Review: Around the World in 80 Trains: A 45,000-Mile Adventure

Around the World in 80 Trains: A 45,000-Mile Adventure by Monisha Rajesh
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I almost gave this one star. The writer is very dismissive of her fellow travellers and of many of the places she goes. I suggest she reads some Paul Theroux or Bruce Chatwin and learns the craft of travel writing. One star was coming even before she dismissed Singapore in a poorly thought-through sentence: 'a starchy, characterless city with the superficial appeal of Dubai, and the same brutal levels of heat', yet gave pages to the (interesting) account of North Korea.

In places, the writing is poor, yet there is some humour, which raised the review to two stars.

I was angry about the Singapore comment for much of the book. She refers to a chap she met in London who had been interned at Changi during WW2, and uses his recollections and reflections a few times to add some historical context to the section on the death railway. She could have gone to the prison museum at Changi; she could have questioned the modern mix of cultures and the attraction to all things Japanese despite the war years, but she fails to scratch beneath the ‘Dubai’ surface she paints.

Her character portraits are thin, dismissive, cliched and racist - which is weird for a female writer of Indian heritage, travelling with her half-Malaysian fiancée.

Also, for a book about 80 trains, we get very little about the trains. Instead, we get a hack's perspective on the world. Her views on Japan after two weeks. Her views on Russia, Siberia and much of Mongolia and China after a week or two.

She missed an opportunity. The book could have been better. She rushed the journey, jumped to conclusions, and produced a juvenile account of train travel. She missed the connection.

I gave it two stars, and it could have been just one. Rant over.

Read Paul Theroux instead, or watch Michael Portillo or Michael Palin.

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