Theroux: life, work, and literary legacy

¶ … Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town by Paul Theroux. Specifically it will discuss whether the book is an Orientalist text. This memoir discusses the author's travels through Africa from the Nile southward to Cape Town. Orientalism refers to studies and art that depict the East, and the ability of westerners to truly understand the cultures of others, and Theroux runs into that behavior during his trip.

Author Theroux writes of his journey across the length of Africa, a demanding trip that would take him a year to complete. Throughout his travels, he talks about his experiences, many harrowing, that occur along the way. In the second chapter, he notes why people believe this book was an Orientalist text. Earlier in history, when the East was not so well-known, some regarded the Middle East and even North Africa as related to Asia. He writes, "Egypt was regarded as a safe and colorful destination. Egypt stood for the Orient, for sensuality, for paganism" (Theroux 7). Today, however, that image has altered, and Egypt no longer represents the exotic Orient. It represents much of the Arab world relevant to the Middle East, but people still view it with an Orientalist outlook.

The pictures the author paints about his journey are vivid and enduring, and they illustrate the differences between the Orient and Africa. In many parts of the Orient, growth and change is occurring at a rapid rate, and countries are modernizing, such as the rapid growth of China, and Japan's dominance in technology and electronics. These things are not occurring in Africa. The author notes, "After a spell of being familiar and promising, Africa had slipped into a stereotype of itself: starving people in a blighted land governed by tyrants, rumors of unspeakable atrocities, despair, and darkness" (Theroux 17). This is not the growth and modernization of the East, it is the despair and poverty of third world countries struggling just to survive, and that has little to do with Orientalism.

As the author leaves Cairo and begins his long journey, he begins to write about the people and landscapes he sees, and he begins to encounter many aspects of the Orientalist mentality. He writes of dinner companions in Cairo who say they have "never" been to Africa, and he states the obvious, they are in Africa. He says, "No, no. Africa is….' The woman made a gesture, like Mohammed Kaburia's gesture at the Nubian boy, meaning, Down there somewhere" (Theroux 16). These worldly travelers cannot even experience the place they are visiting, they think they have already seen it all and done it all, and they know everything. They are implanting their very western beliefs on a totally different culture, clearly a products of Orientalism. The only commonality the two have is that they are both foreign and unknown to many readers, but other than that, they are two very different culture views, one that is open, and the other that is not.

Another clue that this book is Orientalist is the view the author shows of the Japanese by the Nubians. A tour guide says he "hates" being their guide, and does not like them. The author notes, "To a Nubian like Mohammed, the Japanese were mask-faced, backward-looking, strangely attired, oddly aromatic, and inexplicable -- much as a Nubian might be to a Japanese" (Theroux 35). This illustrates that Orientalism is not simply a western phenomenon. The Nubian is practicing the same type of behavior, looking at another culture through his own culture's eyes, and not attempting to understand any differences that might occur. It shows that this happens the world over, and it is not just "ugly Americans" who take it on their travels with them.

While poverty is rampant in many different parts of the world, including many parts of Asia, it seems rampant in Africa. The author writes, "About thirty miles north we came upon a settlement in the middle of nowhere -- people camped in mean shacks and lean-tos, fighting the heat and the wind, no trees or bush, just a few skinny goats" (Theroux 72). In another village in the Sudan he writes, "There was not a shred of clothing or any item of apparatus here that was any more modern than the first-century Meroitic temple on the other side of the dune" (Theroux). Somehow, the poverty and issues seem worse in Africa, and it seems like there is little hope for the future. In most parts of Asia, the future looks bright for many, but in Africa, there is a sense of hopelessness that is difficult to read about, and that is far different from many parts of the Orient. The fact that people can learn about it and accept it is another form of Orientalism. As long as it is not happening in my country, it is out of my radar and not worth considering.