My Nine Lives: Chapters of a Possible Past

by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

For her first novel in more than nine years, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has written a most unusual book in a career of distinctive and unique accomplishments. My Nine Lives is 'Chapters of a Possible Past', as the subtitle declares. It is, as the author has commented, a book filled with "invented memories." Nine vignettes are linked to portray a rich life filled with searching, from London to Delhi, from Hollywood to New York. Each chapter gathers a different cast of characters, some new and some vaguely familiar, and the linked assembly is as exciting and illuminating as an artist’s first show at a Soho gallery or a new play at the Studio Theater.

After seventeen books, now in her 77th year, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala takes herself on as a subject, and the life she may have or may have wished to live. My Nine Lives is a moving and intriguing book of invention and memory.

Genres: Fiction, India

288 pages, Paperback

First published April 29, 2004

About the author

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was a British and American novelist and screenwriter. She is best known for her collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions, made up of film director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant.
In 1951, she married Indian architect Cyrus Jhabvala and moved to New Delhi. She began then to elaborate her experiences in India and wrote novels and tales on Indian subjects. She wrote a dozen novels, 23 screenplays, and eight collections of short stories and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Diplomatic Service and Overseas List of the 1998 New Years Honours and granted a joint fellowship by BAFTA in 2002 with Ivory and Merchant. She is the only person to have won both a Booker Prize and an Oscar.

Reviews

[Lyn Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

The publisher’s blurb says this:

For her first novel in more than nine years, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has written a most unusual book in a career of distinctive and unique accomplishments. My Nine Lives is “Chapters of a Possible Past,” as the subtitle declares. It is, as the author has commented, a book filled with “invented memories.” Nine vignettes are linked to portray a rich life filled with searching, from London to Delhi, from Hollywood to New York. Each chapter gathers a different cast of characters, some new and some vaguely familiar, and the linked assembly is as exciting and illuminating as an artist’s first show at a Soho gallery or a new play at the Studio Theater. After seventeen books, now in her 77th year, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala takes on as her subject herself, the life she may have or may have wished to live.


Right at the start, Jhabvala herself says that each story is potentially autobiographical, and while the principal character in all of them has a different name, lives in a different place and has a different sort of life, they could all be part of her own invented past. She frees her parents from this identification, though fragments of them may appear.

I hadn’t realised till I read this and looked up Jabhvala on wonderful Wikipedia that her own background is culturally complex and, knowing this now, I can see how it has influenced all her writing. She was born in Germany of Polish-Jewish parents, lived in England and was educated there, married Indian architect Cyrus Jabhvala and lived in India for 24 years. She then lived in New York until her death, and had both US and British citizenship..

I quite often think of lives as having a shape, and the shape of every life changes with time. The lives of all her characters in these nine stories seem to have warped shapes, something like compressed amoeba, which flow and change in unusual ways, in response to changes in their environment.
https://www.arcella.nl/wp-content/ima...

Amoeba don’t have emotional lives, at least I assume that’s the case. Jhabvala’s characters certainly do. They are all complicated. No relationships are straightforward and I can’t remember any that feel happy.

Vanessa Thorpe, in her 2004 Guardian review wrote:

‘Predictably, the problem of handling identity when there are so many competing loyalties has been the habitual theme of her work. ….
The nine lives described range from women who feel emotionally pulled towards India, to those who have rejected it, from those who have embraced their mixed heritage, to those who are still struggling to accommodate it. Repeatedly, whether in New York, London or India, an array of influential Middle European relatives shapes the central characters' sense of self.’

[Daren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nine short stories, each with fairly depressing themes, set across India, America and England. They are fiction, but apparently contain autobiographical threads.

They varied in enjoyment for me - some were 1 star, and I skimmed the last few pages of them, others I enjoyed much more (maybe 4 stars for one, 3 for others), but ultimately I didn't find them gripping or un-put-downable.

I probably favoured the India based stories, but that is typical of my reading interests over the UK or USA.

Overall it probably averages out to a fairly disappointing 2.5 stars, which I would have to round down.

[Marlee Pinsker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can you write about your own life without dragging all your people into it? Perhaps that was Jhabvala's motivation....she had the same character saying "I" but all the names were different and even the family constellations changed. It was fascinating to find the similarities, though, and think that this must have been her life: certain character traits were continued and echoed from one set of parents to another...there was often a brother. The reader wasn't sure it was all about Jhabvala, but whatever it was, it was interesting to read about.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It is variations on a theme that reminded me of the explorations of the sixties when people were trying to reinvent the family. The writer moves through the stories somewhat immune, which offered comfort, since safety nets were missing. Her writing seems effortless, her dialog natural. I want to read more of her.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't read Ruth Prawer Jhabvala for over 20 years, but I used to be a huge fan. This was as beautifully written as her novels, and it was interesting to find the common threads in the stories as perhaps these are the author's true biography. All of the stories were dark, especially in the seeming powerlessness of so many of the female characters.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of stories that resemble a memoir. True in spirit, if not fact. Interesting.

