Have you ever been all alone in a quiet place and suddenly been sure you were being watched? Even though no one was around? It's just that, the power of the imagination to create an experience in the mind that may or may not have actually happened, that drives the central conflict in E.M. Forster's A Passage to India. Plain young schoolmistress Adela Quested ventures to India with her friend, Mrs. Moore, to possibly arrange an engagement to Mrs. Moore's son Ronny, a small-town official in the British administration. While there, Mrs. Moore comes across a young widowed Indian Muslim, Dr. Aziz, in a mosque and they strike up a quick and easy friendship. When she and Adela express a desire to the "the real India", Aziz arranges a trip for them to see some caves outside of town. The trip is supposed to be joined by a British school principal, Cyril Fielding (one of the few unprejudiced members of the white community and a friend of Aziz's), but he misses the train and Aziz takes the women out with just a few servants and a guide to accompany them. In the first cave, Mrs. Moore is shaken by the experience of the echo inside and opts out of further exploration. Aziz and Quested proceed, but become separated, each in a different cave. Aziz frantically searches for her, but emerges only to find that she's running away and getting in a car, going back to the city. When he arrives back in the city himself, he's arrested for assaulting her in the cave.

Since we see the story from his point of view during that section of the novel, we know he didn't touch her. He couldn't even find her! But what did happen in that cave that scared her so badly? And will he be convicted even though he's innocent? The Anglo-Indians, as the British administration expats refer to themselves, are deeply racist, and there's a great deal of consternation that there needs to be a trial at all. The incident stirs up a lot of enmity on the parts of both the British and the Indians, who come together despite their own religious divisions to support Aziz. The only Briton that supports Aziz is Fielding.

Racial divides and the inherent injustices of colonialism are the main themes, and there's nothing really new or interesting in how Forster presents them. In 1924, when the book was published, it was possibly pretty progressive (for context, the British didn't leave India until 1949), but in 2017, it's not going anywhere unexpected. What I found to be the most interesting angle on it from today's perspective is the relationship between Aziz and Fielding. It raises the question of what it means to be a good ally to an underprivileged group, and if there can ever be real friendship between people society holds as unequal. The book posits that as much as they like each other, the answer is ultimately no. Fielding stands by Aziz during the trial, but then seeks to keep him from suing for recompense from Quested...recompense he deserves, but will ruin her. Even though he's presented to us as a fair-minded and fundamentally decent person, Fielding can't help but let his own perspective as a member of the privileged group drive his thinking, and that undermines his ability to really understand where Aziz is coming from.

Honestly, though, I didn't find much to like here. Coming at it from the world of now, the themes are tired and have been done before and better. Forster doesn't have especially lovely prose, nor does he create particularly well-drawn or resonant characters. In its time, it was a major work, but I didn't find anything all that compelling about it. I read it really quickly not because I liked it, but because I wanted to get through it and go on to something more interesting. ( )

So, this white lady goes into a cave with this Indian guy and comes out accusing him of something that she's not sure really happened. And thusly we explore the crazy political and social dynamics between colony and colonizer. Many say this is Forster's best work, but I get so peeved at the white lady for not knowing what really happened in the cave that I have to take away stars. ( )

Definitely a book written in a different era, an era where people read slowly and focussed on nuance. I understand why the other Forster book I read, A Room with a View, did not go well on audio. There are leaps between paragraphs that do not convey themselves well orally the way they can be detected visually on the page.

Somehow I'd gotten the impression that A Passage to India was a departure from Forster's earlier novels. In subject matter, sure, but in all else this is a very Forsterian novel: sharply observed social commentary, lyrical prose, meditations on the human condition, and an almost mythic quality that is nevertheless grounded in the banal. Forster's novels are romantic, but they don't romanticize.

I'm glad I found myself reading this book in 2020. It's fundamentally a novel about nationalism, a topic I have formed Strong Opinions about. Actually maybe just one opinion, which Forster evidently shares. Please imagine, in place of this book, a tract titled "NATIONALISM" in 72-pt font, followed by one sentence: "FUCK THAT SHIT." (Forster phrases it more delicately.)

As a portrait of India and Indian people goes, I am not equipped to judge this novel. I think I can say it is a humane and openhearted effort. Certainly Forster's disdain for British culture does not lead him into the trap I expected, that of romanticizing the East. Instead, he attempts to be both empathetic and objective.

As far as objectivity goes, well. The text is littered with generalizations about Indians; some of these are the narrative's attempts at pointing out cultural differences, while others rise from the collective point-of-view of the colonizers. All that said, I expected this to be a novel written for the white gaze, and it's not quite that. Forster seems to be reaching toward an inclusive audience, whether or not he ever quite gets there.

I won't give away the plot, but I will say that this novel is set in British India at the turn of the 20th century and shows a British elite closing ranks in response to their tribal identity being threatened. The threat isn't some vast cultural divide between British and Indian people—the mutiny of 1857 is passing out of memory; the Indian elite is increasingly Westernized. To borrow an observation from Hannah Arendt, it's not necessarily difference that triggers xenophobia, but assimilation and the threat of social categories dissolving.

Meanwhile we have Dr. Aziz and his circle, acculturated Muslim Indians who are trying to invent a tribe of their own. Their definition of India keeps widening—Muslim identity becomes Indian pan-nationalism, which almost widens to human solidarity—but they, and we, can't quite reach across the gap.

And here's where this book gets really interesting, using the vocabulary of religion to imagine the (im)possibilities of a truly universal love. You could, in fact, write a very trite five-paragraph essay about how the second half of this book follows the structure of the Nativity story. I have no idea if Forster had this in mind; certainly he's not crass enough to explicitly compare the experiences Adele and Mrs. Morse have in the caves to an Annunciation. Nevertheless, this scene does take on a numinous quality. Encountering divinity is not a comfortable experience, threatening our belief that we are separate individuals in a structured universe. When the gods try to seize us, we flail.

This book won't enchant you with its memorable character studies or gripping plot, but something about the shape of Forster's novels is really compelling to me. I'm glad I read this one.

3.5/5 My feelings about this book were all over the place. Forster's writing is gorgeous as usual, but I had a difficult time caring about any of these characters, British or Indian. The motives behind the characters' actions were vague and noncommittal. The so-called exotic atmosphere was tainted--similar in a way to Joyce's “Araby“. I walked away unenlightened and depressed. ( )