The Elephanta Suite: Three Novellas [Hardcover]

Paul Theroux (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 26, 2007

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The dismayed, disoriented American travelers in this trio of stereotype-shattering novellas from Theroux (following Blinding Light) lament the missing solemn pieties and virtuous peasants of the India they read about in novels. In Monkey Hill, a wealthy ugly American–type husband and wife take pampered health spa treatment at the foot of the Himalayas to be their due. But when the couple presume that the sybaritic care they're paying for includes invitations for sex with masseurs and waiters, their idyllic holiday takes a tragic turn. In The Gateway of India, a fast-track Boston capitalist finds his loathing for the squalor of Mumbai's slums tempered by how easy it is to buy the affections of young women; meanwhile, his once obsequious Indian assistant is usurping his power. In The Elephant God, a college graduate on her own encounters a young man whose call-center mastery of American dialect somehow rewires him from overly friendly striver to malevolent stalker. These unsettling tales about American travelers at odds with India's complexities are linked through passing references, but what they share most is a transformative menace that takes the place of spiritual succor. (Sept.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

With The Elephanta Suite, prolific travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux wins favorable comparisons to Graham Greene and Somerset Maugham. This suite of three novellas explores the gritty reality of American tourism in India: the book is not for those readers who seek another sunny portrait of an exotic land. As The Washington Post noted, "Theroux isn’t likely to bring many new tourists to the subcontinent." As with much of Theroux’s fiction, sexual and economic exploitation is the dominant theme, and the dark center of the human soul is his subject. Even those reviewers who judged the stories’ endings unsatisfying praised The Elephanta Suiteâ€"a master travelogue told by a master storyteller.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 274 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; First Edition edition (September 26, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618943323
• ISBN-13: 978-0618943326
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,069,862 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Paul Theroux's highly acclaimed novels include Blinding Light, Hotel Honolulu, My Other Life, Kowloon Tong, and The Mosquito Coast. His renowned travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Dark Star Safari, Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, and The Happy Isles of Oceania. He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars SAVVY, SENSUAL, SPELLBINDING -- PURE LITERARY CANDY! October 11, 2007

By B. Case VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Reading "The Elephanta Suite" by Paul Theroux, was a pure delight--virtual nonstop literary pleasure! Each novella transported me on an exotic sensual journey through an India few get an opportunity to observe. Everything about these stories was unexpected and new. This was one rollicking armchair adventure ride.

In three, roughly 80-page mininovels, Theroux doesn't give us the sanitized Merchant-and-Ivory India. He doesn't give us the tidy India of best-selling contemporary novels. Rather, he exposes us to the real underbelly of Indian culture. This is an India of pleading beggars, teenage prostitutes, weirdly comic salesmen, and people so pompous they are like parodies. Most of all, this is an India where poor people are as abundant as fleas and virtually every one will do almost anything to get one tiny step ahead.

Each of the novellas deals with American travelers. The stories are superficially interlaced. These travelers are in India at approximately the same time. In odd ways, their paths cross. It is amusing to discover these completely unimportant connections, so I won't say any more. If you discover them, pat yourself on the back and know that you are a careful reader. If you miss them, don't worry: these connections are of absolutely no importance.

The first novella, "Monkey Hill," tells the tale of a wealthy American couple who vacation in India at a luxury retreat. They only see the real India from the window of their limousine as they are rushed from the airport to their lush hilltop health-spa retreat. Through brief sexual encounters with two startlingly beautiful young people working at the resort, the wife and husband are each introduced separately to the other India--the hovel of a small rural village located completely out-of-sight within walking distance from the resort. Little do they realize that the village is currently a hotbed of Hindu-Muslim cultural and religious strife, a power-keg just waiting to go off.

The second novella, "The Gateway of India," is about one of those American businessmen who give global business and America travelers a well-deserved bad reputation. This man is everything an American in India shouldn't be. At first completely terrified by India's alien culture, the businessman hides in his hotel eating canned food and drinking purified water. By chance he is catapulted into the other India, and falls in love with the new, sexually liberated person he becomes. In the end, this story has an interesting twist that you won't see coming.

