The Pillars of Hercules: A Grand Tour of the Mediterranean

I've always enjoyed Theroux's books, and this one was no exception. What I like about Theroux is that his books are not merely descriptions of the landscape or brief snippets of cities, but actually attempt to capture the journey he undertakes. Pillars of Hercules is a trip around the Mediterranean- not just the traditional countries associated with it, but also going into Albania and North Africa- some of the more interesting parts of the book. What I like is how he talks with so many of the people he meets; it gives a sensation of what the country is like in the time while he is there. The literary meetings that he has with a variety of authors throughout the book add something that most travel books lack.

Way back in the sixties I watched some friends hit the hipster trail from Paris to Tangiers. They stopped in Ibitha (pronounced with a Castillian lisp) where they slept on the beach, adopted names like Pedro and peppered their speech with 'manana' and 'luego, baby.' Thanks to Paul Theroux I am no longer envious of my beret wearing pals. Embarking on an astonishingly ambitious journey around the entire shoreline of the Mediterranean he follows in the footsteps of Caesar and Alexander. I prefer to break out an atlas than break a sweat so this book was perfect. Theroux acknowledges that most travel is arduous and sometimes dangerous but he succeeds in his quest to circumnavigate the old cradle of civilization. He winds his way through Spain, France and Italy managing to avoid the odious tourist industry by taking the train or using ferries, staying in no-star hotels. In these modest surroundings he manages to meet some real people. Except for the Spanish who are too embarrassed to talk about the past (Franco) and Albanians still paranoid about Big Brother he is rewarded with an abundance of entertaining material as he casually interviews folks in their own language. The coast of Yugoslavia has been balkanized with warring factions to the point where genocide is a way of life. The harrowing Third World atmosphere takes such a toll he decides to go home and work in his garden. This intermission gives the reader a respite which extends to the next leg of his trip by his acceptance of a free ride on a luxury liner. Bountiful buffets, avuncular passengers and a sumptuous suite of his own. He has trouble tearing himself away from the sedutive 'Seabourne Spirit' but eventually resumes his no-frills method of travel. At every opportunity he evokes classical history and literature. Disparging contemporary writers he manages to meet with a few who are still alive. In Tangiers he finds Paul Bowles (my friends would be so jealous) and they spend a mellow afternoon toking kif. They agree that the area has been ill-served by books bemoaning the fact that travelling is different from staying home. This part of the world has been plundered by barbarians, vulgar tourists, writers and their acolytes. The author seems a little smug at times but if I were a wealthy erudite polyglot who travels for a living...

Paul Theroux has produced a stunning book here, his recounting of an ambitious tour along the Mediterranean coastline, starting at Gibraltar and ending in Morocco across from "the Rock," along the way visiting just about every place in between, including Spain, France, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, mainland Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus (both sides), Israel, Malta, Syria, Egypt, and Tunisia. He tried to visit Lebanon but was unable to, and was warned off from visiting Algeria. He never seriously attempted to visit Libya. Vowing never to take a plane, he travels along the coast and to the various islands by train, bus, taxi, ferry and cruise ship (both luxurious such as the $1000 a day Seabourne to the more decrepit, workaday Turkish vessel Akdeniz). Though Paul seems at time a romantic, quotting descriptions of places from epic poetry, the Illiad, or modern works of fiction, time and again he finds something different, and often that is a great deal more gritty, spent, or to use some of his massive vocabulary, enervated, melancholy, moribund, or lugubrious (I had to use a dictionary several times in reading it, but hey, I learned something). Though some of it comes off as depressing, some quite depressing, I wouldn't have it any other way; he tells it like it is, describing the places he really saw and the people he really met. Avoiding the tourist's Mediterranean, not wanting to just see ruins, castles, and pretty beaches, Paul shows us in this work how the people live, work, and play in the countries of this great "Inner Sea." Expressing "traveller's guilt" at times for being a "voyeur," Paul observed often times the sorrows, tragedies, and miseries, but also the joys and the friendliness, of the inhabitants of this part of the world.Paul does not romantize any of the countries he sees. He describes in detail the desolate look of the Spanish seacoast in winter (Paul deliberately traveled in the toursit off season), of all the English-language signs, cheap hotels, billboards, shops selling cheap souvenirs, trailer parks, all waiting forlornly for the summer hordes of tourists, a vacation mecca that was more English than Spanish. He goes into considerable detail his efforts to understand the bloody spectacle that is the bullfight in Spain, talking to Spaniards everywhere and even attending a few (and watching some in smoky bars in Spain), but never develop a true comprehension (or liking) for it. He visits war-torn Slovenia and Croatia, sharing dirty hotels with desperate refugees, worried about snipers, harrassed by police at border checkpoints, looking at bullet and mortar holes in ancient structures. His time in Albania is surreal, a land of screaming and whining beggars, virtual starvation, a land that just recovered from one of the most xenophobic dicators in history, one that mandated everyone has his own bunker and not even own his own car - his description of Albania alone was worth the price of the book. Northern

