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Three Novellas
by Paul TherouxPaul Theroux understands India
intimately, as is clear from his various books based
on the country, such as By Rail Across the Indian
Subcontinent (1984); however,
he does tend to present a rather well-worn image of
the world's largest democracy which, today, is on
the cusp of a major economic revolution. The problem
of presenting a country that has traditionally been
represented by snake charmers and nebulous rituals
has forced many foreign writers to renegotiate India
in their fiction. Paul Theroux manages this with
some success in his latest collection of three
inter-related short stories.
The stock dialogues and the pious homilies are all
here. As a character in one story surmises a tragic
death from another story, "He has left the body," in
a typical, if somewhat clichéd, take on how Indians
address death, but Theroux also pays lip service to
the new India, the gleaming interiors of Bangalore
call centers and the ritzy Taj Mahal Hotel in
Mumbai, whose Elephanta Suite is a recurring theme
in the stories--a witness to acquisitions and
losses.
The real theme of Theroux's work is the conflict
between the stylish American and the earthy grimness
of the experience called India. Like the Boston
marketing executive in The Gateway of India
or the Blundens in Monkey Hill, the innocuous
foreigner in Theroux's tales is forced by the pull
of the country to become someone else, a risk-taking
dissolute creature of the moment. As one character
who discovers the ineluctable truth about India puts
it: if the country seemed puritanical, "it was
because at the bottom of its puritanism was a
repressed sensuality that was hungrier and nakeder
and more voracious than anything he'd known." In
India, one can lead a dissipated existence and at
the same time, be grateful for an essentially humane
space. Surrender is a repetitive stance with
Theroux's characters; the tide of India churns them
so violently that they willingly accept sweet death.
The most terrifying story of the collection is
Alice's who comes to India to attend the Sathya Sai
Baba ashram in Bangalore (see sidebar), but
undergoes a transformative tragedy. What everyone in
this collection comes to learn in the end is that
India is not transitional, but permanent. It's not
an idea, but an entity. Its scars and its beauty are
brutal gifts to be partaken by the western traveler.
It challenges all notions of the other that the
selfsame traveler may have had. "This was what
travel meant, another way of living your life and
being free," says Alice early on in The Elephant
God. Never mind that that freedom comes at a
price.
This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in November 2007, and has been updated for the October 2008 edition. Click here to go to this issue.
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access become a member today.If you liked The Elephanta Suite, try these:
Vikram Chandra's novel draws the reader deep into the life of Inspector Sartaj Singhand into the criminal underworld of Ganesh Gaitonde, the most wanted gangster in India. It is is a story of friendship and betrayal, of terrible violence, of an astonishing modern city and its dark side.
Sometimes hilarious, sometimes tragic, but always eerily affecting, these stories show us deeply foreign lands and peoples through our own eyes.
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