Word: theroux
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Author Paul Theroux, at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst: "These books about the affairs of the White House, telling secrets -- they're obnoxious. But haven't we got a right to know those things? Aren't we obliged to know those things? The same goes for people selling snake oil and salvation. It's human weakness that they represent, but it's an American strength when they are exposed...
Unfortunately, The Mosquito Coast (based on Paul Theroux's 1982 novel) is not a postcard. It is a movie, recording in painful detail the self-righteous Allie's trek toward a predictable tragedy, herding his long-suffering family before him as he goes. And though Harrison Ford offers a hypnotizing portrayal of a man covering despair with lunatic optimism, hysteria with bravado and rigid self-control, a fatal prejudice lingers in the audience: we do not want to spend a couple of hours with Allie here any more than we would if he were, heaven forfend, our next-door neighbor...
...LAST WORTHLESS EVENING, Andre Dubus -- O-ZONE, Paul Theroux...
EDITOR'S CHOICE FICTION O-ZONE, Paul Theroux -- PECKHAM'S MARBLES, Peter De Vries -- PERFUME, Patrick Suskind -- THE PRINCE OF TIDES, Pat Conroy -- A SUMMONS TO MEMPHIS, Peter Taylor -- A TASTE FOR DEATH, P.D. James NONFICTION EISENHOWER: AT WAR 1943-1945, David Eisenhower -- GOING SOLO, Roald Dahl MY FATHER, MY SON, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt Jr. and Lieut. Elmo Zumwalt...
...frequent traveler in the First and Third worlds, Theroux has undoubtedly seen excesses and disasters that have stimulated his imagination. His book's one flaw is that it is too observant. Descriptions and exotic details help build a brave new fictional world, but too many gadgets and repetitions can obstruct characterization. Perhaps that is what the author intended; he usually keeps a cool emotional distance from his characters. Yet his ambitious conception has the power to raise readers' temperatures, by taking them back to the future and the chance for a new beginning...