2nd Fiction Reading Response-"The Memory Priest of the Creech People" by Paul Theroux

For my second fiction reading response I chose to examine the short selection by Paul Theroux entitled "The Memory Priest of the Creech People". What struck me about this piece, and what I will focus this analysis on, was the amount he could say in such a short piece.
In my first fiction response I explored Hannah Voskuil's "Currents" because of her ability to create such a meaningful work in so few words. Now again I explore how an author can do this, and find that Theroux's similar success derives from the same techniques, but in their most general way. Theroux, like Voskuil, uses style/tone and structure to make his short piece work effectively as a very short piece of literature. In the piece Theroux uses these two elements very closely together. He structures his story from the standpoint of an unbiased, objective outsider, almost like an anthropologist. However, he does this without any of the unneccesary details or assertions, which would be unneccesary and bog down the piece. This also allowed Theroux an excuse to exclude any objectiveness, direct action, or specifics. In this way he was able to include only what was important to his deeper message, as well as generalize Creech society, without sacrificing the integrity of the piece. At the same time the narrator is an outsider, but not specified, so he/she could be anyone. This makes the rest of the world, with its judgements, morals, etc., non-existant or irrelevant. Only the mention of a location in Sumatra connects the Creech people with the world, and even this is vague. The fact that the Creech people do not exist, allowed Theroux to take the story where he wanted with less limits. In short, Theroux deliberately uses his structure to create the world of the Creech seperate and unaffected by the rest of us, inducing an inherent element of mystery and fantasy. Therefore, Theroux naturally crafted a tone that felt like a legend being told. The lack of connection to reality makes the tribal people seem mythic and a product of the past, undisturbed by the modern world. The narrator's lack of response to, as well as generalization of, the Creech people also strengthen this mythic tone. Because legend's usually have little room for debate or variation, Theroux's tone is the sole authority, and includes no subjectivity. By generalizing the Creech, Theroux eliminates their individuality, which makes them even more mythic, and less susceptible to interpretation on the individual, humanistic level. This generaliztion, and lack of possible variations, gives the Creech people symbolic power. It is as if they are the human condition embodied in its purest form. This leads to my final point: the unique tone and structure of the piece allows Theroux to create a form of allegory. The "Ceremony of Purification" and its role players all become representative of the deeper message, and therefore, transform the story from isolation to universalism. What exactly the deep meaning is can be interpreted differently by every reader. Either way he was successful at packing a lot of literature into a hyper-condensed form.