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A Passage to India by: E.M. Forster List Price: £8.99 City Travel Guides Price: £6.99 You Save: £2.00 (22%)Prices subject to change. |
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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 813 EAN: 9780140274233 ISBN: 0140274235 Label: Penguin Books Ltd Manufacturer: Penguin Books Ltd Number Of Pages: 304 Publication Date: September 03, 1998 Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd Studio: Penguin Books Ltd Sales Rank: 46637 Related Items:
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Customer Reviews
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 Rating:  - Heavy goingWhile the themes of this novel (largely racism and prejudice) are, sadly, apparently timeless, I didn't feel this novel had aged particularly well. The narrative style is definitely `of its age' which, for a modern reader, might be too slow and objective - too divorced from its content, making what should be a heart-rending, heart-stopping story just a bit of a drag. I don't feel this is an inevitable result of the age of the novel. Other classics - many much older, such as Dickens or Austen - retain an immediacy and a humanity across the decades, even centuries. But A Passage to India is - in style - much as it is in content: a study of a stuffier time. Rating:  - East and West Can Never Meet?Almost a century after the book's publication the most crucial problems it discussed are as current as they were during Forster's life. The impossibility of communicating across the divide of culture, religion, and race, seems to be even more alive then when he saw it. The value of the novel lies not so much in representing it but in the fact that Forster offers a way out - personal contact. There is little chance people will suddenly like Muslims, Pakistanis, gays, lesbians, Moroccans, Turkish, Kurds etc etc - there is a chance (a very slim chance, Forster would be quick to add) that an American and a Muslim, a Turk and a Kurd, an Israeli and a Palestinian can be friends. The world may not want it, the people that surround them may not want ... Read More: Rating: - Passage to IndiaE.M Forster's classic novel is a savage critique of English colonial attitudes towards the Indian 'subject race' during the British Raj. Having then visited India with his friend Syed Masood - whom this book's principle character is said to be loosely based on - Forster was well-equipped to expose the hypocrasy and racism of Anglo-India. Tautly written and witheringly sardonic, few characters survive unscathed in this grimly pessimistic portrait of the times. So much so that it is a rather dispiriting read in 2007, when we no longer need Forster's acerbic wit to enlighten us on the arrogance and cruelty of the Empire. Sadly this makes it a rather contemporaneous, even dated read; arguably more interesting as social history than ... Read More: Rating:  - Really Difficult ReadI found this incredibly heavy going. The story emerges at a snails pace and is only after about half way through that I felt any interest in the story or the characters. The latter part of the book descends into real tedium. This may be of interest to scholars of Indian history or those with a close connection to the country. I'm afraid that in spite of the book's reputation I found it uninteresting. Rating: - Amazing Author, Amazing BookI picked this book out of a list of hundreds for an AP Literature class partly because if had a lot of references on the AP test: I'm so glad I did. One thing a lot of people don't know about A Passage to India is how connected E.M. Forster is to this novel. His best friend was a young Indian named Syed Masood, he traveled to India twice, actually worked there for a while, and first hand witnessed many discriminatory acts which inspired the situations in the book. The book's basically about Adela Quested and her expected to soon be mother in law Mrs. Moore who travel to Chandrapore India to visit Mrs. Moore's son Ronny Heaslop. THe women stay social amongst their fellow English colonists however they long for a look at the real, behind ... Read More: |
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