I started
A Passage to India a couple of weeks ago, expecting to once again fall in love with E.M. Forster's witty prose. And I'm not going to lie...I'm feeling a little let down by this book.
The basic concept of the novel is to explore the relationship between the British and the Indians during the Imperial occupation of India (according to the intro, Forster spent so many years writing it that it can't be specifically dated to a year). The book jacket tips you off that there will be an incident involving a young Indian doctor and an Englishwoman, and it will deal with the repercussions following. Duly noted.
Here's my beef: when you are dealing with two different cultures, I think there are a HUGE number of incidents you could pick from where there is a legitimate misunderstanding between two people because of their own background and familiar practices (some perfect examples
here). But so far, that isn't what's happened in
A Passage to India.
Warning - spoilers ahead!
Dr. Aziz puts together an outing to the Marabar Caves for the young English girl Adela and her future mother-in-law Mrs. Moore. While exploring the caves, Mrs. Moore tires and decides to rest, leaving Adela to go on with Aziz and a guide. Aziz and Adela explore separate caves, then reunite with the larger group and head back into town. Upon their arrival, Aziz finds himself under arrest for allegedly assaulting Adela in one of the caves. In the novel, I'm now getting into the nitty gritty of he said, she said and characters taking sides in what's become an Indians vs. British conflict.
Thus far there isn't reason to believe that Adela is lying, although she may have accused the wrong man. And truly, if I was in a pitch black cave with some stranger grabbing at me, I would flip out too!
Obviously I haven't finished reading yet, so the reasoning for this specific intercultural conflict might not be apparent. It just seems that an irrational hullabaloo about touching one of "our women" doesn't really explore the specific tensions of British occupied India - you could interchange any number of racial/ethnic groups and likely end up with the same type of storyline (unfortunately). Remember in
Gone with the Wind A Passage to India when
Scarlett Adela gets attacked and then the men all round up and
go on a Klan raid conduct a farce of trial? See.
Sidenote: My literary disappointment is in no way meant to demean the emotions of women who are attacked by men of any color, shape, religious background, or political affliation. The stories I'm referencing aren't about the experiences of the women - they are about the social response by uninvolved parties to the incident
I guess all this is to say that I expected something more unique from my dear Morgan (I have discovered his friends called him Morgan, so I'm going with that for now). "I think that most Indians, like most English people, are shits, and I am not interested whether they sympathize with one another or not" (Intro). Oh. That leaves me wondering...what happened to
"Only connect!" from Howard's End?
Perhaps we are only supposed to connect with non-sh*ts? Or maybe the universal nature of the novel's conflict shows that humanity needs to work on becoming something that's best described without using four letter words?
Image from A Passage to India film found here.
