55

You avoided going into China.

Paul Theroux14:57

Yes, I c I couldn't get a visa. I tried, but uh but failed. Sometime I would like to do that, because that's also a a a very agreeable route. You would go through Mongolia.

Presenter15:06

You started by taking the Orient Express to Istanbul. From what you write, this is a pretty crammy train.

Paul Theroux15:12

Yes, there's no dining car on it. I would warn anyone that plans to take it that there's no dining car. It takes you to a part of the world where uh the railway is is a a marvelous and extremely comfortable institution. After uh Istanbul, which is really the gateway to Asia, you're on Turkish trains. They do have dining cars and excellent sleeping arrangements. And you can really uh be horizontal and get all the way to Tehran or Meshed, at the top of uh Iran.

Speaker 115:32

Yeah.

Presenter15:41

Where were the railways worst?

Paul Theroux15:41

Yeah.

Paul Theroux15:44

The worst railways, you can't uh blame them really, were were in Vietnam. They were they were pretty tragic. Although the scenery was, I must say, absolutely splendid. There are bad trains in um in India, but there are also very good ones. I think wa the there was one that stopped uh ninety-six times in about twelve hours. It seemed to be stopping about every five or ten minutes.

Presenter16:07

You did travel first class as as far as possible.

Paul Theroux16:10

Yes, yes. Because I found that I could only write in first class and if I was on a train for two or three days, it was really like being in a hotel and I could I could scribble away or read. And uh if I had gone third class, when I did go third class, I found I couldn't do anything. I couldn't read, I couldn't write, I couldn't sleep, and uh I was getting indigestion.

Presenter16:28

What did you read on the trip?

Paul Theroux16:31

I brought uh Dickens, um I I read Little Dorrit, I read uh Gissing, I read Browning's poetry, short stories. Sh short stories are excellent for us, particularly Chekhov's, where they're set in the railway compartment. I found uh really that that was paradise, putting my feet up, having a drink, having my pipe drawing nicely, looking out the window and and reading, and two or three days later ending in uh Madras or Rangoon. How long did the trip take you?

Paul Theroux16:56

It took about four months, just under.

Presenter16:58

Would you recommend anyone else to do it?

Paul Theroux17:00

The moral of my book might be don't do it. I would go anywhere on a train. I would recommend uh practically any part of the of the trip that tha that I took to a traveller. But doing it all in one gulp, uh, no, I would say. You you get withdrawal symptoms toward the end.

Presenter17:16

Let's have your fifth record. What's that?

Paul Theroux17:18

Well the fifth record is is associated with train travel. It's uh Alabami Bound by uh the immortal Fletcher Henderson.

Presenter17:58

Fletcher Henderson and his band, Alabami Bound. Record number six now, let's go straight for it.

Paul Theroux18:04

Record number six is one that I associate with one of the pleasantest activities I can think of, which is lying on your back in a grassy park, Greenwich Park, Hyde Park, and listening to a band concert, and that would be the Washington Post March.

Presenter19:21

The Washington Post March by the Regimental Band of Her Majesty's Cold Stream Guards.

Presenter19:26

In a practical sense, what kind of castaway would you be? Are you good with your hand?

Paul Theroux19:31

Not bad, I would say. I I th I think I could manage.

Presenter19:34

You told me that you did rather well in the Boy Scouts when you were at the

Paul Theroux19:37

Oh yes, I was a I was a Boy Scout. In fact, uh I I would think that you could probably earn all your merit badges on a desert island. Uh I I don't know who would give you the examination, but uh I I think I would survive. The prospect of uh being on a desert island I find quite attractive actually.

Presenter19:52

What about escaping? Would you try to do that?

Paul Theroux19:54

I doubt.

Presenter19:55

But it

Presenter19:56

Record number seven.

Paul Theroux19:57

Record number seven is uh an African song, Malayka, which means I Love You, My Angel. But it it it's a nice one, it was very popular in Africa when I was there.

Paul Theroux20:07

Malaika, na kupela malaika.

Paul Theroux20:14

Malaika Na Tupenda Malaika.

Speaker 120:20

Yeah. Uh

Speaker 120:21

Yeah.

Paul Theroux20:21

Na mini banye ge ki jana moenzio na shindo na mali si nawe ninge kuo wa malai ga

Paul Theroux20:36

Ma

Presenter20:36

Ah she

Paul Theroux20:36

In a

Presenter20:37

A Swahili song, Malaika, Fidilly William. And that brings you to your last record. What's that?

Paul Theroux20:44

Last record is uh the Bach Cantata number 170, uh uh sung by Alfred Della. I think it's the singer as much as the song that attracts me.

Presenter21:00

God live away.

Presenter21:29

Fish town must be

Presenter21:33

My fallen sin.

Presenter21:39

Uh

Presenter21:49

The first aria from Bach's Cantata No. One Hundred and Seventy for Neuk Deupreux, sung by Alfred Deller. If you could take just one disc out of your eight, which would it be?

Paul Theroux21:59

I think that one the bark.

Presenter22:01

and your lod take one luxury with you to the island.

Paul Theroux22:04

Yes, that's difficult. I think something to drink the largest amount of uh champagne uh that you could give me.

Presenter22:11

and one book apart from the Bible, Shakespeare and Big Encyclopedia.

Paul Theroux22:15

Yes, could you provide perhaps an anthology of English poetry from, I don't know, 1400 to the present, the largest one you could offer. I found myself that I ran out of novels. And you ration yourself with novels, but with poetry you can return to it again and again.

Presenter22:31

All right. And thank you, Paul Theroux, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you very much. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 122:45

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/radio4.