A review of Burma Sahib by Paul Theroux, Mariner Books, NYC, 2024
Theroux jumps back in time to take the actual sojourn of
Eric Blair, later known by his pen name of George Orwell, in Burma in the
1920s and turn it into a novel. Blair was a policeman for
Britian, the imperial power of the country.
Theroux grafts onto the facts of Blair’s five years there to create a
novel. Perhaps some of the internal machinations - places, people, and
introspection - of the sojourn are drawn from records of the era. But to his credit, Theroux exercises literary
license in compiling a gripping and insightful novel.
Let there be no mistake this book is an indictment of the
British Raj, of British rule in Asia.
Blair is a willing pawn in the oppressive imperial rule. Yet throughout,
in his mind he questions most everything about his and his government’s
presence in the Asian backwater. The
book tracks Blair’s thinking, his reactions, his rejections, his muses, his
lusts, and his memories as the story progresses. Needless to say, Blair is a
bundle of contradictions. As with all of
Theroux’s characters in his many books, no one is pure. All characters are complicated,
and many are venal. That is certainly true in this story. Theroux never seems to find many redeeming
features in the people he creates. This
harsh criticism of people lends veracity to the story, but makes a reader
wonder if the world is really that bleak?
There is no real plot to this book. It just tracks the five
years that Blair spent in Burma. The reader wonders if the man will ever adjust
or quit, but that is about it for suspense.
Above criticism notwithstanding, I enjoyed the book. It is a
well written page turner. It elucidates in fictional form a period in George
Orwell’s life that helped shape his antiauthoritarian views that surfaced years
later in Animal Farm and 1984.
More than that it cast a realistic perspective on British classism,
racism and imperialism. We all need to learn from the past.
