The Far Cry

by Emma Smith

A beautifully written 1949 novel about a young girl's passage to India.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, India, Historical Fiction, British Literature, 20th Century, Novels

344 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1949

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

EMMA SMITH was born in Cornwall in 1923 and was privately educated. In 1939 she took her first job in the Records Department of the War Office before volunteering for work on the canals; this gave her the material for Maidens' Trip (1948), which won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize. She spent the winter of 1946-7 with a documentary film unit in India and then lived in Paris and wrote The Far Cry (1949), awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the best novel of the year in English. In 1951 Emma Smith married and had two children. After her husband's death in 1957 she went to live in rural Wales; she then published very successful children's books, short stories (one of which was runner-up in the 1951 Observer short story competition that launched the winner, Muriel Spark, on her career) and, in 1978, her novel The Opportunity of a Lifetime. Since 1980 she has lived in Putney in south-west London.

Note: Information taken from Persephone Press site: http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/page...

Reviews

[Diane Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although Megan and I have been great friends for a while now, we had never done a one-on-one buddy read. We changed that with this Persephone novel, given that we are both such fans of this publisher. It proved to be a delight, at least on my part. How nice to have a like-minded and erudite person to share thoughts with.

Teresa is a 14 year old unwanted, unattractive teen-ager who has erected barriers in her life to protect herself from hurt. She's been shunted around and taken care of but never cared for. Her mother abandoned her and went off to America, leaving her with a selfish, narcissistic father, who puts her in boarding school and sends her to an aunt in between times.
When he decides to take her to a half-sister in India who lives on a tea plantation, the world begins to open up for her. The 2 week ocean voyage was an interlude of sorts, but the sights and smells and sheer chaos of Bombay, then Calcutta, left her excited and stimulated like never before. Add in a growing friendship with Miss Spooner, an older spinster who had been a bunkmate on the ship over, and you have the beginnings of a new life.

But once they go inland to the tea plantation, things start to spiral. Her sister turns out to be a cold, selfish, unhappy woman who doesn't want either her father or her sister, or her husband, as it turns out. That's as far as I'll go in a recap, because several things occur in the latter part of the novel that change things again.

The descriptions of India and it's people are magnificent, as the author had a job in her youth that took her there and she spent all her spare time writing her impressions in a diary. She used those to great affect in writing this novel several years later. My 4 star rating is because it bogged down a bit at the tea plantation, but the ending saved it for me. That, and the reoccurring character of Miss Spooner, a wonderful woman who had me wishing that Emma Smith had seen fit fit to give her a novel of her own instead of a bit part in this one. Every teen-ager should have someone like her in their life.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written and full of interesting characters and settings. Very, very enjoyable.

[Megan Gibbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I started The Far Cry, I had a notion of where it was heading, and I assumed I was going to be reading a coming of age story surrounding Teresa, a socially awkward 14 year old. But this is not that kind of blossoming out, transformative story.

Instead, we have a closely observed character analysis of a father and daughter being flung together on their voyage from England to India first by ship and then by train, as they travel to the home of Teresa’s married half sister. Half the book in-fact is focussed on this journey and the relationship that develops between Mr Digby and Teresa, that borders on hostility most of time, but also a respect and unifying bond emerges, that unites them and it is this that Teresa learns to cherish later on in life. Along the way some interesting characters emerge, including an elderly spinster, named Mrs Spooner. No one else seemed to notice the qualities in Mrs Spooner’s self assurance and capabilities, except for Teresa and when we meet her towards the end of novel, her presence transforms the climax of this little story into one of hope for Teresa. I have not mentioned much about what happens when Mr Digby and Teresa arrive in India, this is where the book seemed to loose its way, and there were times I wondered if the author had a plan or had just got bored with the story. However the ending completely redeems itself and the fact that it was not a perfect read for me makes it an interesting book to analyse. 3.5 stars because the slight midway lapse.

This is the third buddy read I have done this year, but my first with my dear friend Diane. I find I always remember these books the longest, so I really do feel that I have been on an epic voyage with both Teresa and Diane this week, and it was an absolute privilege to be on board😊

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

In September 1946 23-year-old Emma Smith set sail for India, to work as an assistant with a documentary unit making films about tea gardens in Assam. She was dazzled by India ...

