Paul Theroux Summary

Biography EssayPaul Theroux's novels, short stories, essays, and travel books, in which he often explores the expatriate experience and the postcolonial world of developing countries, have established... Read more

The author of over three dozen books, Paul Theroux has earned a reputation as travel writer par excellence and as a novelist whose works speak of colonialism and of the expatriate experience. For many... Read more

Paul Theroux has achieved international fame and literary accolades for his travel writings, novels, short stories, poetry, and critical essays. Just as his literary interests shape his travel writing... Read more

In the following review, Mann praises the detail and honesty of Theroux's description of China in Riding the Iron Rooster. There will probably be no better portrait of how China looks and fe... Read more

In the following review, Wright offers a generally positive assessment of Riding the Iron Rooster. Paul Theroux is a man who travels unburdened by illusions—a rare gift, and especially so in... Read more

In the following review, Jaffe praises the evocative descriptions and attention to detail in My Secret History. Paul Theroux has written a shelf full of books—25 in all—and unlike Hem... Read more

In the following review, Krist analyzes the relationship between character and theme in My Secret History. My Secret History, an enormous book of over 500 pages, belongs to an increasingly familiar... Read more

In the following review, Brookner argues that Chicago Loop represents “a clinical tour de force” for its relentlessly dispassionate portrayal of the psychopathic mind. [In Chicago Loo... Read more

In the following positive review, Frater praises the insights, accessibility, and humor of The Happy Isles of Oceania. Paul Theroux's almost Napoleonic progress across the planet has taken h... Read more

In the following review, Mortimer offers a negative assessment of The Happy Isles of Oceania. Paul Theroux can make pleasant reading, when he is not being deliberately disagreeable and his book [Th... Read more

In the following negative review, Shone argues that Millroy the Magician is inferior to Theroux's earlier novel The Mosquito Coast. When, at the start of Paul Theroux's new novel [Mil... Read more

In the following review, Williams offers a generally positive assessment of Millroy the Magician, but finds the novel's imagery and style overbearing. “My name is Millroy and I am a m... Read more

In the following excerpt, Flower offers a mixed assessment of Millroy the Magician, citing shortcomings in the passive characterization of Jilly. [John Gregory] Brown is not the only male writer th... Read more

In the following review, Hopkins evaluates the strengths of The Pillars of Hercules, after confessing his initial apprehension about reading the work. The night before beginning a bout of “l... Read more

In the following review, Coster contrasts the autobiographical aspects of The Pillars of Hercules with those of Theroux's fiction. ‘Are you making a trip here to write a book?’... Read more

In the following review, Mortimer offers a generally positive assessment of The Pillars of Hercules. Paul Theroux has mellowed between the Pillars of Hercules, even allowing a wry smile at his own ... Read more

In the following review, Sexton offers a positive assessment of The Collected Stories and comments on the difficulty of assessing Theroux's overall literary achievement. Paul Theroux, a grea... Read more

In the following positive review, Mirsky praises Theroux's attention to sensual details in Kowloon Tong. Joseph Conrad said his “task” was “by the power of the written w... Read more

In the following excerpt, Pritchard praises the culinary aspects of the prose in Kowloon Tong. It was an extraordinary spring for fiction, as if all the established novelists, especially in this co... Read more

In the following review, Knudsen offers a mixed assessment of Kowloon Tong, which he finds excessively “dreary,” but redeemed in part by Theroux's observational skill. Through ... Read more

In the following review, Bowman asserts that Sir Vidia's Shadow is an interesting memoir, but a poor display of Theroux's self-pity and anger. If only Paul Theroux had consulted Dr. L... Read more

In the following negative excerpt, Allen expresses contempt for what she sees as the hostility, jealousy, and hypocrisy in Sir Vidia's Shadow. The appearance in bookstores of the bound, publ... Read more

In the following review, Wilson describes Sir Vidia's Shadow, as an engrossing, if unflattering, portrait of literary jealousy and resentment. I have been trying to explain to myself how suc... Read more

In the following review of Fresh Air Fiend, Cussen examines Theroux's attitudes toward aging, his commentaries on other noted travel writers, and his problematic postcolonial views. Towards ... Read more

In the following review, Stewart offers an unfavorable assessment of Fresh Air Fiend. Fresh Air Fiend, a collection of pieces written between 1985 and 2000, is an odd, disjointed book, some parts o... Read more

In the following review of Hotel Honolulu, Newton finds Theroux's preoccupation with sexual indulgence tiresome, but appreciates his larger interest in the significance of literary culture. ... Read more

In the following review, Feehily provides an overview of the narration and themes in Hotel Honolulu. Mention Hawaii and most people think of the famous TV show: those rolling drums, that zoom shot ... Read more

Critical Essay by Anthony Burgess To Somerset Maugham it was the F.M.S., to Henri Fauconnier Malaisie, to myself Malaya; to the American writer Paul Theroux … it is Malaysia. It is recognizabl... Read more

Critical Essay by Anne Tyler From the start, Paul Theroux's ["Picture Palace"] takes us by surprise. In the first place, it's less exotic than most of his books, which ten... Read more

Critical Essay by Vicki Goldberg It was bold of Theroux to make Maude a photographer [in Picture Palace], and that she is believable as one is a remarkable feat, since artists are notoriously hard to... Read more

Critical Essay by Paul Bailey Paul Theroux's brilliant new novel ends with a startling scene. Maude Coffin Pratt, a famous American photographer, is attending the private view of a retrospecti... Read more

Critical Essay by Maureen Howard [The Picture Palace] is an entertainment in the best sense…. Theroux knows what he's about, writing lively narrative, controlling the mystery story elem... Read more

Critical Essay by Roderick Cook [Waldo is a] good funny novel. It starts, appropriately enough, with the hero's getting a cream pie flung in his face and ends Paul Theroux 1941– Photogr... Read more

Critical Essay by Alan Hollinghurst Paul Theroux's short stories [in World's Fair] avoid … problems of commitment by their comedy and brevity; when he expands in the longer form ... Read more

Critical Essay by Stanley Reynolds The title of Paul Theroux's new book [The London Embassy] is rather misleading. The anonymous narrator indeed works at the American Embassy but his work take... Read more

Critical Essay by The New Yorker [In Paul Theroux's Waldo the hero] is a shadowy, passive young man, who moves from one intensely symbolic site to another until he has turned into a slightly o... Read more

Critical Essay by Laurence Lafore "Girls at Play" is a horror story—not in the usual sense, but in the way that "King Lear" is a horror story. It is, more precisely... Read more

Critical Essay by Susan Hill Jungle Lovers invites comparison with Graham Greene. The setting might certainly have been his, the serio-comic situations in which the characters find themselves frequen... Read more

Critical Essay by L. J. Davis Paul Theroux has chosen to measure himself against a very tall ghost indeed: Joseph Conrad. Jungle Lovers is an audacious attempt to tell the other half of The Heart of ... Read more