Regular readers will know of my fondness for Bill Moyers, and his thoughtful brand of journalism. The conversation below with Barry Lopez, someone of whom I had not heard, is simply marvelous. I’ll miss the Journal badly. Bill brought an inquisitive, boyish and affirming spirit to his work; in so doing, he gave voice to all.
I just finished the excellent “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star” by Paul Theroux. His chronicles of the trains, cities and people of India, Central Asia, South East Asia and Japan are acerbic, lyrical and entirely engrossing. The book is highly recommended, and though it provided many laughs, I got a particular kick out of his described lack of fondness for China, reproduced below:
China exists in its present form because the Chinese want money. Once, America was like that. Maybe this accounted for my desire to leave. Not revulsion, but the tedium and growing irritation of listening to people express their wish for money, that they’d do anything to make it. Who wants to hear people boasting about their greed and their promiscuity? I left for Japan, reveling in the thought that I was done with China – its factory-blighted landscape, its unbreathable air, its un-budging commissars, and its honking born-again capitalists. Ugly and soulless, China represented the horror of answered prayers, a peasant’s greedy dream of development. I was happy to leave.