Literary reviews by Tim Love.
Warning: Rather than reviews, these are often notes in preparation for reviews that were never finished, or pleas for help with understanding pieces. See Litref Reviews - a rationale for details.

Wednesday, 2 June 2021

"A passage to India" by E.M. Forster

We're first introduced to Chandrapur symbolically - in close-up a city dominated by mud, buildings and the river; from a distance the gardens dominate. We meet Dr Aziz, a young Islamic widower with 3 children - submissive but sulky. Aziz is impulsive, more poet than scientist. He had an arranged marriage. He realised that he loved his wife only after she'd died giving birth to their 3rd child. We meet Mrs Moore who's bought Miss Quested out to see if she'll marry Mrs Moore's son. Miss Quested wants to see "the real India"

Some of the Indians have spent happy years in England - Cambridge even. They assess the English people they know, judging that they become distant even if they're not so at first. The English have "The Club". The English people understand each other and generalise about Indians. The Indians understand each other and generalise about the English. The Indians are united by the common enemy. Newcomers complicate matters, because they break the rules that control English-Indian interaction. Indians compete for English attention. Male-female difference complicate matters further. Social conventions and obligations are misunderstood.

People calculate the consequences of their actions on Indo-English relations, and on their own future. They consider being true to themselves, and the consequences for their group. And there are higher issues of Law, fairness, etc.

But some of the opinions seem like the author's - "he'd been allowed to show courtesy to visistors from another country, which is what all Indians long to do ... like most orientals, Aziz overrated hospitality, mistaking it for intimacy"; "Suspicion and belief could in his mind exist side by size. They sprang from different sources and need never intermingle. Suspicion in the oriental is a sort of malignant tumour, a mental malady that makes him self-conscious and unfriendly suddenly. He trusts and mistrusts at the same time in a way the Westerner cannot comprehend. It is his demon as the Westerner's is hypocrisy."

The history of India is described across geological eras. The caves that Aziz has planned a group visit to are a sequence of similar chambers - tunnels giving entry to circular caverns. On the trip he's anxious about whether the event will succeed. On his return to town by train he's arrested for "offending" an English woman (Miss Quested) in a cave. She'd suddenly, puzzlingly, left the scene in a car. It's a case of mistaken identity (it was a guide, not Aziz, and anyway the guide never touched her. Aziz thinks Miss Questen plain and consequently desperate), but there's circumstancial evidence. The guide is never found. The victim admits it wasn't such a big deal but by then outrage has gained momentum. Fielding, a middle-aged teacher, supports Aziz and is ostracised.

The caves gather extra connotations in the minds of some of the visitors. Miss Quested continues to hear a mysterious echo. Mrs Moore thinks that whether in a cave or a church, love is still love. Miss Quested "after years of intellectualism had resumed her morning kneel to Christianity. There seemed no harm in it, it was the shortest and easiest cut to the unseen, she could track her troubles onto it."

Quested had called off her marriage, then had changed her mind. She knew it wasn't love. Her fiance was pressuring her to get Aziz convicted, and she realised she'd have to live with the Indo-English community afterwards. The English close ranks.

Outside the courtroom crowds chant as rumours from inside escape. Miss Quested retracts her accusation amid English people querying her mental health. It's a good scene. Outside there are near-riots.

Fielding convinces Miss Quested to let Aziz off of punitive compensation. She and Fielding become friends. She returns to England. Mrs Moore has died on the boat back to England. She's briefly venerated by the locals because she supposedly helped Aziz. Miss Quested misses her. Fielding returns to England via Egypt, Crete and Venice.

Near the end we jump 2 years. Fielding is back, visiting with his new wife and her sister. The dominating backdrop is a Hindu festival. We're told a little about Hinduism - oneness, many gods, etc. A prisoner will be ceremonially released. Despite Fielding's clear, unanswered letters to Aziz (now remarried) Aziz assumes he's been tricked by Fielding and that Fielding has married Miss Quested and her money. Actually he's married Mrs Moore's daughter. Aziz, angry to hide his embarrassment, mellows, and they have an argument about politics like the good old days, knowing they'll never meet again. Fielding, an atheist, confesses that his wife has some kind of spiritual longings.

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