‘I went down the gangplank at Bombay, and India burst upon me with the force of an explosion.’

... and she wrote down as much as she could about her experiences because she so wanted to pin down the wonder of it all.

A few years later she would use what she remembered and what she wrote as the foundation for a wonderful, wonderful novel that would go on to with the James Tate Black Award for 1949

'The Far Cry' tells the story of 14-year old Teresa Digby. She's an introspective and rather award child, and I think it's fair to say that she is what her circumstances made her. When her parents' marriage broke down her mother left her to go to America and her father left her for his sister to bring up. Teresa's aunt wasn't unkind, she was bringing her up as well as she could, but she lacked warmth and she lacked empathy.

When he learned that his wife was returning to England, and that she wanted to see her daughter, Mr Digby decided that he would take her to India, to visit his daughter from an earlier marriage, who was married to a tea planter. It wasn't that he was interested in his daughter, it was just that he didn't want his wife to have her.

He was a self-absorbed, dull-witted man who could never be the man he wanted to be or have the roles in life he wanted to play, but who would never acknowledge that, even to himself.

It's telling that he remains Mr Digby from his first appearance to his last,

His sister knew his weaknesses, knew what he was lacking, but she believed that she had played her part and it was time for him to play his.

"He polished off this diplomacy and his visit with a kiss that landed haphazard on the nearest part of her face, and so left. Such kisses are interesting. For it might be thought that lips which had once, so any years before given off those dark flames of roses must always at a touch bestow a scent, the merest whiff, a pot-pourri of passion. But no, nothing like it."

The relationship between between father and daughter is awkward, they are uncomfortable with each other. They don't know each other, they don't particularly want to know each other. He disdained her awkwardness as she dealt with so much that was unfamiliar - getting in and out of taxis, eating in restaurants, holding on to things like gloves and tickets - but she struggled through, and she came to realise that in attaching so much importance to such things and in not understanding how new and strange things must be for her it was her father who was lacking.

"Teresa, who had watched defeat and then recovery first line and then illuminate his face, observed the breach in his armour: he was old, and therefore weak. And she was young, with her strength growing. Age shook him as fiercely as he had yesterday shaken her in the street. Thoughtfully she ate her breakfast. That she had seen his weakness and was bound to take advantage of it was a tragedy, and a tragedy that the only alternative to his conquering her seemed to be for her to conquer him."

When they set sail for India Teresa find a role and her confidence grows a little more. She helps with young children, and she formed a tentative friendship with Miss Spooner, an elderly spinster who was travelling to visit her sister. Her father lacks a role, and is left to worry over mosquito nets and play the occasional game of piquet.

In India though the story that had played out in London would play out again. Teresa was overwhelmed and that made her awkward, leaving his father to organise and mange their progress. He was ineffectual, and so Teresa stepped forward, with the interest in the strange new world they were encountering.

The early pages of this novel were an intriguing character study, so well done that even seemingly unsympathetic characters became interesting, but in India there would much more. Through Teresa's eyes I saw the wonders of India, and I was as smitten as she was and as Emma Smith had been. She caught so many impressions so very, very well.

"Teresa's head was full of sound and colour. Her head was a receptacle for tumbled rags of impression, rags torn from exotic garments that could never be pieced entirely together again; but the rags were better."

The sea voyage, the journey though India, the feelings of strangers in a strange land are caught perfectly; every detail, every description feels so right.

In Assam Teresa meets the older half-sister her father adores.

Ruth is a beauty, she had been told that since she was a child, but her tragedy was that she was so caught up in presenting that image to the world, that she had lost the woman she really was. Edwin, her husband adored her, she wanted to tell him how she really felt, but she lacked the courage to tarnish the façade she had worked so hard to create.

It's a compelling, heart-breaking, horribly believable portrait.

The presence of her father and her half-sister unsettles Ruth's world; Teresa didn't realise, she was caught up with new experiences and impressions.

There was a tragedy and Ruth thought that it might offer her an escape. Maybe it did ....

Sadness and hopefulness mingle in the end of this story

There is so much that makes it special.

Smith’s prose really is gorgeous. It's distinctive, it's right, and the descriptions so lovely and they catch every sensation. She follows the journey and she manages the both the day-to-day and the set pieces wonderfully well.

