Paul Theroux Travelogue

• Five techniques

  1 - Georgraphical references

  2 - American cultural references

  3 - Reported speech asides

  4 - French lexis

  5 - Appearance / physical indicators
• Voice

  Critical

  Underwhelmed

  Intimate with audience

  Disapointed
• Audience

  Personal for reflection

  Public broad audience - fans, travel writing fans
• Purpose

  Creating a sense of time and place

  Inform / persuade

  Dispel Chinese maxim about tourists
• Context?


  1988 recounting travels in early 80s

  Theroux breaks down / dispel idea that tourists are fooled by beauty of countries.

  Considered to be cynical writer

  Early stages of his trip

  Samuel Beckett = Irish novelist and playwright
• 'the centre of Paris is a masterpiece of preservation'


  a hyperbolic metaphor