The Old Patagonian Express

By: Paul Theroux

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

The Old Patagonian Express tells of Paul Theroux's train journey down the length of North and South America. Beginning on Boston's subway, he depicts a voyage from ice-bound Massachusetts to the arid plateau of Argentina's most southerly tip.

Shivering and sweating by turns as the temperature and altitude rise and plummet, he describes the people he encountered - the tedious Mr Thornberry in Limón and reading to the legendary blind writer, Jorge Luis Borges, in Buenos Aires.

©1979 Cape Cod Scriveners Company (P)1986 Recorded Books Inc

Critic reviews

"One of the most entrancing travel books written in our time." (Financial Times)

"Travel writing at its most accomplished." (Sunday Telegraph)

Disappointed

I should have never listened to the Great Railway Bazaar before this. The first book had an excellent narrator; this book’s narrator mispronounces Mexican cities, does not distinguish between what the author is cites and writes, and understandably seems rather bored with the text .
Disappointingly, the author seems disgusted with and masochistic for his journey. The interviewees are mostly bores. The other should’ve cut about 80% of the interviews to focus more on the tortured yet amazing land he travels through.
This text worked out for PT, though, as Mosquito Coast presumably grew from it.

Excellent escapism

I loved listening to this in 2024 as much as I did reading it when it first came out.