Reviews

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

jackiehorne's review against another edition

3.0

Read for book/film club April 2011

Forster can just be so depressing! I feel that I need to read more context & criticism on this book to fully appreciate his accomplishment. Reading it post-colonial theory, I find it a bit painful. How progressive was Forster's depiction of the hypocrisy of British imperialism for the time?

anxious_brown_girl's review against another edition

adventurous reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

kyrajade's review against another edition

4.0

This is a 3.5-3.75 star rounded to 4, just because it was slightly slow in the beginning, however it picked up and was pretty enjoyable after the caves incident. The descriptions are so hyper-detailed and filled with colour, and I often found myself really admiring certain passages of writing which seemed to so aptly convey how a country can never truly be 'ruled', for its truth remains elusive. The friendship between Dr Aziz and Fielding is a really interesting point of discussion, as are the depictions of the Anglo-Indian British folk and the religious conflict between Muslims and Hindus. Obviously when we dig into the meat of the novella it has a certain fancifulness which perhaps negates to properly reflect the realities of the land and time period, instead showing us a sort-of wild and unconstrained India which perhaps leans toward Orientalism too heavily. I think that reading it from a modern perspective there are certainly characters and conversations which demonstrate the ambivalence of the colonial identity as it entered India and transformed, as well as the inevitability of cultural miscegenation. I only wish I had actually read this when I was supposed to and been able to discuss it at university, because I found myself turning over so many talking points within my head.

martajk's review against another edition

adventurous

4.0

alexisrt's review against another edition

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster (1965)

swfountaine's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

katie_anne04's review against another edition

relaxing slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

mila_2020's review against another edition

1.0

I felt that the book was so-so.

burritapal_1's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Adela Quested is a young woman who has come out to India with Mrs Morris, mother to the civil servant, the City Magistrate of Chandrapoor, who she is considering marrying. She has an open mind and loves India and Indians. She is considering what her life will be like if she marries "Ronny." 

"...She would see India always as a frieze, never as a spirit, and she assumed that it was a spirit of which Mrs Moore had had a glimpse. 

And sure enough they did drive away from the club in a few minutes, and they did dress, and to dinner came Miss Derek and the Mcbrides, and the menu was: Julienne soup full of bullety bottled peas, pseudo-cottage bread, fish full of branching bones, pretending to be plaice, more bottled peas with the cutlets, trifle, sardines on toast: the menu of Anglo india...."

🤮

I finished that book A Passage to India by E. M. Forster. Its main character is Dr Aziz, a pretty nice guy, though he's a bit too sensitive. So unfortunately he has to have something to do with the British people that are in india, Chandrapoor to be specific. And the book opens where he is in a mosque, and he hears somebody come in. He assumes that they have their shoes on when they're supposed to be off. The truth is that it's an English elderly lady and she did take her shoes off. So even though he's a smart-ass to her in the beginning they end up becoming quite close in just a few moments of conversation. He tells her she's a true oriental. I don't know where people got this idea of using the word Oriental instead of asian.

Anyways, so she had come to England with her friend Miss Adela Quested, who came with her because she and Mrs Moore's son Ronny had an idea of getting engaged, and she wanted to get to know him better, see him at his work. So they're not really a good match, they don't love each other for sure.

This British civil official has what he called a Bridge Party which is a bridge between Indians and English. Adela and Mrs Moore are talking to this Indian couple and they say that they would so like to come drop in on them. And the wife says oh certainly. And Mrs Moore and Adela say how about Thursday and they say Thursday is great. And then the Indian wife says we will be leaving for Calcutta the day before. And they're like oh no don't don't postpone your trip on our behalf, and they said no it's all right we'll go in the afternoon, something like that. so what happens they don't even send their carriage for them which they said they would do. So it turns out when Indian people say that they will do something with you, according to this author, it's not true, they're just trying to be polite. 

So this doctor Aziz had said that he was going to take Mrs Moore and Miss Quested to the Miramar caves. Which are somewhat famous around that area. You can see them from Chandrapoor when the Sun is setting; they're a beautiful sight. So he figured they understood this bit about Indian people inviting you somewhere just to be polite. That it wasn't really true. So they had remarked at the English Club about that they were waiting for Dr Aziz to invite them and he never did and so the servants are always listening to what all the English people say and report it back to the other servants, for example, who lived with Dr Aziz. he was mortified, so he set up a rather elaborate picnic. First they were to go on a train and then an elephant and then they would go in the caves and when they came out they would have an elaborate English picnic. But what happened was that Mr Fielding who was supposed to be a sort of chaperone, couldn't make it because the fellow he came with was hanging out too long doing his Hindu prayers and they missed the train. So Miss Quested and Dr Aziz and his servant are up at the caves (cuz Mrs Moore felt faint and had to wait at the bottom of the hill in the shade) and she asked him the most impertinent question: how many wives do you have. And he was so struck, while still trying to maintain the smile on his face that he entered a cave and left her standing outside with the servant. And when he had regained his face, he came out and Miss Quested was gone. So he asked the servant where is she and he points into a cave. he's goes in there and she's not in there. So he comes back out and slaps him and says you were supposed to keep an eye on her. 

