Prior to reading this novel, my experience with Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's writings was limited to the sole Merchant Ivory film I have ever seen, the tremendously boring A Room with a View, for which she was the screenwriter.
Maybe it did have good acting: it did feature Simon Callow, Maggie Smith, Daniel Day-Lewis, Denholm Elliott. But it was so very, very dull. As I recall, the film lasted most of the 1980's. Probably because of the sheer boredom, I never bothered watching another Merchant Ivory film: they all appeared to be very pretty movies where brilliant British thespians stood around, failing to do anything interesting.
So, I erased any expectations I might have when I began reading Heat and Dust, Jhabvala's slim 1975 novel. I found it to be an engrossing and beautifully written story of cultural seduction.
The novel tells two stories, nearly completely parallel to each other. In the novel's present day, the narrator, an independent young woman from England, travels to India to visit the site where her grandfather had lived. He had been a colonial, born and raised in India, but still completely western in attitude. The main draw for the narrator is the story, only whispered about among her relations, of her grandfather's first wife, who had deserted him to run off with a minor Indian prince. Scenes of the narrator adjusting to life in India--where the mundanities of daily life that had changed little over a half-century--alternate with scenes in 1923, with an India during the waning days of British rule.
I should point out that revealing that Olivia, the young wife in 1923, runs off with an Indian potentate at the book's climax hardly counts as a spoiler, as that information is revealed in the first two pages of the book. The plot is not so important as how the plot is spun.
The modern India that the narrator arrives at is a country that has been independent for a quarter-century, where the standard of living for the average person is much the same as it ever was: in hot weather, everyone sleeps outside, dysentery and other disease are universal, there are more folk remedies than modern medicine. Though the caste system is only referred to in passing, there is still an aversion to one's person being "polluted."
But there are also changes--the westerners still to be found are not colonial masters, but rather pupils--people flocking to the east in search of enlightenment, in whatever form it comes. Most of them are disillusioned by the realities of life in the subcontinent: enlightened India still has robbers and swindler--and most of all, disease, and the twin irritations that make up the books title.
At the same time, the modern Indians are confused, and not a little insulted by the westerners who have everything praising the life of people who have nothing. They may not have much in the way of material goods, but they certainly know when they are being patronized by people with a facile knowledge of eastern philosophy.
In 1923, there is no such fascination with Indian religion among the youth of Britain--though perhaps Olivia finds herself becoming fascinated with this country that is new to her--unlike her husband Douglas, she was not born in India, but England. Much, perhaps most of day-to-day life is frightful. The intemperate weather, the disease, and most of all, the isolation. The isolation is tempered when she comes to meet the Nawab of Khatm, the local prince. The Nawab is fascinated by Europe, or perhaps just the luxuries of European life. He is still inextricably Indian. It may not be his Indianness so much as his charismatic personality that draws Olivia to him.
Her husband refuses to socialize with the Nawab, for reasons he does not reveal. He compels Olivia to snub him, but soon she is seeing him regularly, without telling her husband. She goes so far as to refuse to go to the mountain retreat with the rest of the British wives during the excruciatingly hot months before monsoon season. She says it's because she cannot leave her husband--and she might not be lying. Her feelings for her husband may be as strong as those for the Nawab.
In modern times, the narrator follows the story by reading Olivia's letters, and by visiting the various places that Olivia, Douglas and the Nawab lived and walked fifty years previously. Like Olivia, she finds herself in an unexpectedly complicated situation--similar enough to Olivia's that one begins to wonder if she is trying to live on Olivia's behalf, or perhaps she's simply a very dedicated historian.
Ultimately, both Olivia and the narrator are seduced by the country itself. Olivia is overwhelmed by it, the narrator seems to take it more in stride, though perhaps there's a massive disillusionment yet to come.
Jhabvala finds beauty despite the squalor--sometimes within the squalor, although the squalor itself is never ignored: in a country with many people with dysentery, there's obviously going to be a lot of crap. I like her portrayal of Indians. They are not mythologized as noble savages--there are quite obviously going to be scoundrels among them. They are all very distinct in personality. She does an excellent job in portraying those personalities.
She does indulge in mockery of the hippies who come to India looking for enlightenment, but it's a gentle mockery, and she appears to have affection and even admiration for their drive.
It's a lovely novel with a gripping story, and one of the best novels I've read so far while on this journey through the Bookers.
Speaking of which, Heat and Dust was the ninth Booker Prize winning novel I've read so far out of 45 total, which means I'm one-fifth of the way through. To date, the best novel has been Troubles by J. G. Farrell. Heat and Dust would be the second-best, while Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur and Stanley Middleton's Holiday are also worth mentioning. The only two I really didn't like among the first nine are The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer and The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens.
Next up is Saville by David Storey.
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