“Lights, no bigger than the candles on a Christmas cake, fringed every balcony, every wall, every stall, every hovel, a multitude of tiny red flames flickering alive in the huge dark night. They were still being lit: glistening haunches bent forward, hands poured a trickle of oil into saucers…The warm air was soft with sorrow. They trod among the muddy unseen ashes of the dead. Widows lay along the slushy steps, prostrate in grief, or crouched forward silently setting afloat their candles in little boats of tin the size and shape of withered leaves.”

The characters and relationships are captured beautifully; with the understanding and the empathy that they lack.

The direction that the plot takes is unpredictable; it isn't contrived, it twists and turns as life does,

And everything works together beautifully, in this profound story of people alive in the world.

"India went on and on, on and on, as though it had no end, as though it had no beginning, as though seas and shores and other continents were only part of a feverish dream, as though this was the whole world and nothing exited beyond it; a world fat and dry on whose immense surface, far apart from one another, dwelt men and their beasts, living and dying together, generation after generation."

[Elena Sala · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE FAR CRY (1949) is the story of Teresa, an unhappy young English girl who traveled to India with her father, Mr Digby.

When Mr. Digby’s ex wife returns from America, after she divorced her second husband, he’s certain that she’s coming to take their daughter, Teresa, away from him. In a state of panic, he pulls her out of school in order to go to India, where Mr. Digby’s other daughter from a previous marriage, Ruth, lives with her husband. The novel’s progress takes its reader on the extremely long boat journey out to India; to Bombay; then to Calcutta; and finally, to Assam near the Naga hills, where Ruth’s husband, Edwin, is a tea planter.

Teresa's father has never been attached to his daughter in any way so this decision of taking her all the way to India is rather surprising, to say the least. Teresa is an introverted and sullen teenager. He knows that she never had a caring, feminine figure to look after her, and he's never spent much time with her either, however, he makes no effort to relate to her during the trip although they spent such a long time together.

THE FAR CRY is a charming, uplifting novel about Teresa and her father's long voyage and their experiences once they arrive in a country that is far different than what either of them had expected. Though initially Teresa seems to be an unlikable character, in India she seems to blossom. Teresa surprises the reader with her capacity of observation, her empathy and intelligence. So this is the story of a long journey across a fascinating landscape described in loving detail and a story of emotional growth, of a profound inner transformation that comes as a result of embracing all the new things this radical experience had to offer.

[Vartika · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book about a young English girl's passage to India at the Persephone bookshop in Bath, and thought it might make for interesting reading on my own journey back home.

Drawing on the diaries Smith kept during her own visit to India (as an assistant director for a documentary on Assamese tea plantations), The Far Cry is primarily a character study of fourteen-year-old Teresa and the subtle ways in which she comes of age in her voyage out to see a different world. At the same time, it read to me like a study, in miniature, of colonial attitudes towards the end of the Second World War, with each member of the cast representing a certain kind of Briton: the white supremacist who believes Indians to be an ugly, inferior race in service of the empire; the average provincial English patriarch who internalises 'traditional values' and swallows/ follows imperial propaganda without much critical thought in order to feel like a 'sahib'; the tea planter who has a slightly more nuanced but ever-so-patronising view of the imperial land and its subjects; the unhappy colonial wife with her distaste for the foreign land and yearning for the society 'back home'; and, of course, the elderly spinster who challenges propriety within prescribed notions of White femininity with her independence. Amidst this company, young Teresa seems to represent the possibilities for country developing a new sort of relationship with India, one that sees it as a land of wonder (eat, pray, love) rather than material glory or profit.

While I did rather enjoy the manner in which Smith sketches out these characters and explores their psychic landscapes, I was not taken with the plot at all. Smith's writing and her descriptions of India are quite agreeable on the sentence level – beautiful, even – but the drama of this novel is an exaggerated comedy of errors with contrivances that felt more suited to a (bad) Bollywood movie than the "small masterpiece" that writer Susan Hill calls it in her afterword. Thought the tense relationship between Teresa and her father was well-written, I found the events that set their journey to India into motion rather melodramatic, and the various turns and coincidences that came along did not endear me to the story. The pacing was awkward, and gave the impression of this being two entirely separate narratives stitched together with the most unsatisfactory of threads.