So he can't find Miss Quested anywhere but he does find her binoculars with the strap broken and he picks that up and puts it in his pocket. So that's his downfall. 

he sees a car down at the bottom of the caves and he figures that Adela had gone down there and gotten with Mr fielding and decided to go back with him. Well the truth was this woman named Della or something like that has stolen the car from the Maharani that she worked for and she came out with Fielding in the car and Adela had come running down the Rocks, falling into Cactus and saying that she had been molested in the cave by Dr Aziz. She didn't know that for sure but she caused a hell of a big problem for Dr Aziz. They threw him in jail and he was going to be sent away for life when all the sudden on the witness stand she recanted her tale saying that she didn't know if it was him and she knew he would never do something like that blah blah blah. 

So it caused a huge problem between the English community and the Indian community. 

But this book, if you don't already know about what assholes the English were when they were oppressing the Indians and they still are. It will just make you hate them. For the way that they treat the Indians; it's just scandalous. I guess it's the way I feel, anyway, around native americans. And mexicans. 

I like the character of Mr Fielding, principle of the school in Chandrapoor. He's not really accepted by the Anglos there, because he's not an ass kisser.

".. the remark that did him most harm at the club was a silly aside to the effect that the so-called white races are really pinko-gray. He only said this to be cheery, he did not realize that 'white' has no more to do with a color than 'God Save the King' with a god, and that it is the height of impropriety to consider what it does connote. The Pinko-gray male whom he addressed was suddenly scandalized; his sense of insecurity was awoken, and he communicated it to the rest of the herd."

Dr Aziz is asking Fielding about having children:

" ' but you haven't children.'

'none.'

'Excuse the following question: have you any illegitimate children?'

'No. I'd willingly tell you if I had.'

'Then your name will entirely die out.'

'it must.' 

'well.' He shook his head. 'this indifference is what the Oriental will never understand.'

'I don't care for children.'

'caring has nothing to do with it,' he said impatiently. 

'I don't feel their absence, I don't want them weeping around my deathbed, and being polite about me afterwards, which I believe is the general notion. I'd far rather leave a thought behind me than a child. Other people can have children. No obligation, with England getting so chock-a-block and overrunning India for jobs.' "

When Dr Aziz is planning the food and drinks for the picnic, he runs into problems, because he's a muslim, and Professor Godbole is a Hindu..

".. there was the problem of Professor Godbole and his food, and of Professor Godbole and other people's food - two problems, not one problem. The professor was not a very strict hindu - he would take tea, fruit, soda-water, and sweets, whoever cooked them, and vegetables and rice, if cooked by a Brahman; but not meat, not cakes, lest they contained eggs, and he would not allow anyone else to eat beef; a slice of beef Upon A Distant plate would wreck his happiness. Other people might eat mutton, they might eat ham. But over ham Aziz's own religion raised its voice: he did not fancy other people eating ham. Trouble after trouble encountered him, because he had challenged the spirit of the Indian earth, which tried to keep men in compartments."

Here is the part where the character of Miss Quested asks the very uncomfortable question of Dr Aziz:

"... 'have you one wife or more than one?'

The question shocked the young man very much. It challenged a new conviction of his community, and new convictions are more sensitive than old. If she had said: 'do you worship one God or several?' he would not have objected. But to ask an educated Indian Muslim how many wives he has - appalling, hideous! He was in trouble how to conceal his confusion. 'one, one in my own particular case,' he sputtered, and let go of her hand. Quite a number of caves were at the top of the track, and thinking: 'damn the English even at their best,' He plunged into one of them to recover his balance. She followed at her leisure, quite unconscious that she had said the wrong thing, and not seeing him, she also went into a cave, thinking with half her mind 'sightseeing bores me,' and wondering with the other half about marriage."

There's a part in the court scene that's a bit amusing, when the prosecution is talking about how Indian men like English women, supposedly: 

".. here Mr McBryde paused. He wanted to keep the proceedings as clean as possible, but Oriental Pathology, his favorite theme, lay around him, and he could not resist it. Taking off his spectacles, as was his habit before enunciating a general truth, he looked into them sadly, and remarked that the darker races are physically attracted by the fairer, but not vice versa- not a matter for bitterness this, not a matter for abuse, but just a fact which any scientific Observer will confirm. 

'even when the lady is so uglier than the genetleman?' 

the comment fell from nowhere, from the ceiling perhaps. It was the first interruption, and the Magistrate felt bound to censure it. 'turn that man out,' he said. One of the Native policeman took hold of a man who had said nothing, and turned him out roughly. Mr McBryde resumed his spectacles and proceeded. But the comment had upset Miss Quested. Her body resented being called ugly, and trembled."

Hamidullah, a lawyer buddy of Dr Aziz, is talking to Dr Fielding in his bungalow after the happy ending of the court session. They're kind of musing on things, after they find out Mrs Morris has died at sea: 

".. if for a moment the sense of communion in sorrow came to them, it passed. How indeed is it possible for one human being to be sorry for all the sadness that meets him on the face of the earth, for the pain that is endured not only by men, but by animals and plants, and perhaps by the stones? The soul is tired in a moment, and in fear of losing the little she does understand, she retreats to the permanent lines which habit of chance have dictated, and suffers there. Fielding had met the dead woman only two or three times, Hamidullah had seen her in the distance once, and they were far more occupied with the coming gathering at Dilkusha, the 'victory' dinner, for which they would be most victoriously late. They agreed not to tell Aziz about Mrs Moore Till tomorrow, because he was fond of her, and the bad news might spoil his fun."

lucyebradley7's review against another edition

challenging reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5