Reviews

• Explore the 'real India'

  ２０世紀初頭の、英国植民地であった時代のインドが舞台。 支配する側（イギリス）と支配される側（インド）との対立を背景に、混沌と秩序、人間と宇宙（宗教）などの視点が混在している。 基本的にはイギリス人の傲慢、インド人の悲劇が描かれているが、その中に流れて両者の心は触れ合ったり遠ざかったりする。 根源的な人間の心のありようも、あるべき真の友情も、歴史的社会的制約の前に脆く崩れていく。 結末の "Why can't we be friends now? It's what I want. It's what you want." という問いかけに対する "No, not yet." " No, not there." が重く印象深く心に残る。 英文自体はそんなに難解ではないが、インドの社会制度、ヒンドゥー教やイスラム教とあいまう部分は何度読み返しても難しかった。

• インドへ旅立つときには

  今からインドへ旅行に行くとしたら、どうしたらいいと思う？言ってみて。私は一度あるのよ。だからこうしたらと方法が見つかる。何とかしたら、すごいことよ。やってみて。私のことは何でも価値がある。

• 確かに名作だけど、最後に読むべき本です。

  henry jamesと同じくらいforsterほど日本人には理解できない作家はいないのかもしれません。私もインド在住の時に、昔の新潮文庫版で読み始めようとしたのですが、彼の世界の持つ雰囲気がまったくわからずに（小学生高学年にわかるはずもないけど）、また周りのインドの現実との乖離のためか、すぐ投げ出してしまいました。その後も、何度か挑戦しましたが、そのたびに挫折し、やっと読み終えたのは、３０年後、英文で彼の他の主要な作品をほとんど読み終えた後でした。つまりfosterが目的としているのはインドの現実の描写ではなく、イギリス人とその社会なのです。それも彼が一生涯なじめなかったヴィクトリア時代のモラルを体現したイギリス人の類型への、彼の異議申し立てが、彼の作品を貫くモティーフなのです。このイギリス人を植民地時代のＩＣＳ官僚としてインドの舞台に置き、そこに嫁いできた女性が新しい風土との間で引き起こす混乱、そしてその結果として浮き彫りにされるであろうイギリス人社会の偽善を描くのが、forsterの狙いです。最後の有名な場面も、インド人との対話という形態をとっていますが、本質はあくまでもイギリス人の間の対話だと思います。登場するインド人もイスラム教徒を意図的に中心としており、ここにもforsterなりの、皮肉な仕掛けが施されています。彼は、マハラジャの家庭教師をしてインドに滞在したこともあり、この少数のイギリス人を中心として回るこの小さなインドの町の描写は、挑発的です。この作品は、他の多くの作家の作品のインスピレーションの基となった作品でもあります。ぜひ挑戦してみてください。

• Alles Gut

  Alles Gut

• Why could Professor Godpole not love the stone?

  Over 50 years ago, I was a 17-year-old first year student enrolled in a physical science program at university. The university in its wisdom required me to take and pass an introductory course in English literature. One of the assigned texts was “A Passage to India”. I still recall some of the discussion that the professor tried to lead in that very large lecture hall with the mass of 17 and 18-year-old naïve students. One of the topics that some of the better students and he brought up for discussion was “Why could Professor Godbole not love the stone?” This was a question that puzzled me then and bothered me over the 50 years since. The novel’s answer comes in the last long sentence: “…they said in their hundred voices, ‘No, not yet’ and the sky said ‘No, not there’”. I didn’t realize all those years ago that the answer to the question would mean an understanding of the meaning of the word ’love’. Godbole is dancing as part of a religious ceremony celebrating the birth of the god ‘Krishna’. The book is et in India during the time of the British Raj. As such India is a meeting place for the peoples of different cultures: Eastern and Western, Christian, Muslim, and Hindu, differing classes…. The novel explores the question of the suspicion and animus that is created by the interaction of people and especially between people of cultures and clashes. It explores just what can be meant by expressions such as “God is love”. What is love in that it is the substance of God? differing If God or gods can love all creation why cannot Godbole love the stone. Forster indicates that Godbole cannot love the stone because he can regard it only as a logical rational operation. Love is a unity among all things and Godbole is not ready for that and as the rest of the novel replies this is applicable to all humanity. It is not ready - “…they said in their hundred voices, ‘No, not yet’ and the sky said ‘No, not there’”. “A Passage to India” is a profound novel. I can understand now why it was included in that introductory course. I think I can also understand why I was not ready to understand it then. It is a gripping, intense book. I highly recommend it.

