#forster’s a passage to india

[frankensteincest]

love it when books complain about hot, humid weather, especially conferring it with the ability to muddle or dull the mind. so true.

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[cinemaocd]

E. M Forster novels where a woman is clearly engaged to the wrong guy: A Room with a View, A Passage to India...

[orlaite]

A Passage to India (1984) dir. David Lean

[orpheuslookingback]

Quote Collection: A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

One touch of regret-not the canny substitute but the true regret from the heart-would have made him a different man, and the British Empire a different institution. (49) He had dulled his craving for verbal truth and cared chiefly for truth of mood. (59) In her ignorance, she regarded him as "India", and never surmised that his outlook was limited and his method inaccurate, and that no one is India. (69) It was the qualified bray of the callow official, the "I am not perfect, but-" that got on her nerves. (78) He sang, sadly, because all beauty is sad. (103) The sun was returning to his kingdom with power but without beauty-that was the sinister feature. If only there had been beauty! His cruelty would have been tolerable then. (112) "I don’t want them weeping around my deathbed and being polite about me afterward, which I believe is the general notion. I’d far rather leave a thought behind me than a child." (116) Though we continue to exclaim, "I do enjoy myself," or, "I am horrified”-we are insincere. "As far as I feel anything, it is enjoyment, horror”-it’s no more than that really, and a perfectly adjusted organism would be silent. (133) She was only recommending the universal brotherhood he sometimes dreamed of, but as soon as it was put into prose it became untrue. (145) The boulders said, "I am alive," the small stones answered, "I am almost alive." (151) Loving them both, he expected them to love each other. They didn’t want to. (159) Pity, wrath, heroism, filled them, but the power of putting two and two together was annihilated. (167) Fear is everywhere; the British Raj rests on it; the respect and courtesy Fielding himself enjoyed were unconscious acts of propitiation. (176) "But it is far otherwise in the case of good and evil. They are not what we think them, they are what they are, and each of us has contributed to both." (180) Here the retreat is from the source of life, and the treacherous sun, and no poetry adorns it because disillusionment cannot be beautiful. (214) He didn’t hate them; for if he did, he would have had to condemn his own career as a bad investment. He retained a contemptuous affection for the pawns he had moved about for so many years, they must be worth his pains. (217) The issues Miss Quested had raised were so much more important than she was herself that people inevitably forgot her. (220) "Do you not believe in heaven, Mr. Fielding, may I ask?" she said, looking at him shyly. "I do not. Yet I believe honesty gets us there." (244) Truth is not truth in that exacting land unless there go with it kindness and more kindness and kindness again, unless the Word that was with God also is God. And the girl’s sacrifice-so creditable according to Western notions-was rightly rejected, because, though it came from her heart, it did not include her heart. (249) "I no longer want love," he said, supplying the word. "Nor do I. My experiences here have cured me. But I want others to want it." (267) He had no idea what he meant by "turn" and "return," but he often used words in pairs, for the sake of moral brightness. (270) "Why can’t we be friends now?" said the other, holding him affectionately. "It’s what I want. It’s what you want." But the horses didn’t want it--they swerved apart; the earth didn’t want it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single file; the temples, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, that came into view as they issued from the gap and saw Mau beneath; they didn’t want it, they said in their hundred voices, "Not, not yet," and the sky said, "No, not there." (331)

[soulmaking]

E. M. Forster, A Passage to India

[vox-anglosphere]

Two cultures collide in David Lean's masterpiece, 'A Passage to India'

[annmariemo]

At the dawn of the twentieth century, the peak of the British colonial era, a visiting English schoolteacher and her traveling companion express a desire to see a more authentic side of India. One of their new friends, a young Muslim doctor, arranges a trip to a natural wonder, the Marabar Caves—a disastrous excursion that concludes with the schoolteacher accusing the doctor of attempting to rape her. His arrest and trial divide an already troubled Indian community, bringing its racial and sexual tensions to a boil.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, A Passage to India reflects the country's rising nationalism. E. M. Forster's 1924 tale offers a stirring condemnation of the abuses of British colonialism. Written at the height of Forster's career, the book recaptures a heated political atmosphere and offers a foreigner's view of India as a place of mystery and exotic beauty, inhabited by a people unknowable to outsiders.

[adaptations-polls]

Which version of this do you prefer?

[theoscarsproject]

A Passage to India (1984). Cultural mistrust and false accusations doom a friendship in British colonial India between an Indian doctor, an Englishwoman engaged to marry a city magistrate, and an English educator.

Slowly paced and beautifully shot, this has all the hallmarks of David Lean's directorial style. He's a master of epics, and this is a richly told one, albeit one that's very flawed. I wish it was a little more critical of British imperialism, and I wish too it hadn't used brownface for critical Indian characters, but the central story between Dr Aziz and Adela is compelling, and Victor Banerjee and Judy Davis' performances are pretty terrific. 7.5/10.

[thefrankshow]

“I saw the moon in the Ganges.”

[emmathompsonegot]

Maybe this is the summer of EM Forster. I’ve only ever read a room with a view, but it kicks So much Ass. This is the summer of a lot of things at this point, but this seems like an achievable goal

[waltz-of-words]

“What does unhappiness matter when we are all unhappy together?”

- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India

[denbo66]

The Times Literary Supplement

June 7th 2024