Burma Sahib

 

Burma Sahib by Paul Theroux  (2024) 390 pp.

Writers writing about writers… often a literary recipe for disaster. And that is before taking into account the author’s age – Paul Theroux is about the same age as our prospective presidential candidates.  But enough age shaming, is the book worth reading?  The reviews are in and they are stellar. The last Theroux book I read, On the Plain of Snakes, was a wild ride, but ultimately a disappoint for me, a polemic diatribe wrapped in an old man’s travel romp.

Here Theroux is fictionally retracing young George Orwell’s life as a policeman in the British Raj in Burma. Over the years I have read most of Orwell’s novels (see above mentions of age shaming) and I was a bit perturbed that Theroux felt the need to revisit Burmese Days, Orwell’s semi-biographical account of his time in Burma.  Revisionism strikes again? Not really. Theroux is doing Theroux here. Seems Orwell is a just a vehicle for a clever historical novel that contains the author’s penchant for making value judgements – in this case on an ugly chapter of the British Empire. Unfortunately, I find I need to wash my hands after each chapter – lot of nerve to put fictional words and actions into Eric Blair’s formative years, he did it quite well himself.