By Mandakini Arora
Having not read any of Paul Theroux’s 57 books, I welcomed his fictionalized treatment of a subject that interests me. The Burma sahib of the title is Eric Arthur Blair born in British India who, in 1922 as a 19-year-old Eton graduate, joined the imperial police force in Burma, then part of Britain’s Indian empire. He quit the colonial service after five years, going on to become the famous writer, George Orwell. Firsthand experience of the British Raj turned him against inequality of all kinds, he later wrote. Burma Sahib’s postscript ends with a passage from Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier about his need to atone for participating in an oppressive system by submerging himself among the oppressed, a need which resulted in his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London.
A theme running through Theroux’s novel is Blair’s growing abhorrence of the tyranny and hypocrisy of colonialism. Awkwardly tall and bookish, he struggles to align with his fellow colonials. The club, that archetypal colonial institution, is “a challenge.” In Mandalay, “Blair was singled out, conspicuous for staying away .... He decided that going to the club was a way of staying invisible.” Theroux skillfully evokes Blair’s inner tussles, the Burmese landscape, and nuances of British colonial society.
The novel’s merits did not translate into pleasurable reading for me. I found it a hard slog, Theroux seemingly more intent on incorporating episodes from Orwell’s Burma life and writings than on telling a good story. We read about police cases in Blair’s various postings, his fictional yet credible sexual encounters — with prostitutes, his housemaid, his concubine, and a married Englishwoman, and his struggle to maintain appearances, which includes keeping secret his mother’s part-Burmese family in Moulmein.
Theroux’s writing is expectedly clever, knitting together material from Orwell’s Burma essays, “Shooting an Elephant” and “A Hanging,” his 1934 novel, Burmese Days, and biographical information. But it felt excessive, especially a contrived final scene recreating an event from Burmese Days. Instead of enjoying a good story, I alternately admired and was irritated by the book’s cleverness.
Some participants in our AWA book club differed in their assessment. They appreciated the descriptions of Burma and speculated that the tedium of the novel may well be true to the lives of young men in imperial outposts. On a scale of one to ten, our ratings of the book ranged between two and eight. Burma Sahib does lend itself well to animated debate and discussion.
 | Mandakini Arora co-chairs the Writers’ Group of the American Women’s Association, Singapore, and reviews books for their online magazine. As travelling_bookmark, she shares book news on Instagram. With a PhD in History from Duke University and an MA in Creative Writing from LASALLE College of the Arts, she is a collector and writer of women’s stories. |
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