The taxonomy of the trees and flowers and birds was a new language I learned in this new world. Theroux has been traveling ever since and has documented his worldly exploits in a plethora of books, many of which have become travel literature classics. The essays in Time Travel deal specifically with the various aspects of his creative process, the dubious reliability of memory as well as Theroux's personal opinions on the respect good travel writing should garner in the literary world. Theroux takes a magnifying glass to that fungi, and this quality in his writing is what lifts him above the average travel documentarian. Yet Theroux writes no dry dissertations on the metaphysical flights of fancy his mind takes as his body is hurled through violent waves, skates across snowfields, or trudges the weary miles of some mountain trail.
China is brought to life in several essays.
On its banks are some of its greatest cities. It is the fountainhead of superstition. It provides income and food to half the population. It is one of the most dangerous rivers in the world, in some places one of the dirtiest, in others one of the most spectacular. The Chinese drink it and bathe in it and wash clothes in it and shit in it.