• Superb Portait of Pre-Independence India

  Published over one hundred years ago, this novel retains a powerful immediacy. It dissects the tensions and intractability of colonial life, especially the relationships between governors and governed with elegance and subtlety. Forster's ability to portray through his characters and the central incident of the Marabar caves the conflicting attitudes and perceptions of those caught up in the existential realities of pre-independence India is masterful. It is rightly considered one of the great novels of the Twentieth Century. ,

• Rites of Passage

  E. M Forster was born in England in 1879 and died in 1970. As a child, he inherited enough money from his great aunt to travel and live as a writer after attending public school and King's College, Cambridge. His interest in writing was influenced at Cambridge by membership in a discussion society called the Apostles that included a number of intellectuals such as John Maynard Keynes and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Forster maintained a loose association with the group during the early 1910s and 1920s as it added members and became known as the Bloomsbury Group. The Group was composed of a variety of creative individuals including writers of fiction. Virginia Woolf was an active member. After leaving Cambridge, Forster traveled with his mother extensively in Europe where he developed ideas for subsequent novels including: A Room With A View , Where Angels Fear to Tread , and Howards End . For years, he maintained a privacy regarding his homosexual identity and behavior understanding that it would limit his freedom to publish his work. In the early 1920s, Forster worked in India as the private secretary for a Maharaja during the period of the British Raj. The Raj was a time of occupation of India by British diplomats and soldiers who imposed some controlled structure on the economic and legal system of the largely disparate states within the country ruled loosely by a monarchy. After returning to London from India, Forster published A Passage to India in 1924 based on his experiences during the period when British influence was waning and an Indian Independence movement was developing. The novel is an interesting character study involving structure opposed to substance, self-control over impulse, conformity versus individual freedom, restriction of thought rather than tolerance, and arbitrary racial discrimination limiting open enculturation. There are several characters described in stereotypical ways with representatives of the British ruling and middle classes in the Raj and Hindu, "Moslem", and royal leaders within Indian society. These descriptions set the stage for the interaction of four main characters that illustrate the complexity of two cultures seemingly unyielding in their Western versus Eastern world views. In the novel the reader's attention is focused on the interactions and perceptions of four main characters: Dr. Aziz, Miss Adela Quested, Cyril Fielding, and Mrs. Moore: Dr. Aziz is an Indian physician who works at a British hospital. He is a Muslim man strongly influenced by his religion but intellectually active in his beliefs and impulsive in his emotions and actions. He is tolerant of differences in cultures within his country and the strained relationship between Indians and the British. The tolerance, however is largely on the surface, and when his religious beliefs and secular freedom are threatened by the actions of the Raj, he is quick to feel strong resentment. Adela Quested is a young British teacher who has traveled to India to see if she and a British magistrate are compatible for marriage. Like Dr. Aziz, Adela seems outwardly open to new experiences. She seems to be tolerant in learning about the exotic Eastern culture of India. The reader sees that she is actually intolerant and frightened but fancies herself an enlightened woman willing to step beyond the conventions of her British character. Adela regresses to her British comfort zone in a panic when confronted with the mysterious and unstructured life of India. Cyril Fielding is a teacher at a small British college for Indian citizens. Now in his early middle age, the unmarried administrator has maintained his life of personal intellectual and emotional freedom by keeping a low profile within the British foreign service system and maintaining an open attitude about British and Indian tension during the Raj. He seems to be more willing to understand the cultural differences between West and East than Adela because he has maintained a personal code of ethics largely hidden from both the British and Indian people in the rural district. He is a clever individual who has assumed a role that conforms minimally to the expectations of each culture. He is insightful and aware that his surface behavior is accepted with reservations by both groups and is content to have independence in the deep structure of his personality. Although Fielding is not an avowed homosexual, the reader gains some interesting indications from the character of Forster's private life. Unlike the author, Fielding returns to England, marries a very British woman, and returns to India a more structured man but largely conflicted in his hidden personal identification. Mrs. Moore is an elderly British widower who has accompanied Adela during the trip from England to India. She is the mother of the British magistrate that the younger woman has come to visit. Mrs. Moore is a lifelong British subject who has reached the endpoint of caring, having lived her life for her children with a feminine stiff upper lip. In somewhat delicate health, the trip has been a major sacrifice for Mrs. Moore, but she has done her escort duty. Because of her end of life situation and active life review, she is open to the spiritual aspect of Indian life that is so different from her British structured religious beliefs. Unlike Adela, Mrs. Moore is willing to open herself to Eastern thoughts and beliefs with a substantial lowering of psychological defenses. She seeks answers to the question, what is the meaning of her life of service to her family that cost her own freedom and dignity? Specifically, when can she stop taking responsibility for others and come to some meaningful resolution of the doubts about her life decisions? When faced with negative conclusions during her life review, she embraces a delusion of a tolerable, structured life and begins a journey back to her British home. I highly recommend this novel (Forster's last published work of fiction) for readers who want to examine their own depth of understanding of life and their tolerance of the lives of others in chaotic times. An interesting experience I had reading the novel was an illusive desire to live during the early decades of the 20th Century in India to see how I would react personally to a rapidly changing world perspective. Of course, parallel, dramatic cultural challenges exist in the U. S. today, but perhaps we are too close in time to the effects of the challenges to develop the comprehensive point of view presented in A Passage to India.

• A classic

  A classic

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