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Usually ships in 1 business days | | Only 1 left in stock, order soon! | | | | | | Paul Theroux, the author of the train travel classics The Great Railway Bazaar and The Old Patagonian Express, takes to the rails once again in this account of his epic journey through China. He hops aboard as part of a tour group in London and sets out for China's border. He then spends a year traversing the country, where he pieces together a fascinating snapshot of a unique moment in history. From the barren deserts of Xinjiang to the ice forests of Manchuria, from the dense metropolises of Shanghai, Beijing, and Canton to the dry hills of Tibet, Theroux offers an unforgettable portrait of a magnificent land and an extraordinary people. | | | |
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| | Product Details | | Author: | Paul Theroux | | Paperback: | 480 pages | | Publisher: | Mariner Books | | Publication Date: | December 08, 2006 | | Language: | English | | ISBN: | 0618658971 | | Product Length: | 8.16 inches | | Product Width: | 5.54 inches | | Product Height: | 1.18 inches | | Product Weight: | 1.06 pounds | | Package Length: | 8.0 inches | | Package Width: | 5.4 inches | | Package Height: | 1.3 inches | | Package Weight: | 1.05 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 11 reviews |
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 11 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 found the following review helpful:
 Riding the Iron Rooster Dec 17, 2008
By N. Nelson
This is an often hilarious and extremely informative look into Chinese culture and geography from a travel standpoint. Very enjoyable for anyone who likes Chinese culture, as well as those who know little to nothing about it (which was once me). It was on a college class list of mine, but now I buy it for people. A good read, tho he does get slightly vulgar from time to time.
8 of 8 found the following review helpful:
Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China Jan 11, 2009
By Sharon R. Linendoll
I actually read this book nearly twenty years ago and have never forgotten it. I was so pleased to find it available at Amazon.com. One of the things that especially stuck with me was the eating habits of the Chinese at that time---fascinating! Never forgotten was the pail of eels in the "bathroom" ready for the evening meal.
This reading I was able to take more time with the book and get more out of it because I wasn't working and raising three children. I even looked up Paul Theroux on Encarta to get a feel for his personality.
This is a fabulous armchair travel of China, a detailed description of the beautiful, the ugly and the strange parts of that vast country. I highly recommend it!
10 of 12 found the following review helpful:
 Along for the ride Feb 19, 2007
By Carolyn Barrette
The book, like a long train trip, gets tiring after a while, but Theroux loves traveling this way. His observations of the people, land and culture are well worth reading.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
A few things you should know about 'Riding the Iron Rooster' Jul 04, 2010
Welcome to Paul Theroux's idiosyncratic brand of travel writing. The opening chapters are hilarious - Theroux joins a tour but spends most of it trying to avoid his fellow travellers, whom he dislikes. They become suspicious of him in turn when he is constantly seen to be writing.
There are many moments of dark humour, such as when Theroux answers the call of nature on a train at midnight, only to find a bucket of dead eels on the floor next to the (very dirty) toilet. The next day in the dining carriage he asks what's on the menu, and receives the disturbing reply: "Eels!"
It should be remembered that this book was written back in 1988, but while dated it provides an interesting and perceptive snapshot of a country on the threshold of change between Maoism and capitalism.
The book contains many interesting insights, for instance: "One of the weirder Chinese statistics is that 35 million Chinese people still live in caves. There is no government program to remove these troglodytes, but there is a scheme to give them better caves. It seemed to me a kind of lateral thinking. Why rehouse or resettle these cave-dwellers? The logical solution was to improve their caves. That was very Chinese."
Or: "Mao was once asked what he thought of the French Revolution, and replied: "It's too early to say."
Other insights are more humorous: "Perhaps John Maynard Keynes to [the Chinese] was like D.H. Lawrence for us, and I tried to imagine what forbidden, dark, brooding supply-side economics might be like."
Or disturbing: "It is the belief of many Chinese I met that animals such as cats and dogs do not feel pain. They are on earth to be used - trained, put to work, killed and eaten."
The differences between northern and southern China strangely parallel those of northern and southern Germany; northerners are stereotyped as "imperious, quarrelsome, rather aloof, political, proud noodle-eaters", while southerners are "talkative, friendly, complacent, dark, sloppy, commercial-minded and materialistic rice-eaters."
But Theroux find the emptiest parts of China the most beautiful. He journeys to the far north of Heilongjiang in Manchuria, because he heard there was wilderness there: "real trees and birds." The most interesting parts of the book deal not with China itself, but these outlying areas it has attained sovereignty over: Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Xinjiang and especially Tibet.
Theroux's trip into Tibet is a mixture of sublimity and farce, as he is forced to take over the car from his inept Chinese driver, who nearly gets them killed. Theroux clearly admires the Tibetans (although not their enormous and rabid mastiff dogs). "The Tibetans found a way of distancing themselves from the Chinese, and in the most effective way, by laughing at them."
But Theroux was unfortunately wrong in his assertion that Tibet would be safe from the ravages of mass tourism because it had no railway. In fact, the railway went through in 2006, some eighteen years after this book was written.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Travel as a Time Capsule Dec 24, 2011
By Troy Parfitt
"Why China Will Never Rule the World"
From curmudgeon to comedian, Paul Theroux plays many roles. So too does China, and this is why they make such a good match. Riding the Iron Rooster drags in places, but to that end it only mirrors actual travel. It isn't just about the destinations, but the time spent between the destinations, or in this case the time the author spends riding China's trains. Readers looking for an informative history of the Great Wall or an amusing anecdote concerning the Terracotta Warriors will have to look elsewhere. Theroux shuns tourist sites almost as much as he shuns tourists. When he does encounter a famous place, he often gives it a one-line assessment. He sums up Beijing's abundant cultural offerings as "very big and very impressive." Of China's biggest Buddha statue, he adds, 'and probably the ugliest.'
There is no doubt that Theroux can be caustic, but his cold appraisals should ring true for anyone who has traveled in China, at least to some degree. The problem with many China books is that they are often penned by people who are besotted by the Middle Kingdom and don't wish to offend. But Paul Theroux doesn't care who he offends. In any of his books. Period. He's just trying to be honest, a quality that, for some odd reason, irks people. Perhaps such individuals would be better off with fiction.
Despite a penchant for intellectual snobbery and a misanthropic streak (and what writer worth their salt doesn't exhibit these qualities?), one thing Theroux is exceptionally good at is getting in on the ground level and talking to the people. This makes for many of the volume's brighter and more revealing moments, like when he asks to see a commune and a group of Cantonese laugh so hard they almost fall over.
Riding the Iron Rooster is a thorough inspection of China (no pun intended) during the days it was emerging from the long shadow of Maoism, but before it had begun rocketing to a spot worthy of Western news magazine covers. To that end, it has become a kind of historical document. Unlike other Theroux books, it can be frustrating, but no more frustrating than China itself, and like China itself, it's worth it for those gripping moments and laugh-out-loud encounters. If you want to find out what China was like X number of years ago (and much still holds true today), read this book (and then read Colin Thubron's Behind the Wall, also good). If you want to acquaint yourself with the writings of Paul Theroux, try other titles first: The Kingdom by the Sea, The Great Railway Bazarre, The Happy Isles of Oceania, The Pillars of Hercules, or Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. They are all excellent, whereas this book is merely very, very good.
Troy Parfitt, author of Why China Will Never Rule the World
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