The Elephanta Suite

The Elephanta Suite

Softcover
2.01

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Description

A 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.

Book Information

Main Genre
Novels
Sub Genre
Miscellaneous
Format
Softcover
Pages
288
Price
16.50 €

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All in all it was a rather dark and cynical picture Theroux portrayed in the novellas. However, he gave the country a mythical and positive feeling (with its religion and rich culture) while acknowledging its metropolitan spots and more negative sides (with its corruption and illegal/criminal activities). An alltogether realistic picture (as with almost every place in the world), but a still mostly dark and sinister one - a bit too dark and anti-india for my taste. His writing is very fluent and wonderful to read, but because of the rather negative touch not the best first book to read about India and important (also) touristic hotspots (Mumbai, Gateway of India, Bangalore). I liked how he, very subtly, connected the three novellas with each other.

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