La Danseuse Du Temple

by John Speed

Inde, 1658. Lucinda, jeune noble Portugaise vivant dans la colonie de Goa, N’a jamais quitté la ville et rêve d’aventure et de frissons. Lorsqu’elle prend part à l’expédition qui dois conduire Maya, danseuse de temple, auprès du sultan de Bijapur à qui elle est offerte en présent, elle sent enfin le souffle de la liberté. La jeune femme goûte au plaisirs de l’Inde, à ses couleurs et ses saveurs ensorcelantes. Et surtout, Lucinda ouvre son cœur à ece fier et mystérieux soldat indien Pathan, qui lui a sauvé la vie en risquant la sienne et qui la trouble plus que de raison...

649 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

John Speed began studying Indian history, art, and religion while still in high school. For more than thirty years, his explorations deepened as he became absorbed in tales of the fall of the Mogul Empire and of the rise of the rebel prince Shivaji. During his many visits to India, he has stood on crumbling battlements, crawled through lightless caves, bathed in sacred rivers, wandered through forgotten gardens, prayed at old mosques and ancient temples, joined in night-long kirtans and qwalis, cheered on ecstatic temple dancers, and laid his head at the feet of hundreds of saints both living and dead, Hindus and Muslims. Speed is a freelance political consultant and journalist who cofounded a successful on-line newspaper. He now lives with his dogs in a very small house overlooking Swami’s Beach in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California. The Temple Dancer is his first novel.

Reviews

[Svet Mori · Rating 3 out of 5]

(read in french, under the title « La Danseuse du Temple »)

« But it started so well ! » After a more than engaging beginning where we get to know the characters in an all than peaceful road-trip, we have to wait the very last part of the book to fin again the same suspense, the same fear for the protagonists, the same uncertainty about their destiny.
Because even if sometimes, we'd slap them (all of them, no exception !), we grow attached to those lost souls : Lucinda discovering the world and love with a gorgeous dark out of reach guy, Maya just trying to stay alive, Gama in full midlife crisis... Clearly, the characters make the strenght of the book, we hope to see them going trhough hard times, but, like them, don't hope much. There's a lot of gloom in this.

But it's not like if they had much more to do other than being depressed during the looooooong halt than spans on the middle half of the novel. The heroines become besties while talking casually about suicide, the author has on overfxation on eunuch's genitals, the very very bad guys set very very treacherous plans to reach their respective goals... well, it's boring. At least the romance develops. Well, wait, no, it goes back for no reason, the « I love u » are said in a language the other can't understand so things get unnecessarily complicated... We discover later we wouldn't have had a super classy scene at the end without this. Alright, it's clumsily done but forgivable, because Pathan with untied and wet hair is something we definitely don't refuse.

Less forgivable, fatphobia oozes from the pages as soon as some characters appear, as if it was absolutely necessary to talk about their fat everywhere and in the most disgusting way, while the thin characters' physical appearance doesn't get the same focus. And it's not like if those fat characters weren't already despicables by their personalities. See what im trying to say ? Even if it's about the bad guys, there was no need to describe them in a such a way.

So, there's quite a pile of thing that, added to each other, make this journey through India not as pleasant as we expected, despite very endearing characters and a good bittersweet ending.