num_pages: 274
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.
language: English
title: The Elephanta Suite
titlecomplete: The Elephanta Suite
genres: Fiction, Indian Literature, Asia, Short Stories, Adventure, Book Club, India, Literature, Travel, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 1640
publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt