Here’s a question for Paul Theroux

On the very first page of Paul Theroux ’s newest travel book, “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar,” the author says this about his craft:

“Most writing about travel takes the form of jumping to conclusions, and so must travel books are superfluous, the thinnest, most transparent monologuing. Little better than a license to bore, travel writing is the lowest form of literary self-indulgence: dishonest complaining, creative mendacity, pointless heroics, and chronic posturing, most of it distorted with Munchausen syndrome .”

So the question is both inevitable and obvious: Why read any further?