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! - fiction, author - e.m. forster

6/10 - A Passage To India by E.M. Forster

Bleak and Biased

Category: Fiction/Classics
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; Film & TV Tie-in Ed edition (13 Dec 1984)
ISBN-10: 014006527X
ISBN-13: 978-0140065275


Inspired/Suggested by: A classic it was time to read.

Synopsis: What really happened in the Marabar caves? This is the mystery at the heart of E.M. Forster's 1924 novel, A Passage to India, the puzzle that sets in motion events highlighting an even larger question: can an Englishman and an Indian be friends?
Written while England was still firmly in control of India, Forster's novel follows the fortunes of three English newcomers to India--Miss Adela Quested, Mrs Moore and Cyril Fielding--and the Indian, Dr Aziz, with whom they cross destinies. The idea of true friendship between the races was a radical one in Forster's time, and he makes it abundantly clear that it was not one that either side welcomed.

Despite their countrymen's disapproval, Miss Quested, Mrs Moore and Mr Fielding are all eager to meet Indians, and in Dr Aziz they find a perfect companion: educated, westernized, and open- minded. Slowly, the friendships ripen, especially between Aziz and Fielding. Having created the possibility of esteem based on trust and mutual affection, Forster then subjects it to the crucible of racial hatred: during a visit to the famed Marabar caves, Miss Quested accuses Dr Aziz of sexually assaulting her, but then later recants during the frenzied trial that follows. Under such circumstances, affection proves to be a very fragile commodity indeed.

Arguably Forster's greatest novel, A Passage to India paints a troubling portrait of colonialism at its worst, and is remarkable for the complexity of its characters. Here the personal becomes the political, and in the breach between Aziz and his English "friends", Forster foreshadows the eventual end of the Raj.


The cat fighting, bitchiness and narrow minded societies (both Indian and English) are brilliant displayed to the reader in such a way to draw you in page after page. Unfortunately I found the same problem that I had with A Room With A View - Forster goes way off tangent into strange, whimsical strands at the end and it ruins it for me. What was a good, interesting, juicy story of conflicting societies and the awakening of Indian independence suddenly lurches into considerations of hallucinations and ghosts. Odd. Read the first two thirds and leave the last section (Temple) well alone. 6/10. (For a reminder of the scale used please see my profile.)

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