|
|
A Passage to India For some reason, I've been thinking about British colonialism quite a
bit lately. Stay with me here; I'm not being ironic. This has nothing
to do with any recent geopolitical events or any deep affection for This might not sound significant to anyone but me, but I can't help but think this weird string of coincidences means something far greater. I briefly considered taking a vacation to India or South Africa, just to make sure everyone there was doing OK, but eventually decided to read A Passage to India instead, which is cheaper, less depressing and doesn't involve getting on a big scary airplane. I'm glad I did, and once again I have the 100 Books Project to thank for getting me to read a singularly beautiful book that I would have otherwise spent the rest of my life ignoring. At the risk of sacrificing what little literary cred I actually have, I'll admit that I didn't really expect to like this book. Forster's novel has everything to do with class and caste on the Indian subcontinent, a subject which Salman Rushdie pretty much owns. (And yes, Rushdie does indeed outshine Forster on a regular basis, but it's an unfair comparison. Rushdie outshines pretty much every English-language writer of the 20th century.) It's tempting to say something sprawling and authoritative here, like "E. M. Forster is the father of postcolonialism," but I have never been convinced that "postcolonialism" is anything more than a convenient term for non-white English-language writers, considered, against all common logic, as a whole. Forster was of course white, and A Passage to India was of course written and published while India was still a British colony, which perhaps renders the whole thing moot. But this novel not only provides a clear-headed argument for India's independence, it also seems to anticipate it, to forecast it with an odd accuracy. It could be argued that anybody could have foreseen eventual Indian independence in 1924, but no major power has ever surrendered a colony -- especially one so rich in resources and geopolitical advantage -- quite that easily, and Great Britain didn't show any signs of doing so in the 1920s. It's fairly obvious that Forster supported Indian independence, but it's also obvious that he had his doubts. The reader sees a bit of Forster in the character Fielding, the sympathetic school administrator whose friendship with the Indian doctor Aziz is effectively killed when native Indian and "Anglo-Indian" tensions in the town of Chandrapore come to a head. "Who do you want instead of the English? The Japanese?" asks a frustrated Fielding at the end of the book. Fielding speaks only out of hurt, of course; he's lamenting the inevitability and arbitrariness of history, not defending the British occupation. It's a deeply sad moment, and Forster handles it perfectly. One of the consequences of going through the 100 Books Project is the slow realization that not all of the books should be there. I felt that way about A Streetcar Named Desire, and Jessa has serious doubts about Contact and Goodbye, Columbus. The flipside, of course, is having an excuse to read books like this one -- sad, gorgeous works of art that have become so closely associated with high school required reading, they've lost a significant amount of appeal to the people who would love it the most. Forster was famous for his dictum "Only connect," but here he does something far greater. Forster definitely connects, but there's no "only" about it. He just makes it look easy. 
|
||||||||
