Paul Theroux, 60 next year, is as argumentative as ever: this is a man who is not going to go gentle into anyone's good night. Fresh-Air Fiend is a collection of his previously published shorter travel-writings, though some are getting their first European airing here. Scanning reveals a mish-mash of thoughts and opinions, of bijoux travel pieces and of wordy essays on the search for the soul, the condition of otherness and the inner journey. Slow down, however, read each piece for its own sake and you'll be rewarded. That's assuming you can even pick up the book.
Some people loathe the man, find him opinionated and decidedly small-minded - vide his descent to playground level, verbal fisticuffs last year with the publication of Sir Vidia's Shadow, a gripe against V.S. Naipaul, his one-time friend and mentor.
Theroux charts his life by defining himself first as an outsider, then a traveller and finally a writer. To avoid the draft, he volunteered for the Peace Corps. "The toughest job you'll ever love", the ad said. But it was in Nyasaland (now Malawi) that he found a niche for himself as the outsider, the foreigner, the mzungu - a mode he has remained in ever since: the loner, paddling his own collapsible kayak around the coast of Britain, in and out of the creeks of Cape Cod and skirting the islands of Oceania.
There is no way of getting into the kayak with him. He's made sure of that but, curiously, in this collection, he allows the reader into his mind and here we find three people: an extremely knowledgeable and thoughtful writer, an experienced and curious traveller and, crushed between them, and an insecure ego.
He tells us how, though critics may find fault with his grouchiness, his books sell very well indeed; how Bruce Chatwin - his friend, though the way Theroux has stitched him up here you'd never guess it - was not all he seemed to be and Theroux is not talking only about Chatwin's sexuality; how critics constantly misunderstand him. Which is probably why he is happiest in his own wilderness: "Through the cold late-afternoon forest, down a long looping slope that looked like a trail, I glided on my cross-country skis, bumping tree trunks with my elbows, until the trail narrowed to nothing - just dark shadows of huge trees patterning the snow. But I had been misled. It was not a trail at all, and within minutes I was lost." You've got to read on.
Mary Russell is a journalist and author