7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An American comes to Mumbai, September 18, 2010
PT's love-hate relationship with India continues with this collection of 3 powerful, inter-related novellas of 80 to 100 pages each. As in earlier novels and travel books, it is about Americans visiting India and their take on what they experience. Take Audie Blunden, a no-nonsense businessman, combining pleasure (a stint at a high-class yoga resort with his wife) with business, trying to outsource the manufacturing part of his business empire. He, or PT, reflects on the squalor and stench below the hill-top resort and muses:
'Like a living, billion-strong festival of futility, India was the proof that you could not do anything here that hadn't been done before. India was a reminder of the extravagance of human self-deception, and the fundamental lesson of Indian life was that people and even animals have previous existences, other lives, past incarnations; they'd lived on earth before, they'd been through all this--they had to have done so, for otherwise how could they stand it?'
Audie and his wife Beth become enchanted with the routines of their luxury resort but soon, first together, then separately, they begin to venture across the big divide between extreme wealth and hopeless poverty...
The book's title concerns the best suite in the best hotel of Mumbai. The Blunden couple spent one night there, but Boston-based contract lawyer Dwight Huntsinger makes it his refuge. He is totally scared of India. He negotiates dozens of outsourcing deals on behalf of US industry with local entrepreneurs, who know they are squeezed and suffocated, but still want a deal. But boredom turns the suite into a base from which Dwight crosses the divide to investigate India's seedier sides...
Readers have to interpret the third novella for themselves. This collection is another great achievement of PT, who sketches a world of stark contrasts in which US dominance in finance and technology cowers Indian subcontractors into signing poor deals (`pair of blue jeans, USD 1,19, delivered'), but Mr. Shah, Dwight's assistant makes all the right moves and sounds behind Dwight's back to the Boston office. Dwight and his ilk are surely on their way out.
I have read most of his books and consider Paul Theroux one of America's 10-20 best living or dead writers. Fellow Americans surely do not care about the venues and heroes of his 40-50 novels and travel books. But he has a terrific ear for trends, language, and writes great dialogue, is a good plotter and has a keen eye for what is going on, building up, beyond the US. A rich Mumbai divorcee's take on New York makes this collection a fine example of cross-cultural bigotry. Challenging and well written.
Finally, Obama's detractors accuse him of not creating enough jobs. But shiver and cry, during Bush Jr.'s two terms in office, some 42.000 factories shut down and outsourced their business abroad, where hourly wages of USD 1,57 are common. Owners and shareholders are Republicans, a hypocretical bunch, if not worse.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I couldn't help but shudder at the unuwanted truths about naive Americans in India, December 16, 2011
This review is from: The Elephanta Suite (Paperback)
I've read several books by this author and I've loved every one of them. The Elephanta Suite is no exception. Here, the sights, sounds, smells and way of life in modern India are rendered in three short novelas, each poignant with meaning deep enough to give me chills as well as lots of food for thought. Written in 2007 and 273 pages long, I felt I was transported to the author's world, feeling his power to bring these stories to life and he does that job so well that I couldn't help but shudder. These are not easy stories to read. They showcase Americans trying to cope with the monolith that is India, making mistakes, and being crushed by their ignorance and presumptions. Each of these stories shattered my understanding and left me shivering. I do not think I will ever forget them.
The first story is about a wealthy American couple vacationing in India and ignoring its prohibitions. The second story is about an American businessman who gets into a romantic relationship with two young Indian girls. The third story is about a young American woman who is compromised by the unwanted attentions of an Indian man. Each of these stories has a rather sad ending. And yet each of them tells an unwanted truth about the naivety of the Americans and the problems they create for themselves.
The writing is fast paced and I literally could not put the book down. The stories opened my eyes to the world depicted by the author. They will live in my consciousness a long time and I will likely never forget them. Rarely does a book move me in this way. This is not a pleasant book to read but for those willing to be immersed in a way that is sure to be troubling, I give it my highest recommendation.
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10 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Strange and wonderful tales of visitors to India, April 19, 2009
This review is from: The Elephanta Suite (Paperback)
Theroux, long a master of the short story about people in faraway places (The Consul's File should be on everyone's must-read list), again shocks, enchants and leaves us gasping more more. Theroux's India is a dark funhouse. Lust with consequences, ashrams closer to Charles Manson than Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, monkeys and people acting like monkeys. Fabulous stories.
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