A Passage to India

Rating:
Summary: Forster's Masterpiece a Timeless Classic
Review: Sadly, "A Passage to India" will probably never seem dated, because the racial and religious problems that plagued India nearly a century ago continue to do so today. That's a testament, though, to just how compelling E.M. Forster's novel was and is.

Two English ladies, one young and strong willed and the other her elderly chaperone, visit India with the intent of fully immersing themselves in Indian culture--unlike their compatriots, who segregate themselves from the Indians and relegate them to little more than a slave class. However, during a cave exploration, something inexplicable happens to both of them and they find themselves unhinged from the experience. What follows is a sad story about the clash of two cultures that form immediate and unshakable assumptions about each other.

Forster has been criticized for being somewhat one-sided in his portrayal of the English-Indian conflict, painting the English as belligerent, pompous bullies and the Indians as lovable and continuously wronged. I suppose that criticism is valid to a reader looking for clinical fairness, but as Forster himself is recorded as saying, he was sick of fairness at the time he wrote this novel and composed his story instead from the heart. I can completely understand this sentiment. In any conflict, when one side is so decidedly dominant and thus has all the advantages, fairness seems like an almost irrelevant concept. What Forster has done here is fashioned a compelling story populated by perhaps some of the most psychologically complex characters ever put to the page.

Which is both good and bad. On the one hand, fully trying to understand the inner workings of these characters' minds makes for a very interactive reading session. On the other, Forster makes his characters almost TOO realistically complex, so that I feel that I can't fully understand any of them. Whether intentional on Forster's part or not, this pretty much works overall for the novel, since it is about people who can't fully understand one another. But I would be lying if I didn't say that it also makes the novel at times somewhat frustrating, and ever so slightly dry.

Don't let this criticism overshadow the praise I have for this novel, however. It's a towering achievement of 20th Century literature and deserves the esteem it has won from the literary community.

Rating:
Summary: We'll never know what happened in the Marabar Caves...
Review: A classic that kids shouldn't be assigned to read in 10th grade, as I was. I truly hated this book, didn't understand it at all, at all. The symbolism, the racism, the class system, the whole period of the British raj - it all went right over my head. Then, to discover it in adulthood! Well, it was an awakening. It was as if I'd never read it before, and indeed on most levels, I hadn't. What really happened in the Marabar Caves? Was it an assault? A dream or hallucination? An actual rape? Nothing? A case of mistaken identity? This mystery, unanswered at the end, lies at the heart of A Passage to India. We have Muslims, Hindus, and the British Christians mixing within the society. Dr. Aziz is a good and gentle man, a friendly, open-minded, highly educated Indian who is eventually accused of assaulting a British women - and that sort of thing doesn't go over well with the high-mucky-mucky of the era. According to the political sensitivities of the era (1920s), there's always bound to be trouble when you mix the races within society.
Passage to India presents British colonialism at its worst with a marvelous and deeply-layered cast of characters. This is probably Forster's best book.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: What makes A Passage to India so different from other Orientalist works (and Orientalist it is) is that Forster, being a homosexual, understood the oppression that the colonized Indians had to live with. This understanding permeates throughout the book. From his piercing insights into the nature of Anglo-Indian women (why were they more racist? They were threatened to be replaced by Indian men in the minds of the colonizers). The relationship between Fielding and Aziz is startlingly sharp; people from the time must have been delusional not to see the homoerotic message that Forster was trying to portray. It's such a shame that the politics of the book (which Forster really wanted to downplay -- notice that neither Aziz nor Fielding care about them) so often overshadow the message of male-male relationships that Forster cared so much about. It's sad though that he still fell into the trap of thinking that no Englishman or woman could completely remove themselves from the racism that dominated the culture. What does he do the one's who try? Adela has an nervous breakdown, Mrs. Moore dies after realizes the futlity of love, and Fielding is not only a repressed homosexual, and therefore a social outcast, but sacrifices his ideals in the end to marry an English country woman. The ending perfectly sums up how Forster himself must have felt -- remember that when you want to cry at the unfairness of it all.

