Product DescriptionA master of the travel narrative weaves three intertwined novellas of Westerners transformed by their sojourns in India.
This startling, far-reaching book captures the tumult, ambition, hardship, and serenity that mark today's India. Theroux's Westerners risk venturing far beyond the subcontinent's well-worn paths to discover woe or truth or peace. A middle-aged couple on vacation veers heedlessly from idyll to chaos. A buttoned-up Boston lawyer finds succor in Mumbai's reeking slums. And a young woman befriends an elephant in Bangalore.
We also meet Indian characters as singular as they are reflective of the country's subtle ironies: an executive who yearns to become a holy beggar, an earnest young striver whose personality is rewired by acquiring an American accent, a miracle-working guru, and others.
As ever, Theroux's portraits of people and places explode stereotypes to exhilarating effect. The Elephanta Suite urges us toward a fresh, compelling, and often inspiring notion of what India is, and what it can do to those who try to lose--or find--themselves there.
What Others Say
Penetrating View of Modern India
The novellas in The Elephanta Suite: Three Novellas 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 The Elephanta Suite: Three Novellas 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.
India: what you see; what you only guess
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 The Elephanta Suite: Three Novellas, 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.
Message undermines the medium
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.
Innocents abroad
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 The Elephanta Suite: Three Novellas 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 ... Read More
Best Read as Fictional Non-Fiction
Elephanta Suite is best read as a non-fiction travel book with fictional elements. As travel writing, The Elephanta Suite: Three Novellas 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 The Elephanta Suite: Three Novellas, 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 ... Read More
