A review by kyrajade
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

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.