I don't think it's really necessary for me to comment on the brilliance of the prose, or the entertaining primary narrative since I'm sure that's been done to the upteenth time. However, the book holds so much that I couldn't not share some of my thoughts. Please read A Passage to India as soon as you can.

Rating:
Summary: A Parable of Race and Identity in the era of Colonialism
Review: Whether you visit another country the intent is often to "see" the place. But how does one go about it? What can you learn of place from the geographic features or urban landmarks and settings? What can you learn from talking with the locals? Can you ever really understand them?

These are some of the questions that Forster uses to shape the message of his novel. Some of the English in "A Passage to India" seem to feel that they can get a feel for India by physically experiencing some of the geography. Others believe that it is possble by meeting and talking with the Indians. Yet either approach is stymied one way or another - India is vast in its geography, cultures, languages and religions. "A Passage to India" asks readers what are the barriers to and limitations of to comprehension and even friendship between peoples in an environment of unequality under colonialism and diverse cultures?

"A Passage to India" is Forster's parable of race and identity and the locale of India, as a crossroads of cultures, provides a remarkable apt setting for getting his points across. The plot is slim but detailed, the timeframe in which the events occur is specific, making the pace of the novel relatively easy to follow,read and analyze. There are a handul of characters in the novel, which allows Forster to more fully develop them. In their dialogue many of the themes that Forster explores and points of view that he relates - the colonial English and their Indian subjects - come out in complex, rich detail.

Moreover, since the novel is set in India on the verge of its independence, other questions present additional complexities. How do countries with various, strong ethnic and cultural identifies form a single nation? This theme emerges as Forster delves into dialogues between the indigenous characters who all share superstitions, fears and misgivings about one another based on ethnicity, culture and religion but above all share a strong, common loathing of the British. Is a distrust and dislike for "the other," the "outsider" strong enough to build a national identity? Read "A Passage to India" and think through this question and others. These questions are relevant to today's societies as they were to the India Question in Forster's age.

Rating:
Summary: Before its Time
Review: This classic by E. M. Forster was written in 1924 but could have been written today, for its complexity of viewpoint on the issues of empire, race, cultural divides, and the possibility or impossibility of friendship under those conditions. I found Forster's viewpoint quite modern--there are no good guys or bad guys in this book, just human beings, some hopelessly blind to anything that doesn't fit with their world view, some bumbling along in an effort to break the stereotypes, some honest, some not.

Two Englishwomen arrive in India and resolve to experience it without the prejudices their compatriots exhibit. The picture Forster paints of the relationship between the English and the Indians, and how the English change once they arrive, is quite compelling. The English are masters of the subtle put-down, avoidance of eye contact, keeping staff waiting. They smile indulgently at the ladies' desire to meet real Indians and experience the country, knowing they will change quickly. A trip to the Marabar caves turns into a disaster, quite predictable, with everyone accusing Aziz, their escort, of assaulting Miss Questead. No one knows what really happened.

Miss Questead changes her story at trial and Aziz goes free. But no one knows how to handle this unexpected turn of events. One would think things would go back to status quo. But the trial has unearthed all the conflicting feelings the races have for each other--the English are convinced of Aziz' guilt based solely on the fact that he's Indian, the Indians are confirmed in their view that the English cannot be trusted. Miss Questead is ostracized for telling the truth, the Indians break off their small attempts to form friendships with their occupiers. Aziz retreats from all contact with the English and irrationally suspects his only English friend of betrayal.

In the end both sides retreat, but ominous signs of a profound conflict to come are all around them. Knowing the history, we see that the eventual ouster of the English is inevitable--what is amazing is that Forster saw it more than 20 years before it happened.

Rating:
Summary: WHAT DID HAPPEN TO MISS QUESTED IN THE MARABAR CAVES?
Review: This tantalizing question provides the intense drama at the centre of Forster's last and greatest novel, which explores racial tension in colonial India.
After a mysterious incident during their visit to the Marabar Caves, the charming Dr Aziz is accused of assaulting Adela Quested, a naive young Englishwoman. As he is brought to trial the fragile structure of Anglo-Indian relations collapses and the racism inherent in colonialism is exposed - a theme which still has powerful, dangerous realities today.

