Esmond in India

What a sad book. No one was happy, no one was fulfilled, nobody had an adventure. Shakuntala slept with a third rate Englishman. Har Dayal betrayed his friend. Everyone betrayed their ideals. The only characters I liked were Uma (who was genuinely caring) and Narayan (who never actually made an appearance). The book is billed as a comedy of manners but I think it’s a tragedy of manners. It’s beautifully written, but wistful and elegiac. A story of muddle.

Shakuntala is a young Indian woman who comes home to live with her propserous family in post independance Delhi.

Was slightly dissatisfied with this book. Written in the 1950s, approximately the same time as the book is set, there is the occasional interesting or amusing section, but this is countered by rambling page long paragraphs, that soon bored me. I didnt really engage much with any of the characters, and was still trying to sort out everyone's relationship with each other at the end of the 200 pages. will not be running out to get other books from this author

I read this a couple of years ago - and this is the review I wrote at the time.

This is the third novel I have read by this author, and my favorite. Described on the jacket as an Indian comedy of manners. It concerns two Indian families in some unspecified time after partition. One fsmily is rather prosperous, the other less so, although they too had once been wealthy and belonged to that section of society. The Esmond of the title is a rather unlikeable character married to the neice/daughter of the poorer family. Shakuntala, the daughter of the wealthy family, returns from college, idealistic and romantic.

I enjoyed this so much, a hectic far too busy week meant I was forced to savour this and read it much slower than maybe I would have show more liked. Which has meant that the one bright spot in a week when I have been fed up and exhausted has been this lovely book. show less

Read during: Spring 2005

I'm looking back at what I wrote about Heat and Dust and finding I'm feeling much the same about Esmond in India. The story and the characters were all very interesting and it really began to capture my attention and I sat down Friday night to finish it up and suddenly began to realize that the pages left were very few and there didn't seem to be any conculsion. One storyline was partially wrapped up but nearly everything else was left hanging. Perhaps this is endemic to Jhabvala.