Although Smith's writing does away with the overt racism of E.M. Forster's A Passage to India, this book is still very evidently written from, and for, the English gaze. And while Smith's outlook is laced with the ethos of Women's Lib, she falls quite short of doing her female characters any justice. For me, one of the few moments of genuine (de)light in the book lay in a single sentence about the character Sam, an Indian bearer at a hotel in Bombay who puts on the pose of a sahib and immediately knows that anything he does or say in that moment would carry weight and consequence.

Overall, I found this novel rather underdeveloped, contrary to what the big critics and the (white) reviewers on this site proclaim it to be. Smith is adept at bringing her characters to life in the way she writes of their emotional states, foibles, and interpersonal tensions, but she is far too quick to kill them off (quite literally) for the sake of a neat narrative resolution. It's not that neat, though: there is an imbalance between showing and telling in the prose, with neither being done quite effectively, and I've read novels far more dramatic than this that have nonetheless managed to wrap up well and leave a meaningful mark. The Far Cry was, well, a far cry from having accomplished any such thing, at least in my reading experience, and I found it less than compelling. Such a shame, too, as I really was prepared to adore it.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Teresa Digby lives a fairly ordinary English life; she is fourteen, going to boarding school and living with her aunt, because her father and mother are separated. When her father discovers that her mother is about to return from America to visit Teresa, he impetuously decides to escape by taking Teresa all the way to India, to the tea plantation where her half-sister Ruth lives with her husband, Edwin. Teresa has always felt out of place in England; she feels oddly at home in India, yet there are still conflicts which must be resolved, between Teresa and her father, Teresa and Ruth, Ruth and Edwin.

This is an unusual book and not easy to write up. The characters are vivid and often not very likable, yet Smith shows their thoughts and emotions with such perspicuity that I found them engaging even when I didn't like them.

I thought the book's greatest strength was in its intensely sensual portrayal of its environment, from the first sentence ("The birds came and picked holes in the sleeping ears of Teresa Digby.") through the noisy, colorful shipboard journey and on into noisy, colorful India, which so entrances Teresa. Really, it was especially the aural quality of the writing that I found fascinating: Teresa wakened by bird noises, the children shrieking on the ship, the "inhumanly hopeless" scream of a peacock. The Far Cry is a perfect title, thinking about it.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book begins by introducing us to a group of unlikeable characters-14-year old Teresa Digby, her father and aunt- in England. Teresa and her father soon set sail for India for what appears to be the flimsiest of reasons. When they arrive in Bombay, the story and writing became pure magic for me.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite all the critics who say how developed, how sophisticated this book is, I just found it quite... basic? amaturish? naive? I felt it simply was trying too hard. I also felt that there were two very separate parts to the novel- one was a developement/constant description of the characters thoughts and feeling (more complaints about this later) and woven (not very well) between these descriptions were whole passages about Indian activities that seemed simply lifted from the travel diaries Smith says she kept. The two components didn't seem to be merged at all well!

And now my thoughts on the characters themselves- I found them pretty two dimensional, especially the 'baddy'/pompous git Mr Digby. Teresa was a pretty clear Mary Sue (despite not really being liked by many people, apart from those who could see how pure and simply charming she was.) I felt really sorry for Ruth, who Smith seemed to set up as a counterpoint to Teresa's 'genuiness,' making her shallow and false... she was actually the character I connected most with and who I wanted to learn more about, but there was no chance for learning what she was like, only for being told by Smith/the narrator, who was very, very annoyingly omniscient and insisted on telling what every single person thought at a given time... I also ended up feeling that Ruth was betrayed by the author, she had a lightning moment of clarity and love- then bam, no more chance of that (I won't say any more so I won't spoil it).

So basically, this book and I didn't gel! But despite that it was still an OK read, even if part of the reason for that was me being to complain about it and pin point what I thought was wrong a lot!

I'm wavering between 2 & 3 stars, I'll think about it!

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an example of the author's fine writing, here is a passage describing a young daughter's sorrow at her father's rare effort to forge a relationship with her. "She saw the gap between them more clearly than before, realized how wide it was, and for the first time was saddened by it rather than despairing. However much they might feel about it in the dark, their hands would always miss. ...He was stone to her, and she would always bruise herself against him."

