last pages

Before the Oxfam closed its doors for good eight days ago, I went over there one last time – to say good-bye to a beloved institution but also to scoop up a final bargain. It was halfway through their last week, and all books were fifty pence a piece. The shelves looked as if they had fallen victim to a band of marauding Mongols who had suddenly discovered the power of the printed word and started pillaging bookstores.

The shelves gaped vacuously, the few remaining books overwhelmed with the task of filling the space. But the beauty of this store – and another reason why I kept coming back again and again – was that the regulars had vastly different tastes. At the end of a busy week, when hundreds of volumes were plucked from the shelves, each exactly matching someone's desires, there were inevitably some left that were just right for me, and always more than I felt comfortable buying.

And so it was on this last visit. I surveyed the plundered premises and quickly secured four stacks of paper: two back-issues of Granta, straight from the last millennium but full of fresh writing; a collection of American travel writing that hadn't been touched by anyone; and The Kingdom by the Sea by Paul Theroux.

I had never read any of Paul Theroux's books or stories, mostly because I couldn't pronounce (or even imagine to pronounce) his name and would always mentally coalesce him and Henry Thoreau. But Theroux easily stands on his own. He has dozens of books to his credit, fiction as well as non-fiction. Most of his non-fiction is travel writing, and most of that revolves around trains.

Paul Theroux is a train nut, but not of the sad kind that sees trains as rolling museums, to be admired for their quaintness and cuteness, elevating narrow-gauge steam trains to ersatz deities. There is no nostalgia in his eyes. For him, trains are the most efficient and modern way of transportation ever devised by man, and he takes them wherever he can. He became famous with The Great Railway Bazaar, an account of a trip on rails from Britain out to Japan and back, and followed it up with the The Old Patagonian Express, the same story told on different lands (the length of the American continent).

The Kingdom by the Sea is a different kind of book. It chronicles a three-month trip the author took clockwise along the coast of the United Kingdom, mostly because after living in London for eleven years he hadn't seen any of the country that the Big Smoke is the capital of. The train is his primary and preferred means of transportation, but as there is no railroad circumnavigating the island of Great Britain and many of the branch lines had already been trimmed by the time he set out, Theroux travels by bus and on foot as well.

By its very nature, the book has stretches of repetitive tedium. All English seaside resorts are pretty much the same: A depressing fun fair sits on a rusty pier jutting deep into grey, choppy waters. The promenade by the sea is lined with chippies and betting shops. Ominous clouds hover above, threating rain at any minute, in July as much as in January. If there weren't more to the story, the book would be unreadable, but there are three ingredients that not only save it but assure its excellence.

Firstly, Paul Theroux isn't interested in sights and tourist features. He travels to talk to people, seeking conversations with everyone he meets and subsequently enlivening his writing with much authentic dialogue. He names every person he interacts with, and while these names are arbitrary ("It was one of my small talents to be able to tell a person's name by looking at him," he says in the first chapter.), they give the book an air of intimacy.

Secondly, current events provide a compelling background to the story. The trip was taken in 1982 when the UK was mired in a profound economic crisis. The decline of heavy industry, ship-building and fishing can be felt in every village and town on the way. The Troubles provide a fascinating context for the chapters on Northern Ireland, which are the most captivating of the book. The defeat of Argentina on the Falkland Islands gives a bit of positive balance to the mood of the nation.

Thirdly, the British coast is more than England and desolate coastal towns. The north west of Scotland, even without Skye or the Hebrides, is rugged and solitary and made for adventures far from the mellowing hand of civilization. The marshes of the southeastern shore are a different world altogether, as are the dignified ancient cities of the north-east.

Traveling with Theroux around Great Britain turns an anonymous writer into a dear acquaintance, almost a friend. Paul laments the ongoing dismantling of the nation's railroads. He is forever amused by the British habit of anthropomorphizing the weather. His keen observations help to turn a country that has been described to death into something novel, interesting and charming.

I read the book with great pleasure and matching impatience. I have lived in London for three years (not eleven) but I haven't left the city much. Theroux describes London as "an independent republic". That's the feeling I get, too. London is like a European Singapore, but without the oppressive rules and heat. It's easy not to leave it, but it's also a loss.

This Easter, I have good friends of mine stay over from Italy. They've been here before, in and around London, and they love to return. Each time they come I have to think a little harder to come up with something to do. The very obvious things – the great museums, the guidebook sights and the happening neighborhoods – aren't new anymore. For tomorrow I rented a car to increase our radius of possibility. If the sun shines, we might go down to the sea. As we're not limited by the railroad tracks, we can pick a place just for the beauty it promises.