Rating:
Summary: It's not bad...
Review: Did you ever get the feeling that E.M. Forster didn't like people?

That's certainly the feeling I got while reading this book. It's not that it's a bad book, per se, it's just that, well...you kind of get the feeling that Forster doesn't really care about his characters. Instead of pulling you in and making the characters come alive so that they are real to you, and familiar, and friendly, Forster tells his story as if he were a zookeeper describing to you the behavior of the bonobos. There is an unbreachable glass wall between the reader and the characters that makes it hard to connect with or relate to the story. To make matters worse, Zookeeper Forster only seems to describe the bad behavior of the bonobos. He dwells continuously on the bad traits of his characters. He seems to think nothing of ruthlessly pointing out their faults and foibles, and dwelling on them incessantly. He completely humiliates the characters in the eyes of the readers, thus making even the "nice" characters, such as Dr. Aziz and Mrs. Moore hard to like. The moment you do begin to like any of the characters, Forster immediately returns to his critical mode, and once again exposes and harps on the faults of the characters, driving you quickly back to your former "who cares what happens to Adela Quested?" feelings. All this combines to result in a cooling of the reader's interest...at least it did in my case. While the story is interesting, and not completely dull, it is hard to get really caught up in a story where you don't care about any of the characters. While I have read worse books, I have also read books that are much better, with more likeable and realistic characters, and more gripping plots. However, this book is a classic, and provides an excellent and compelling look at race relations in 1920s India, and so I would reccommend it for those reasons. But, on the other hand, you can get a better written and more enjoyable read with essentially the same plot by reading "To Kill A Mockingbird." You'll like the characters better too.

Rating:
Summary: Great memorial to British India
Review: With all due respect to Rudyard Kipling, E.M. Forster's "A Passage to India" seems likely to remain the definitive novel about British Imperialist India written by an Englishman. It does not merely see India as a picturesque land in which to set an exotic adventure, but examines the complicated relationships between the British and the Indians with penetrating wisdom, astuteness, and fairness. Forster is not shy about portraying the British attitude towards the Indians as one of bigotry and condescension, but he also notes the considerable cultural and religious conflicts between the Muslims and the Hindus.

Most of the action takes place in a city called Chandrapore and concerns the friendship between a British school principal named Cyril Fielding and a Muslim physician named Dr. Aziz. The novel's events are set in motion in an empty mosque, where a praying Aziz meets an elderly Englishwoman named Mrs. Moore. After some friendly conversation, they take a liking to each other, and Aziz learns that Mrs. Moore's son is a man he knows well -- Ronny Heaslop, the Magistrate of Chandrapore. Later, having tea at Fielding's house, Aziz meets Mrs. Moore again and her companion, a young lady named Adela Quested, who is vaguely affianced to Ronny. Eager to see the "real" India, Adela enthusiastically accepts Aziz's offer to go on a picnic to the Marabar caves, a nearby tourist attraction, and Mrs. Moore is convinced to accompany them.

Forster lavishly describes the journey to the caves -- by train and then elephant -- and the caves themselves, each of which apparently is shaped somewhat like a frying pan, with a short corridor ending in a circular chamber. The outing proves to be much more eventful than the three spelunkers expected. Mrs. Moore, haunted by the eerie echos the caves propagate, crosses the threshold of insanity. And upon their return to Chandrapore, Adela claims that she was sexually assaulted in one of the caves and accuses Aziz, who is consequently arrested and tried for the crime.

Of course, there are a few different explanations for what really happened to Adela in the caves, but the British are prejudicially biased against Aziz. This puts Fielding in a quandary, as his defense of his good friend Aziz infuriates his British compatriots and gets him kicked out of his club. When Adela later admits that she can't confirm Aziz's guilt, Ronny acknowledges that a retraction of the charges would embarrass the British; he even hustles his mother out of India because, as a witness, her increasing incoherence would damage the case for the prosecution.