This is a tale mainly of a young girl, raised largely by her father and aunt who do not understand her. Off to India with her father she goes and from that time on, it sets forth the opening up of her personality and her increasing confidence in her own abilities. She forges unlikely and rewarding relationships. But it is much more than that with unforgettable character sketches and the magic of India come to life as well.

[Bill Kupersmith · Rating 5 out of 5]

The thought of Emma Smith continues to haunt me. She is less than 20 years older than me & I keep imagining that had we met when I was in England in my 20s we might have been friends. But I’d not known she existed till a couple of years ago when I saw a review of her memoir As Green as Grass in the Speccie & then almost miraculously found a copy on the uni new book shelf & I was totally captivated by the youthful Emma in her teens & 20s in England & on a trip to India immediately after the war as the most junior person & only woman on a documentary film crew. Since reading Green as Grass I’ve been making desultory progress with a reprint of Maiden’s Trip, an account of her service as a boater on the Grand Union Canal during the war. I love that book - the way the girls lived & ate & dressed on the narrow boats reminds me so much of my ocean racing days & it is a model for how to organise a memoir that doesn’t really have a plot (must get back to writing my own about my year as a chaplain resident @ the medical centre). So when I discovered her novel The Far Cry had been reprinted in England, I ordered a copy. Whilst I have taken a year to read it, I have quite loved it; the slow pace has been part of its charm. The Far Cry has as easy a plot to summarise as Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse - & just as impossible. Teresa Digby, a 14 year old English schoolgirl, is taken by her eccentric father on a passage by steamer from Southampton to Bombay, & from thence they travel by railway to Calcutta & then on to Assam, where they are to visit Teresa’s half-sister Ruth, who is married to Edwin, a tea grower. What happens afterwards surprised & delighted me. Much of the story was based on Emma’s own experience in India, tho’ the choice of a central character barely in her teens very much alters the flavour. Because some of the characters (but not those whom we like) treat Teresa as too inconsequential to matter, they don’t bother to hide who they really are; the author is a keen observer of affectations & foibles. In lots of ways, India herself is the real subject of the novel, as she is in Katy Gardner’s Losing Gemma, a book I found both totally fascinating and somewhat disturbing, tho’ Gardner’s characters are older & the adventures scarier. Not all that much exciting happens to Teresa, except for the encounter with a tiger. (Having once enjoyed an experience very similar to hers, but with a lion, I have some idea of what she felt.) The way a ship becomes her passengers’ entire world during a sea voyage also resonated with me, tho’ I was travelling only from New York to Southampton. (I sometimes fantasise that I'm wearing a double breasted white suit & a Panama hat aboard a P&O steamer ‘somewhere east of Suez’!) I’m not sure how to recommend The Far Cry or to whom. It has a maturity of observation & keenness of outlook that recall Henry James. It’s almost impossible to imagine a young woman in her mid-20s wrote it. (There is a wonderful cover photo for Green as Grass you can find that shows the author wearing shorts & sitting by the banks of the Seine composing it on a portable typewriter, tho’ personally I cannot imagine writing more than a couple of paragraphs in her posture.) But there’s not a whiff of James’s finickiness. Some writers have compared Emma Smith to Elizabeth Bowen - maybe I’ll try her sometime. Anyway, I hope Emma Smith will continue to find readers, tho’ I fear there will never be a lot of them. But both as a writer & as a person, Emma Smith is surely someone whom your simply knowing she existed feels like an honour & a privilege.

[Dorcas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was first published in 1949 and resurrected by Persephone books. Yay! It really is a little gem and I'm so glad its back in circulation.

In a nutshell, 14 year old Teresa is dragged off to India by her father so that his exwife can't have her ( though if the truth be known, neither of them want her anyway). At its crux, this is a story of a dysfunctional family and at times no character is very likeable, although we can understand why they act the way they do.

I cant say the novel is a cheerful one but its not a depressing read either. (for those who need a HEA you can rest assured that it does end with hope). Its largely character driven rather than plot driven and in this case India itself is one of the characters. I would call it slice of life.

