Matka Intiaan (1924)

I often found the writing impenetrable-and therefore not an easy read. I also found the plot had little energy and to a large extent mundane. The novel certainly gave an interesting and somewhat shocking view of the attitudes of many of the British who lived in India during the Raj. Despite this none of the characters, British or Indian, male or female engaged any of my sympathy. Even the saintly Mrs Moore-why didn’t she do more to help her friend Aziz?-and Fletcher, who despite his enlightened views I found two-dimensional. I don’t think I will be reading anymore E M Forster-just my personal preference-when there are so many more books out there waiting to claim my attention. ( )

I picked this up on the recommendation of a friend who loved it, and I really struggled with it. There was some nice writing in it, and it picked up a bit starting about halfway through, but the earlier bits were tedious drawing-room style dramatization that really just doesn't do it for me. ( )

Of English novels about India, maybe this one has more to say than the others. It is fairly complex in it's treatment of the concept of India--a place that is beyond any simple categorization or definition despite the colonial effort to order and control it.

The typical trappings of this type of British literature are there: the characters are representatives of viewpoints and political/cultural/class identities more than they are realistic people. While this is an annoying characteristic of much literature of the period, it is a little less so in this novel. Perhaps it is because the setup is so well structured that we forgive the view of the moving parts in this machine (if that makes any sense).

There's more goodwill to trying to understand India and trying to provide a more complex view of the colonial situation and that's what makes this novel endure beyond the basic plot device. ( )

i was expecting something like heart of darkness–a european critique of colonialism that remained naive and racist– but was happily surprised at how fully forster developed his characters' subjectivities, casting the events of the novel not just through a british perspective, but also through indian eyes. Yet, this indian perspective is almost entirely muslim; seen exclusively through british and muslim eyes, the hindus in A Passage to India ultimately remain a mysterious, incomprehensible, and very oriental Other–i think this is definitely the book's biggest shortcoming.

that said, i still think a passage to india deserves five stars– for its language and echoes, and because forster takes such care to show that no passage is objective; every sentence is filtered through (and limited to) the eyes and ideologies of a single person--and showing that, i think, is a really powerful feat. ( )

This is another one I read in graduate school. I did not particularly like it, but sometimes, even if you like your major, you get to read some things you may not like. Here is what I wrote back then:

>>The issue that comes out right away is the prejudice between the British and Indians. It is clear the British are attempting to bring their world to India, yet the conventions of Britain are not good enough; they must be tightened and adapted to this new world. Then there is the interplay between the Anglo-Indians and Indians, superiors and subalterns where lines are drawn and expectations must be kept. The novel was interesting in the measure it shows how India was for the British, but it is not an engaging piece of fiction. ( )