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Summary: Penetrating View of Modern India
Comment: The novellas in this book are uncomfortably clear and sometimes the picture is not pretty. In a nutshell, the stories concern how Americans and Indians interact with each other and while there is redemption and nobility in places, there also is sleaze and rank opportunism. But what this book does best of all is portray India in all its facets. Upon completion, you'll feel like you've just spent about a year in this fascinating country. It's been a long time since I read Theroux -- an oversight I intend to correct by reading many of his other books.
Customer Rating:
Summary: India: what you see; what you only guess
Comment: Powerful stories. There is a lot in them of what we western foreigners see when travelling in India, and a lot of what most of us only guess. After reading the three stories even your own memories are somehow changed. I have read quite a few books about India, fiction and non fiction, and this one is by far one of the most uncomfortable, and beautiful, though!
Do not feel discouraged about going to experience the country after reading this book, as some reviewers say; on the contrary, it will help you understand what makes India so fascinating.
On the other hand, the book is beautifully written and paced, and in my opinion it is good literature. It will surely leave most readers with something to reflect upon.
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Summary: Message undermines the medium
Comment: The Elephanta Suite serves as a well written and easily digested (albeit unpleasant and disturbing) warning to those who would attempt to get a close-up view of India. However, Theroux's apparent need to steer his characters in directions that will deliver this message works against the quality of the fiction.
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Summary: Innocents abroad
Comment: This is my first Paul Theroux experience and even though I can now see how he is as much acclaimed as a travel writer as a straight novelist, reading this book left me with a feeling of great unease and just a bit scared. This trilogy of very loosely connected characters, reveals how India with all of her ancient mysteries, deals with westerners whose young eagerly try to become devotees of mystic religions, living in ashrams, chanting and dressing in the local style. The first story concerns a married, middle aged couple who plan to have a short, relaxing stay at a spa run by a holy man, where the massages, music and perfumed oils cause them to drift into a state of lethargy which causes sexual desires to emerge. The second story involves an American businessman who falls into the sexual clutches of a young woman who uses him solely for financial reasons and the third and the most powerful to my mind is the story of a young, well educated American woman who befriends an elephant and his mahout, while being terrorised by a young Indian man and the complex processes of Indian law..this last one scared the living daylights out of me. Theroux's descriptions of Indian cities with their wealthy upper classes speaking a form of "Raj" English and the poverty striken beggars in the gutters are almost terrifying in their reality and made me realise that I'd rather read about India than experience it first hand.
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Summary: Best Read as Fictional Non-Fiction
Comment: Elephanta Suite is best read as a non-fiction travel book with fictional elements. As travel writing, this book is more than adequate, with sharp observations of India. As fiction, however, it fails.
The Washington Post praises Mr. Theroux as a "stylist" but the stringing together of adjectives, which dominates the style of this book, is not adequate. You become far too aware of the words and not the substance or the tone of what the author is trying to say.
Furthermore, his characters are cartoon figures. No one is believable. One major character's role is merely to explain the tenets of the Jain religion in conversational form. Certainly easier to take than a treatise on the subject, but unsatisfactory in a book like this.
Both the Indian characters and the American ones suffer from this cartoon-y aspect. If anything, the American character are more wooden than the Indians. Mr. Theroux, raised in a highly respected family of intellectuals, clearly hasn't a clue about what Americans are like outside of his milieu. Curiously, the only time one of his characters comes alive is when an American lawyer reflects on his failed marriage back in the United States. Hardly what you would expect from someone who has justly earned his reputation as a fine travel writer.
And, ultimately, this book reflects the failure inherent in being a well-travelled person. If you are as intelligent as Mr. Theroux, you make intelligent observations about what you see, but then you move on. You don't have the luxury of settling down in one place long enough to see beneath the surfaces, to get the feel of the location and the people, indeed, to understand human beings at all.
That all said, Mr. Theroux is a fine storyteller and his three short works here move keep the reader interested. And while the fictional elements fall short of what they should be, why, we always have India to keep us reading.
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