The author was so observant of personality, foibles, mannerisms, culture and scenery (see my updates for examples of this) that I'm left feeling satisfied and slightly awed.

Why not 5 stars?
I would have liked just a little more sunshine in this child's life. Still, it's a story that stays with you long after the final pages are turned and so, for its masterful storytelling alone, I feel that it deserves at least 4 stars.

CONTENT:
SEX: None
VIOLENCE: None
PROFANITY: Very mild

MY RATING: G

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Since I’m giving a two-star rating, I feel I must write something to justify that. Persephone Books usually end up being some of the absolute best and my Most Favorite Books Ever, but this one was very unenjoyable. A book with four unlikable characters who don’t like each other or their own existences. I was so glad to be done. The writing was similar to Elizabeth Bowen (I don’t like Elizabeth Bowen either), and it felt very pretentious. A lot of people loved this book, and I can see why, but I think I dislike the book for all the same reasons people like it. Oh well, moving on.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this rather hard to engage with. It's the story of a 14-year old English girl named Teresa, who is whisked off to India by her father to escape his ex-wife, Lilian. Lilian plans to return from New York and potentially take Teresa to live with her. So though Teresa lives with an aunt, her father arrives and scoots off to his other daughter Ruth, who's married to a tea planter in India. By the time the journey ends we're more than halfway through the book. We find that Ruth is unhappy in India, though she loves her serious, earnest husband, Edwin. She misses various things like nice furniture and the attention of admirers.
To me the book seemed to go by jerks and starts. Or it never really seemed to begin. It's half finished before some main characters, Ruth and Edwin, show up, who are portrayed as negative vs. positive. There is an abrupt and convenient twist of plot at the end. To me the book seemed a vehicle for the author to describe the wonder involved in going from one culture to a very different one. Which is perfectly legitimate. But I didn't enjoy the story, which is why it took two months to read it.

[Linden · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book succeeds on several levels. It's a wonderful character study of a 14-year-old girl, her father, her grown up sister, and brother-in-law. It begins in England, encompasses a voyage to India, and concludes on an Indian tea plantation. Some characters are unlikable, but nothing is black and white. A thoroughly absorbing and touching book. This is a Persephone book.

[Ana Pau De la Borbolla · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

Lo leí en pedazos por estar distraída pero, ufff. No esperaba encontrarme con esta lectura. Es un “coming of age” profundo, oscuro, sensorial.

Teresa tiene apenas catorce años cuando su padre decide llevarla de imprevisto a la India para escapar de un pasado lleno de angustias. Pero la travesía a estas tierras tan extremadamente distintas a la gris Inglaterra, es una constante prueba.

Lo que logra Smith—quien experimentó la India en carne propia durante su juventud—es analizar con ojos llenos de belleza, a personajes con afilados matices; con resentimientos, temores y una auto-percepción a veces dolorosa y siempre fascinante.

Éste es un libro perfecto para quien quiera sentir una tierra nueva en carne propia, a quien le gusten los personajes imperfectos y a quien quiera recordar un poco lo difícil que es crecer.

Encima, ésta ha sido una perfecta introducción a Persephone books, una editorial inglesa que reimprime obras de autoras del siglo XX. Una pequeña joya que rescata joyas.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were two very different halves to this book, another excellent example of persephone bringing lost books back to life.
In the first half, we meet Teresa, a 14 year old girl who lives with her paternal aunt when not away at school. When her father receives a letter from his ex-wife, Teresa's mother, he plots to escape to his other daughters home on a tea plantation in India. The journey is a remarkable story of curious characters as Teresa and her father avoid each other and then marvellous descriptions of life in Bombay. In one part, the prose was so evocative that I felt I could smell the dirt and spice as Teresa's walked the market.
When they eventually get to the sister's home, she and her husband, having recently separated briefly the book, becomes a tale of the pressure of marriage in an alien environment. It was aA very enjoyable stor, although I preferred the first half to the melodrama of the second.

[Iñaki Tofiño · Rating 5 out of 5]

A female version of A Passage to India, but way more interesting in terms of human relations and completely devoid of racism or classism. I really enjoyed reading Emma Smith's description of a young girl's travel to India with her father and her reactions once she arrives there. The book, first published in 1949, clearly shows that it was possible for a Briton to see India as an interesting place worth living in just for the sake of itself, not in search of glory or profit.

