[It] would be silly to pretend that [The Old Patagonian Express] is as fascinating as the author's The Great Railway Bazaar, with its rich rewards in the Middle East, India and Russia.

Still Theroux makes the most of little things: birds the size of a cuckoo in a cuckoo clock, or the sign in a Bogota church warning the devout that pints of holy water may be collected in bottles but never in jugs. But in spite of such attention to detail the author is frequently driven to filling up by telling us about the books he read under dim lights like withered tangerines, or recording non-memorable encounters with stray tourists who happen to cross his path in Death Valley.

Oswell Blakeston, "Mad Dogs and Railwaymen," in Tribune (reprinted by permission of Tribune, London), Vol. 43, No. 40, October 5, 1979, p. 12.