2013 August Only five of us there.
The Elephanta Suite - Paul Theroux
I didn't finish it. I read two of the
three stories and glanced through the third. I wasn't the only one.
It was a depressing book made up of three stories about different
elephanta suites. In all stories Americans come to India. the first,
after Mr. & Mrs each have a brief affair with an Indian they are
effectively thrown out and possibly killed. In the second a business
man in India becomes enthralled with a young girl, then his business
partner leads him into eastern mysticism, and Dwight gives up all to
pursue it, handling over the American business to Shah, who is eager
to grab it. The third was about an innocent young girl in an Ashram,
who tries to leave. She is bothered by a man, and lets an elephant
trample him. We didn't like the three stories being seperated and
thought there was no real ending to any of them.
India seems to be all sweetness and
light to strangers, but we do not know what they are saying about us
in their own language. There was lots of discussion about visits to
India. The consensus was that it was a good portrayal of India.
The two Americans from the first story
and Dwight from the second are not very nice people at all. Dwight is
not good at life – he lives a sterile life.
The book is about temptation, with
possibly a biblical emphasis.
- the first story is about Adam & Eve, the second and third stories we did not discuss enough to give a biblical reference.
Perhaps this is why one of us referred
to it as a sexy book, and wondered how it could possibly have been
chosen for us.
We noted all the other books that we
have read in the past with an Indian venue: Sari Shop, Marigold
Hotel, Shantarum, Bookseller of Kabul, Passage to India, 3 Cups of
Tea, 1000 Splendid suns, Sea of Poppies, - there were more-
Final comment was that we would
remember the book, but not fondly.
Marks – 3.75 for four of us that
had read it
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Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller
I copied these notes from Amazon as I
felt they gave my feelings better than I could have done it: This
book is very well-written and very involving in places but I did have
my reservations about it. Patroclus's narrative voice is believable
and gives a convincing account of his childhood misfortunes, the
events which lead up to the Trojan War and the War itself. I like the
depictions of characters like Odysseus and Agamemnon very much, place
and mood are very well evoked, and there are some exciting and very
interesting episodes. Madeline Miller is very keen to portray the
relationship between Patroclus and Achilles as one of deep, enduring
love, both spiritual and sexual. It is as if she wants to make
homosexuality OK. Whether or not this is justified by the source
texts is arguable. However, what we actually get is long, long
periods where Patroclus moons around after Achilles like a love-sick
puppy, to the point that I felt that the author herself was the one
in love with Achilles and wasn't going to miss an opportunity to
write a beautifully constructed sentence about his muscles, his hair,
the curve of his chin or the soles of his feet (which seem to hold an
endless fascination for her) and so on, which I eventually found
almost unendurably tedious in places.
We liked the historical side and the
godliness though mixing of gods and humans disturbed some. In
general the love story between the two men was hard to take and
overkilled. The Iliad itself had very lavish descriptions of the hero
because it was about hero worship. Other than that comment some of
us said that it made us want to read the Iliad. We wondered how
Achilles could have accepted and got on living in a Harem.
It was commented that it was easier to
write a novel when the story is written for you.
Marks ranged for 4 to 8, average 6
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