The last novella, "The Elephant God," deals with a young female Ivy-League backpacker. Idealistically, she ends up living in a religious retreat, loving every moment of it. She thinks it's free, and plays with the idea of living there forever. Her Indian roommates subtly make it known to her that she needs to donate a substantial sum of money each month to help pay for her living costs. So she finds a job at a global call center training workers to mimic an everyday American accent and style of speech. All goes well until a call-center worker takes an unwanted interest in her and starts stalking her.

I am an outrageously prolific reader, but this is the first set of novellas that I have every purchased. I was surprised at how delighted I was with these three mininovels. If this were a novel, I might have read it in one day--the experience was that compelling. But because these were novellas, I purposefully stopped myself after each one and thought about the tale for a day or two before going on to the next. These stories have intellectual depth that makes it easy to think about them long after you've finished the tale.

I highly recommend this work. In fact, I can't wait to pack up my copy and send it to my brother. He was the one who enthusiastically recommended Theroux's "The Mosquito Coast" to me some 25 years ago. Now I can earnestly return the favor!

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Globalization turned on its head January 16, 2008

By Neil Cotiaux VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

It isn't often that a novella is anchored to a backdrop of economic globalization. Put that together with Theroux's consummate ability to weave one wonderfully descriptive tale after another and you've got magic.

For years, Theroux has been castigated by a variety of critics who've claimed that he is everything from a racist to a crank engaged in creating stylized and unflattering caricatures of peoples in far-off lands. "Elephanta Suite" proves that the author is an equal opportunity character assassin, as adept at exposing the self-deceptions of an American dealmaker in Mumbai as he is the boorish Indian with a newly-formed American accent feeding off of an Electronics City call center. Theroux is damning or sympathetic to all walks of life throughout this breezy read, which once again highlights his ability to create a genuine, almost palpable impression of a given moment, whether it be the claptrap Indian motorcoach rambling through the countryside or the too-quiet alley at dusk where a crisply uniformed young girl permits herself to be exploited.

Of the three tales that Theroux masterfully weaves, "The Gateway to India" is by far the most moving, and thought-provoking. I happened to read much of it while in Manila, and, experiencing the stark contrast between the gleaming shopping meccas and financial district of Makati and the street urchins hawking their wares vehicle-by-vehicle during rush hour, the undercurrent of the unfair bargain and sometimes mutual unease between contractor and contractee in globalization (see Theroux's vivid juxtaposition of the word "spat" at the top and bottom of page 100) made this story's central character all the more distasteful. Yet Theroux takes us from that emotional spot and transports us to another part of India - both geographically and spiritually - where comfort can be found under the stars and reverie envelops the reader. "The Gateway to India" walks us through an expatriate's metamorphosis in heart-wrenching and ultimately, somewhat sympathetic fashion, with rich prose and ironies to be savored.

Theroux has not lost his touch.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent February 19, 2008

By Kat Bakhu

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I enjoy reading fiction that depicts modern day India. This group of three novellas is right up there with the cream of the crop. There's nothing romanticized about the India depicted here. As you read, you really get the feeling, "This is probably the way India really is." There were many times when I wondered to myself, "How does someone become such a sharp observer as Theroux is?"

I was amazed both at Theroux's command of the language, and how extremely sharp he is at bringing out the telling detail that really gives you the feel of the place and the person described. There are a lot of unsavory characters here. And yet Theroux describes them so well that I always felt their humanity and got a clear sense of why they were doing what they were doing. That put me in touch with their humanity and created a sense of sympathy, in most cases. Though there were one or two slime bags that I could never like, though, thanks to Theroux's genius, I could understand them.

I was amazed by this book. If you are interested in modern day India as well as enjoy just plain masterful writing, then you will treasure this book.