The Elephant God

by Frederic Crowninshield

This is a reproduction of the original artefact. Generally these books are created from careful scans of the original. This allows us to preserve the book accurately and present it in the way the author intended. Since the original versions are generally quite old, there may occasionally be certain imperfections within these reproductions. We're happy to make these classics available again for future generations to enjoy!

218 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2004

Reviews

[Paul Cornelius]

Having finished Gordon Casserly's biographical recounting of life in remote India, near Bhutan, I decided to take up one of his items of fiction, this novel about an Elephant God. Turns out that The Elephant God is almost a duplicate of the adventure Casserly described in that earlier book. Elephant God came out in 1921, while Life in an Indian Outpost appeared just before World War I, in 1914. What is new in Elephant God is that Casserly adds in all his fantasies about life on the Indian frontier, while also exaggerating the myths and local lore of the people he lived among. Casserly is not the best of novelists, but these parallels make the work interesting to me.

What do we have in Elephant God? Major Kevin Dermot comes to take command of Ranga Duar, a remote pass that guards against raiders from Bhutan. Not coincidentally of course Major Gordon Casserly was in charge of Buxa Duar in real life, a little ways from Ranga Duar in this book. And amazingly, the best parts of Indian Outpost concerned Casserly's hunt for a rogue elephant, which also forms the first entry of adventure in Elephant God. Other borrowed material brings Casserly's story about a female elephant that would occasionally go missing for a few weeks. He adapts that story onto Badshah, the elephant that Dermot tames and who he pairs with so that both man and elephant are regarded as gods. In a scene reminiscent of a Tarzan movie, Dermot and Badshah find the secret hiding place of the elephants' graveyard. The elephants also band together at the end to literally stomp to death all Dermot's enemies and save the day.

Alas, for some reason, Casserly has shoehorned a stale awkward love story into his adventure. The passages with and between Noreen and Dermot are painful and constipated. What was for the most part a fairly quick moving work becomes stale and seems not to budge. In the middle of all these elephant adventures, a plot against the British government in India, and a secret plan to abduct Noreen and make her a member of a maharajah's harem comes all this tortured dialog that sounds like it came from a Victorian parlor room melodrama.

I do think I admire Casserly's life. He managed to get quite a bit out of it. he served in remote regions of the empire, encountered adventure there, traveled the world, and managed a somewhat prolific writing career, penning histories, personal travel stories, and a slew of fictional works. Interesting fellow.

[W]

Read while volunteering at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand.

Racist and sexist in the ways you would expect any classic British novel set in India to be. I love Badshah though!