Comments: Very interesting novel in which east meets west (albeit not very successfully) in British India at the turn of the century. Cultures, religions and personalities clash, characters, such as, Dr. Aziz, Cyril Fielding and Adela try to be people they are not and the reader anticipates what will happen to them after a fateful excursion to Marabar Caves. I usually check out a location I'm reading about on Google Earth and was a bit surprised to find that Forster's Maramar Caves are actually the Barabar Caves and I am puzzled as to why he changed the name. If anyone knows why.........

Why I read it now: E. M. Forster is the LT author of the month and I just happened to have this one languishing on my book shelf.

Recommended: highly, for readers who enjoy historical novels, cultural diversity and humanitarian issues. ( )

A Passage to India, published in 1924 is one of the best known works of E. M. Forster. It was published at a time when the Indian independence movement was at its height.

The story of A Passage to India is set in the fictional Indian town of Chandrapore. Two women, Mrs. Moore, the mother of Ronny Heaslop, the British city magistrate of Chandrapore and Adela Quested come to visit India. Adela is supposed to marry Ronny but has some rather ambiguous feelings about him, settling in India and marriage in general. Adela at the same time has some vague intentions of learning about the real India and its people. In the course of her quest to find the real India Adela meets Mr. Fielding, the British headmaster of the small government-run college and Dr. Aziz, a young Muslim Indian Physician. An untoward incident during a trip to the Marabar Caves sours their newly found friendship, an incident which brings out the worst in both the British rulers and their local subjects.

After I started to read this book I realized I had to be very careful. I had to read each and every sentence with great care lest I should miss some of the deeper meanings embedded in them.

Most would say that this is a story of the racial tension that exists between the ruler and the subjects. It is about British colonization of India and the blatant and latent hatred and mistrust they had of their Indian subjects and vice versa.

But I believe there is more to it than that. Sure, the setting of the story is India during the Colonial times but the story is more about isolation and the lack of understanding. Isolation that results from people refusing to understand that someone else may view the world in a different way. When people, afraid of learning new things, take refuge within feelings of distrust and hatred. This is the story of utter disconnection, not only between the British and the Indians, but between men and women and the older and the younger generation.

One of the most interesting points of the story is the characters of Mrs. Moore and Adela. They are fascinatingly complex. Mrs. Moore is idolized by Dr. Aziz. But she never really does any real good to him. Adela never intends to hurt anyone. And yet she sets in motion events that will eventually change everyone’s lives forever.

The friendship between Mr. Fielding and Dr. Aziz and its gradual disintegration is another important point of the story. They try and ultimately fail to cross the chasm between them that have been created by race and the ruler-subject relations.

E. M. Forster’s writing is very good but definitely complex. He seems captivated by the Indian culture and landscape. He certainly describes it in great detail.

E. M. Forster ultimately does not give us an answer to the question of what really happened in those caves. Did something really happen to Adela? Or was she just overwhelmed by the caves and hallucinated the whole thing? Why did the caves have such a curious effect on both Mrs. Moore and Adela? Was it merely culture shock and the unbearable heat or was it something more tangible? I’m still pondering. ( )

My first introduction to Forster... He has a gift for personifying places, and I think that's one of my favorite things about this novel... India becomes a protagonist in the tensions between the characters. It's fascinating. ( )

"Marriage is too absurd in any case." ( )

Why I would say "read it": The book's descriptions of the difficulties that arise out of "cultures colliding" because of Imperialism (and to some extent within India itself), as well as the descriptions of British racism, which comes out subtly at times and quite overtly at others. Written in 1924, the book is ahead of its time and foreshadows the events that took place in 1947.

Why I didn't like it as much as others: the story was not all that interesting to me, and I thought the book could have been pared down. I also don't think the book is particularly well-written; among other things the descriptions of India's religious ceremonies were muddled and confusing.

Favorite quotes:
Persian grave inscription:
"Alas, without me for thousands of years
The Rose will blossom and the Spring will bloom,
But those who have secretly understood my heart -
They will approach and visit the grave where I lie."

"Trying to recover his temper, he said, 'India likes gods.'
'And Englishmen like posing as gods.'"

"....a poem should touch the hearer with a sense of his own weakness, and should institute some comparison between mankind and flowers."

"The train in its descent through the Vindyas had described a semicircle round Asirgarh. What could she connect it with except its own name? Nothing; she knew no one who lived there. But it had looked at her twice and seemed to say: 'I do not vanish.'" ( )