Burma Sahib

Excellent.I loved this book - the premise and the execution were brilliant.

Although I have read some of Theroux's fiction before I found it very hit and miss - and far less fulfilling than this non-fiction - particularly the travel. I have a few more of his fiction books, but I can't imagine them matching up to this one.

We know that the five years Eric Blair spent in the India Imperial Police force in Burma were formative, but the absence of letters or diaries from the period doesn't allow us to really know how. As is stated on the back cover of my paperback edition ‘this richly complex transformation can only be told in fiction, as it is here by Paul Theroux'.

And so, Theroux has taken what few facts are known about Blair's time in Burma - his being posted here and there, his police record, his quick grasp of the language, his maternal family in Moulmein - and wrapped a narrative around it, introducing elements of his written works (primarily Burmese Days, A Hanging and Shooting and Elephant carefully into the story. Theroux is obviously very familiar with Orwell's work and has brought his thoughts (often expressed through John Flory - his alter-ego in Burmese Days) as he struggled to be the Sahib, with the heavy impact on the Raj the Indians and Burmese people he was empowered to ‘control'.

The descriptions of Burma, the settings of the individual towns were well managed, and reminiscent. I spent 4 weeks in Myanmar and travelled around some of the places Blair was posted, but not the delta areas or the jail, and while it was some 80-90 years later, there was still the impact of the Colonial architecture, the impact on parts of the cities, to be able to draw from. I read Burmese Days while I was there, which was a novelty.

I found the book portrayed very well Blair as I think of him (rightly or wrongly) with his social awkwardness, his bookish shyness and yearning for solitude, his intellect making him stand out from his peers. Theroux perhaps hammers home the torturing, internal conflict with Blair a bit hard and repetitively, but not overly detrimentally to my enjoyment. One of the aspects I had not pictured was Blair's self-consciousness over being tall, but apparently at 6'2'' he Gullivered his peers.

Enjoyable also was the inclusion of themes of publications contemporary to his time from DH Lawrence, Somerset Maugham, Rudyard Kipling and EM Forster. Their assertions were used to talk about their themes and what Blair's position on the content sat.

I didn't find this a heavy read, although it was 390 pages long, as it flowed really well. If anything, I read it more slowly than I needed in the misguided hope it would last me a bit longer!

If I was to be ultra-critical, I might suggest the weaving of the characters was a bit heavy handed and the choreographing of the characters in his writing (Burmese Days mostly, but also 1984) into this book was a bit too literal in some cases. I do wonder though how much is in there that I didn't pick up on though - how deep the Orwell catalogue is woven in and I just missed it...

5 stars.

Quick quote - P22, my edition.
An internal monologue showing Blair's conflicted position, his self doubt and his cringing shyness all in two paragraphs!

It is just conceivable I am proof that it is all a colossal bluff, Blair Thought. Two years of disgraceful concealment and unpreparedness, habituated to failure, shrinking like a girl at the sight of a mere rat in the corner of a dak bungalow, disgusted by my sweaty men when they march, hiding in my room whenever someone mentions a party or a dance at the club, taking refuge in my books, appalled when I see myself in the mirror in uniform, slope-shouldered, my tabs askew, my puttees slipping down my shins, blaming my houseboy yet knowing the fault is mine, unashamed at lashing out at my bearer, the old man Myat who bobbled and broke my lacquer bowl - all that, and he hugger-mugger visits to Monkey Point, pressing money into the tiny hand of a sweet-faced tart, so that I, a well-fed sahib, can have my wicked way with her, a hungry native. Yes, I'm the Proof.For this I am rewarded, my probationary status lifted, promoted to full assistant district superintendent with a raise of seventy-five rupees a month, for lording it over thirty Indian and Burmese guards at the refinery - in league with the brute McPake - and, oh yes, the underpaid, beleaguered and brow beaten native guards do all the donkeywork.

Recommended by Adrian McKinty this did not disappoint. It is hard to remember that it is fiction but I want it to ring true. In all cases it is a carefully crafted view of the moral turpitude of British colonialism.