Passage to India (Forster)

A Passage to India
E.M. Forster, 1924
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
372 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780151711413>


Summary
A New York Times Book of the Century

Two women, Mrs. Moore and Adela Quested, her future daughter-in-law, arrive in India during the British Raj (the rule). They meet and befriend a young Indian Muslim, Dr. Aziz, to whom they express a desire to see the real India, not the one lived behind the walls of the British clubs and compounds. Aziz arranges an expedition to visit the famous Marabar caves. But a mysterious incident in one of the caves, involving Adela, leads to a drama that divides the British and Indian communities in anger, distrust, and fear.

Forsters great novel brings to life all the dangers and misunderstandings of colonialism but, as Forster himself wrote, the story is about something wider than politics, about the search of the human race for a more lasting home, about the universe as embodied in the Indian earth and the Indian sky, about the horror lurking in the Marabar Caves. (Adapted from the Oxford University Press edition.)

Among the greatest novels of the twentieth century and the basis for director David Lean’s Academy Award-winning film, A Passage to India tells of the clash of cultures in British India after the turn of the century. In exquisite prose, Forster reveals the menace that lurks just beneath the surface of ordinary life, as a common misunderstanding erupts into a devastating affair. (From the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt edition.)