\u201cAll genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.\u201d -Mao Tse Tung (as quoted by Paul Theroux)<\/p>\n
Before we signed up for the North Words Writer\u2019s Symposium, held the first weekend in June in Skagway, neither of us had read Paul Theroux, the keynote speaker best known for his nonfiction and fiction travel writing. We registered as fan-girls of Sherry Simpson and her work on, well, anything; of John Straley\u2019s novels and haiku; of Tom Kizzia\u2019s investigative nonfiction. We wanted a weekend away to re-invigorate our writing practice. We wanted immersion with words.<\/p>\n
Upon meeting Paul Theroux, we were struck with his complexity as a human and as a writer \u2014 he\u2019s awkward but engaging, opinionated and outdated, gracious and proud. He dismisses women writers like Toni Morrison and Margaret Atwood while acknowledging first world causes of colonialism and climate change. We buy his books at the Skagway bookstore, start reading, and find more contradiction and compelling craft. On the last day of the conference, we sit on a bank along an expanse of buttercups and dandelions. To our backs, the train tracks of the old White Pass Railway. Before us, mountains and blue sky. Beside us, the weathered and dapper Paul Theroux. At 76, he\u2019s tall and tanned, wearing jeans, a brown leather car coat, and a pork pie hat. Theroux has written more than 50 works of nonfiction and fiction over the past 50 years. His latest novel, \u201cMother Land,\u201d was published in May 2017.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re on a field trip, embarked on an early morning train from Skagway for a 45-minute ride along the gold rush era Chilkoot Pass. We hiked to a cabin and then beyond to the Laughton Glacier. At the foot of the glacier, Theroux, unable to contain his excitement, moved at mountain goat speed shouting, \u201cTake my picture,\u201d while handing his phone to Alaskan writer and journalist Tom Kizzia. They chatted about the landscape, the retreating ice, the difference between terminal and lateral moraine.<\/p>\n
Now, as we wait for the train to take us back to Skagway, we interview Theroux, who is known for his train books, including \u201cThe Great Railway Bazaar,\u201d \u201cThe Old Patagonian Express,\u201d and \u201cThe Last Train to Zona Verde.\u201d The route we took to get here, winding through steep, forested drop offs and sheer granite promontories, looks much like the cover of Theroux\u2019s 2011 compendium of travel writer\u2019s quotes, \u201cThe Tao of Travel.\u201d On the train here, conversation amongst writers roared above the clatter on the tracks. Theroux read the New York Times. He asks a lot of questions for someone being interviewed. On today\u2019s hike to the glacier his answers were succinct, and with each one, he turned a question back. Are you married? Do you have children? It might seem like he\u2019s politely making conversation, but you get the feeling what you say to him is potential fuel for his literary fire. The proof lies in vivid encounters retold in his travelogues. Yesterday, we bumped into Theroux in front of the Skagway Public Library. He bubbled with conversation, pulling us in for a photo. He asked more questions. What do we love about this place? Why do we live here?<\/p>\n
The conference opened with a panel titled after one of Theroux\u2019s favorite lines, \u201cGawping at the Exotic.\u201d The discussion included Theroux, Sherry Simpson, and Tom Kizzia. Simpson and Kizzia worried about the challenges of writing without clich\u00e9 about natural grandeur, whereas Theroux had the bright eyes of a newcomer. The top of the Inside Passage and the gateway to the Yukon is Theroux\u2019s introduction to Alaska. In Skagway, where the tourist season is in full swing and \u201cmadams\u201d lead tours through town, even the normal Alaskan detritus seems like a set piece. An old TV has become a planter in a yard where a chandelier hangs from a tree. We walk everywhere. The lilacs are bursting into bloom, and we slow to breathe them in. Theroux is charmed by Alaska, his amazement is infectious. He says of his travelling state of being, \u201cI\u2019m fully awake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Theroux has gone seemingly everywhere, and made a good living writing about it. He muses about Alaska and its landscape. \u201cI was unprepared for the scale of it. Countless peaks. Do they have a name? Are they climbed, who lives there? You get this impression that it\u2019s still being examined, or unexamined, or discovered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the past few days we\u2019ve heard Theroux\u2019s trademark unequivocal, unapologetic takes on writing, reading, and living. A running theme: he thrives on a sense of discovery. \u201cOne of the things I\u2019d like to say about this trip. This was done for me. I feel somewhat inadequate in that someone bought me a train ticket. Someone made me a sandwich. Someone pointed my way to the glacier. I did not do this on my own. That diminishes the experience for me. The experience is much greater when you find your own way. So, if I ever came back to Alaska I would do it as a road trip-hiking, camping, paddling a kayak.