Although the cave incident and the subsequent trial drive the plot, the novel is more about the clash of three headstrong societies (Muslim, Hindu, and Christian) forced to dwell together amidst political turmoil, and how certain members of these societies manage to reconcile themselves to each other's differences. The final scene between Fielding and Aziz, in which Aziz uncannily predicts an independent Indian nation resulting from British dissolution, is a poignant display of this theme; for all the trouble and conflict in the world, there is always room for friendship and understanding.

Rating:
Summary: A Thorough Passage
Review: "A Passage to India" combines a story of friendship with insightful social commentary which remains vital to this very day. It is the story of Aziz, an Indian, and Fielding, an Englishman, and the friendship between the two men that develops in the wilderness of India. "A Passage to India" is shot through with issues of power politics, class, gender, religion, and even truth itself; Forester takes on quite a lot in this book and handles it quite well.

Perhaps the most striking feature of "A Passage to India" is how well it has aged through the years since it was first published in 1924. In describing the Indian people, Forester touches on two issues in India which continue to this very day: unity and religion. Considerable time is spent on describing the Indian people and the challenges they faced in unifying such a large and diverse population, challenges which continue to exist to this day. Even more pertinent, Forester describes the mutual animosity between India's Hindus and Muslims, their mistrust toward and misunderstanding of each other, and the resultant difficulties.

Of course, at the heart of Forester's book is India and her conquerors, the English. Aziz and Fielding's friendship plays out like a microcosm of this relationship and through it Forester explores the potential for reconciliation between the two civilizations. Several aspects of colonial life, from the degradation of the natives, to the mystery of "the Orient", to the inexplicable metamorphosis that is worked on Anglo expatriates, is brought to life and analyzed in clear, sometimes poetic language. For his own part, Forester seems intent on Indian independence, yet cautions that the Indians of which he writes may not yet be ready to assert their independence.

The dichotomy between the isolated, existentialist Europe which tramples upon the organic, wholeness of India is also examined. Europe is presented as technologically accomplished and all-powerful, yet lacking the love of life that the Indians take for granted. Forester asserts that in Europe it is always work or rest, and that only in the East is the meaning of leisure understood. Forester further presents us with a view of a society which is slowly being transformed from community to isolation: Aziz cautions Fielding that every third servant is an informant, while the natives and expatriates alike are aware of the rigid class system that is slowly solidifying, and the attendant politics and rules that come with it. Although Forester is aware that class issues existed in India long before the arrival of the Europeans, he also understands that something peculiarly Eastern is being destroyed along with the Indian way of life.

Forester's book is one which captures the best of both worlds. It brings together a very human story of friendship which will appeal to the emotions and hearts of anyone who has ever built a friendship. Yet it also presents a beautiful portrait of a colonized people and their colonizer, appealing to the intellect of anyone who wonders what it was like back then, or even what it is like now in subjugated nations. If you like fiction at all you should read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Very Mediocre
Review: A Passage to India by EM Forster is about two women, Miss. Quested and Mrs. Moore who take a trip to India in order to have Miss. Quested married to Mrs. Moore's son. When they get their Mrs. Moore meets a local doctor named Aziz, and the two strike up a friendship. Their friendship however is criticized by the British in the area but they arrange to have a picnic in the caves near by. In the caves Miss. Quested is seemingly assaulted and we see the full brunt of racialist thought in India.

As entertainment, this novel was decent. I wasn't compelled or bored, it was simply ok. As a satire however it was fairly weak. I found it unconvincing and a weak portrayal of an important subject. The crime against Miss. Quested was ridiculious and it's hard to believe someone would be that hysterical.

Technically I found the novel to be decent. I wasn't blown away by Forsters writing even though he wrote it in obvious poetic undertones. Overall I wasn't greatly impressed with this novel and I wouldn't call it a classic or any sort of statement about racism. Read some Richard Wright or To Kill a Mockingbird for insight into racialist thought.