On the Plain of Snakes
Ratings4
Average rating4.8
15
Ratings4
Average rating4.8
Legendary travel writer Paul Theroux drives the entire length of the US-Mexico border, then goes deep into the hinterland, on the back roads of Chiapas and Oaxaca, to uncover the rich, layered world behind today's brutal headlines. Paul Theroux has spent his life crisscrossing the globe in search of the histories and peoples that give life to the places they call home. Now, as immigration debates boil around the world, Theroux has set out to explore a country key to understanding our current discourse: Mexico. Just south of the Arizona border, in the desert region of Sonora, he finds a place brimming with vitality, yet visibly marked by both the US Border Patrol looming to the north and mounting discord from within. With the same humanizing sensibility he employed in Deep South, Theroux stops to talk with residents, visits Zapotec mill workers in the highlands, and attends a Zapatista party meeting, communing with people of all stripes who remain south of the border even as their families brave the journey north. From the writer praised for his "curiosity and affection for humanity in all its forms" (New York Times Book Review), On the Plain of Snakes is an exploration of a region in conflict.
Reviews with the most likes.
I will go with Paul Theroux wherever he takes me.
This time, it was to Mexico.
Theroux lives in the northern United States, so he hadn't been as inculcated to the dangers of Mexico as we here in Texas are. He was warned to be careful in many areas of Mexico, and he listened to those warnings and tried to create a route around the dangerous parts. I've often wanted to go to Mexico, but I've been repeatedly frightened away from planning a trip there, so I really enjoyed this trip with Theroux along the border, to Mexico City, and then down into the rural and poorest parts of Mexico in the south.
Lesson taken away from this book: Avoid the police in Mexico. The police seem to be one of the most dangerous parts of the country.
A fascinating account of Theroux's travels along the U.S.-Mexican border and far into the interior in 2017 and 2018.
While his visits to migrant towns on both sides of the wall were interesting, along with endless accounts of the severe poverty and violence overshadowing everything, I most enjoyed the travelogues from his solo drives through the country. His descriptions of the landscapes, the smells of the towns, the taste of the food, and – above all – the people are without peer. He has a way of transporting the reader spiritually to anywhere he choses to write about.
You really do feel for the innocents that constitute the bulk of Mexico's population. This basically includes almost everyone apart from the police, the politicians, and the narcos and other gangsters that pervade modern Mexican society.
Throughout the book, Theroux references other writers and recommends so many additional books and articles to seek out should you have the interest. I kept finding myself typing different books into my search engine and added more than a few to my Goodreads Want List.
When I was much younger, I read several of Theroux's books in preparation for my own travel adventures. Some 20 years ago, I stopped travelling so much – having settled in southern Thailand where I remain to this day – and, sadly, stopped reading new Theroux books. This one proves that I have many that I need to catch up on!