[NinaCD · Rating 4 out of 5]

Touches on themes of person and place-- who you are really is defined by where you are. Thematically discusses immigration in various lights-- immigrants who never assimilate versus those who do.

[BookNerdTV · Rating 1 out of 5]

I will admit I only read the first three stories. The stories generally seemed to revolve around the same kind of woman; of Eastern European descent, having a melancholy existence, living on the remaining wealth of her immgrant father, with no direction or purpose. Perhaps it is the same women we're reading about but in parallel universes...or not. Reading the first three stories confirmed for me I did not care about a single person in any of the them. With six more to go I decided to cut my losses, figuring my past experience with this collection was likely accurate predictor of future dissatisfaction with the remaining stories.

The book is well-written, just remarkably uninteresting.

[Pascale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although most of these stories are told from the point of view of a moderately attractive woman, often in thrall to a problematic older man, they do not exactly constitute variations on a theme. Quite frankly, I found them a bit too similar to keep clearly apart in my mind, yet not connected enough to amount to a novel in stories. This said, like most of what I've read of hers, this book contains a lot of sharp observations about power relations between people. For my money, Jhabvala would have been better advised to sacrifice some of these stories and build up 3 or 4 into novellas. A wealth of excellent material, not exploited in the best possible way.

[Thistles and Whistles · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is all about dysfunctional family dynamics. Written from the first person POV, there isn't really any hook that grabs at you. I abandoned it after the first two stories which seemed similar to each other.

[Beatrice · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well-written but extremely depressing book. The concept is of having nine possible lives but each ends in a very unsuccessful and sad way.

[Michal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before reading this book, I had read everything by this author several times. She is a beautiful, subtle writer with acute powers of observation, and in complete command of the language. In her earlier books, she kept her own background as a German-Jewish refugee from the Nazis deep in the background, if it is present at all. But in this book, I was startled to find it as a major theme, with all of its sorrow and pathos. She must have had her reasons for keeping it under wraps until now, and I'm sure they were very good ones. This is an author near the end of her life, in an elegiac mood, and at the height of her powers. Several of the stories are absolute masterpieces.

[Paakhi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good, fast-paced book and can get you out of a reading slump. The nine stories narrated via Ruth's "would have been" personalities are both greatly unique and nostalgic of each other. The most notable similarity amongst all of her nine possible lives are the way that each of them circles around a man, portrayed brighter and more powerful than her own character. This does take away from the otherwise very simple and rather holistic way of looking at how our different lives would have still been similar in many ways.

[Virginia · Rating 2 out of 5]

The nine lives depicted in this book didn’t grab me. Written in the first person, the narrators were uniformly phlegmatic. The passions described were strangely passionless. This is a well-written book but nonetheless I was not engaged.

[Ashleigh · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bro zero stars. It was just soooo boring. Took me literally 4 months to finish.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing is exceptional. The images, and particularly the characters, the author created linger in the mind. My one complaint is the author’s nine lives are seen through the prism of her relationships with men. While the male characters in each story are sharply defined , the main female character ( that supposedly represents the author) takes a lesser role. Some of the stories seemed repetitive for this reason. Still, worth reading for the writing alone.

[Gerrigray · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the writing but I should have read read something else by this author. Each story is interesting, but I prefer novels which explorer lives as they are intwined. Each of these"lives" was too separate even though the author describes them as "chapters of a possible past. " The stories take place in both the U.S. and India.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the earlier stories seem very dry and difficult to finish. I did enjoy "Springlake" as well as the last 3 stories...although the narrative voice is still often very clinical and distant, the material within those later pieces was more interesting to me.

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Her glimpses of India drew me into this book, which I thoroughly enjoyed until the stories left India and reconvened in the southern united states.

[Lauren · Rating 1 out of 5]

For me the stories really seemed to drag, this is the first book I haven't bothered to finish.

[Glennis]

Another enjoyable exploration of character.

[Natasa Tovornik · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting short stories of another world. it was like a journey to me. different style, but I enjoyed reading it.

[Sweetmongoose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating way to write an "autobiography" (in fiction). I love the way stories resonate with each other. First and last stories make an astounding circle. Brilliant. Moving. Provocative.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each chapter is a different life yet tells a story.

[Anneb]

Beautiful writing but I tired of the repetition - there's only so many fictionalized versions of a variation of lives lived one can be bothered with.