THE PILLARS OF HERCULES by Paul Theroux is a record of one man's journey around the Mediterranean. The journey took several months and included two separate phases. Theroux tells of days of hiking, traveling by train, sailing a night steamer in a storm-tossed sea, and crusing through the sunny Greek islands on a fancy yacht. He travels light with a change or two of clothes in a backpack. He washes his clothes out by hand in the B & B's and cheap hotels he frequents. He grabs meals here and there. Along the way he notes the writers who have passed before him, Robert Groves who lived at Deya with his WHITE GODDESS, Lawrence Durrell who knew Gaul well, the ancients including Herodotus. He stops to talk with living writers and reflect on the conditions of the areas he visits.Theroux has written about his travels in many parts of the world, and though I've read some of his other works, I enjoyed PILLARS the most--probably because I am familiar with some of the places he describes along the coast of the "sea in the midst of the land" and I maintain a connection to the area.Beginning in Cadiz Spain, founded by the Phoenicians 4,000 years ago on the Atlantic--where the real Pillars of Hercules probably existed--Theroux follows the coast from Spain to Italy to the Dalmatian Coast onto Greece the Levant, Egypt and then across North Africa. He relates his pleasure with one of the modern pillars of Hercules--Gibralter--the huge limestone rock jutting from the coast of Spain into the Straights of Trafalgar. Hundreds of British sailors and marines from the Napoleonic Wars are buried on this little spit of land England bought with blood and Spain wishes to reclaim. Theroux takes the train up the Spanish coast, catches a ferry past the islands of Mallorca and Corsica and onto the Italian coast. He continues by train along the Italian coast which he notes becomes progressively more sordid as one travels southward toward Naples. On the Dalmatian Coast, he travels by car (taxi) for a while and notes the thriving stolen automobile business. He passes by the pillboxes built for war and abanoned that now serve as housing for the poor Albanians. He comments on Hoxha's ruthless abuse of the Albanian people. He passes through Thessalonika, an ancient Greek city where hundreds of Jews lived for centuries before the rise of facism in Italy and the creation of the death camps. He leaves the Mediterranean for a while at this point, and when he resumes his journey he is on a yacht to Istanbul--the fabulous port once known to the Romans as Constantinople.Finally, he is on land again, in the Levant, traveling by bus through god-dominated and god-forsaken areas fought over since the dawn of time. On his long trek through Turkey, Lebanon, and other war-torn terrain he notes a huge Crusader fortress that still stands almost a millenium after it's constuction, Palestinian refugees, Israeli roads paved with U.S. taxpayer money, and the grinding poverty on all sides in spite of oi

Nobody ever accused Paul Theroux of looking at the world through rose colored glasses. His critically acclaimed travel books are replete with smelly natives, loud tourists, and scheming vendors. The Pillars of Hercules is no exception. From the ape-teasing tourists on Gibralter to the rude and heavily-armed Israelis, Theroux seems to have met every disagreeable character the Mediterranean has to offer. It is almost enough to make one swear off visiting the region forever. Almost. For while Theroux liberally sprinkles his account of his year-long Mediterranean tour with all sorts of unsavory characters, he captures the region's terrific beauty and breathtaking history. He visits the old haunts of such literary giants as Hemingway, Gaddis, Greene, Joyce, Burroughs, and many others; these palces have as much significance for him as the Parthenon and the Pyramids have for the gawking tourists he detests so much. The book's final scene, in which Paul enjoys a conversation and marijuana cigarette with an aging Paul Bowles is particularly priceless. The Pillars of Hercules is a fantastic read- but if you're planning on making a trip to the area, stick with a travel guide.