\u201d Throughout the conference, Theroux thinks aloud, stumbling, drawing out his words in a cross between a British and a Boston accent. He considers the massiveness of Alaska, concluding it puts our individual significance in perspective. He mis-quotes Flaubert, saying \u201cTravel shows us how small we are.\u201d \u201cBut in Alaska,\u201d Theroux continues, \u201cwe\u2019re nothing. We\u2019re ants.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you write, undaunted, about a daunting landscape?\u201d we ask. \u201cThe reader needs to see the experience and the physicality of the landscape,\u201d he replies. \u201cYou\u2019re bound to think of the clich\u00e9 but you have to consciously rid your mind of it. The problem with the clich\u00e9 is it offers no clear picture or vivid metaphor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Theroux is known for his unexpected images in describing, for example, sunrise on a kayak trip from Cape Cod to Nantucket.<\/p>\n
\u201cSunrise was a messy reddened eruption out of the sea, and it kept spilling garish light everywhere, draining the redness into the water as the sun rose like a squeezed blood orange. A cloud the shape of a huddled animal soon smothered the brightness, and the sea turned the blue-white color of skim milk.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 Paul Theroux \u201cDead Reckoning to Nantucket\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot be a writer if you are not a reader, and you have to be a more diligent reader,\u201d he intones in the closing night keynote. The proclamation came after reciting lines and quizzing us on the names of the famous writers. To a person, we came up blank and felt like failed English majors. Theroux has little patience for writers who don\u2019t read classics of western civilization, what he considers \u201creal writers\u201d (the whiter, the deader, the better). He urges us to read deeply, not broadly, taking in an entirety of an author to fully know them.<\/p>\n
Theroux rattles off the names of several in attendance and mentions their stories \u2014he\u2019s been paying attention. Learning us. Alaskan stories that might sound like adventure to folks from Outside. Perilous journeys, encounters with wild animals. He says, he has only one critique of us as a group, \u201cYou\u2019re too modest.\u201d Later, at the bar, Amy counters that as a population, we\u2019re not modest, we\u2019re understated. In fact, in reading Theroux\u2019s essay, \u201cThe Maine Woods: Camping in the Snow,\u201d it appears he\u2019s encountered and understood this understatement before. He writes of running into hikers who have recently summited Mt. Katadhin. They sum up their week-long trek saying, \u201cWe had a nice view from the top.\u201d<\/p>\n
At that meeting in front of the library, Theroux told us that despite his job as a travel writer, he loves being home at his farm on Oahu. He waxed on about his chickens and geese, he showed us a photo of the AK47 he uses to handle the wild boar that have a habit of invading his yard and eating his crop of non-invasive bamboo. But in his next breath, he tells us he\u2019s heading to his second home on Cape Cod, which will serve as base camp for his summer travels. No doubt Theroux will continue to \u201cgawp at the exotic,\u201d even when it\u2019s in his own backyard. Just like the rest of us.<\/p>\n
Katie Bausler is a writer and perennial English major who resides in Douglas. Amy O\u2019Neill Houck is also a Douglas Island writer who serves with Katie on the board members of 49 Writers, a statewide non-profit that brings together Alaskan writers of diverse cultures and backgrounds to learn, develop, and share common interests through workshops, author presentations and social events. Learn more at 49writers.org.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Katie Bausler and Amy O\u2019Neill Houck are members of the 49 Writers board. <\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cAll genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.\u201d -Mao Tse Tung (as quoted by Paul Theroux) Before we signed up for the North Words Writer\u2019s Symposium, held the first weekend in June in Skagway, neither of us had read Paul Theroux, the keynote speaker best known for his nonfiction and fiction travel writing. We registered as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":24192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[74],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-24191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","tag-arts-and-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24191"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=24191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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