[Helena · Rating 4 out of 5]

eg likte denne mykje meir enn eg hadde trudd, 4.5

[Émilie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️

[R Foster · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely phenomenal read. Beautifully portrayed characters. Emma Smith portrays human nature better than Hemingway (!!!); her characters are flawed but presented in such a sensitive style. Very interesting how we hear little from Theresa, who the plot surrounds & characters speak for. Very excited to read her other novel but I’m gutted that she only wrote two books.


My favourite line: “He was stone to her, and she would always bruise herself against him.”

[Sofia Ashford · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was surprising.

It's something of a comedy of errors, but it's also filled with stunning pros and heart felt self discovery. It's a coming of age for all ages.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gem of a book. Confident and evocative description of the sensual impact of India on a Randall Digby and his daughter Teresa who he takes to India to escape from his ex wife who seems to want her daughter back after years of no interest. Randall Digby himself has shown little interest either up to this point but he decides to go to his other daughter Ruth who is married to a tea planter a thoughtful sympathetic character who lives in a state of anxiety as he realises his beautiful wife can never be happy in this out of the way place. Teresa blossoms in India and discovers the rewarding companionship of an older woman who travels alone and is content with her lot.intriguing and flawed characters in the main.

[(Lonestarlibrarian) Keddy Ann Outlaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Teresa Digby, age 14, leaves England for India in the company of her curmudgeonly father who she hardly knows. Having been raised by a stodgy aunt, she has not been very well nourished nor loved. Sullen Teresa has long been an outsider, feeling misplaced and unwanted. She and her father find some small commonality by playing cards as their ocean vessel wends towards India. Teresa is no beauty, but behind her many defences against the world, we see her sensitivity and intelligence. Though she dreads India, to her joy India turns out to be a vivid place of explosive color and adventure. Teresa meets the older half sister her father much adores, Ruth, a beautiful woman who harbors great unhappiness with her married life on a tea plantation. For a short time, Ruth, her adoring husband Edgar, Mr. Digby and Teresa form an unlikely family unit.

Teresa has many awkward and meaningful moments of awakening, keenly described and well developed by Emma Smith, who as a young British woman in the 1940s, visited India. Smith's skill at bringing India to life is incredible. This book is a true gem, a literary masterpiece, and deserves comparison with the works of D H Lawrence, Virginia Woolf or E M Forster. Susan Hill of Persephone Books redsicovered The Far Cry and brought it back into publication, and I certainly hope it never again disappears into obscurity.

[Tia]

This was not my cup of tea. Part travel memoir, part character study, this book is of the sort in which every single moment is suffused with a profound insight about life, character, the world, all replete with metaphors and similes. I may be just too cold but when a tree with its sweeping branches automatically means that the place is timeless, and characters speak long monologues in their mind, and each sentence spoken or otherwise is another strike in a war being waged in minds alone, I am left feeling unmoved.

[Rosemary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this story of 14-year-old Teresa who is suddenly taken from England to India by her father in the late 1940s. Emma Smith made a similar journey herself and kept a detailed diary. There is a wealth of evocative detail but the characterisations of Teresa, her father, and people met along the way are surprisingly vivid too. The married sister they go to visit turns out to be an unexpected character.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad I didn't stay put off by Elizabeth Bowen's characterization of this novel as "savage comedy." Certainly, Smith does make sharp, cynical assessments of her character's motivations, but she also fill the novel with lots of poetry and vulnerability and curiosity. The lyric opening lines were captivating. Smith's poetic, unique perspective made this an arresting, unforgettable novel.

[Nicola L · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have reviewed this novel here: http://mygoodbookshelf.wordpress.com/...

[Sumit · Rating 4 out of 5]

If there ever was a novel that deserved to be called A Passage to India, this is the one. What a beautiful study of characters, human behaviours and life itself. This was presented to me by husband on my birthday last year and since then it has been languishing on the TBR shelf. Finally, after much determination, sailing past newer novels with blurbs from Gods of English literature, I anchored my boat at this little known shore. Persephone Books is a blessing to mankind, actually womankind. They print the out of print novels that deserve a reprint and more readers. Like any brilliant travel novel, it traverses deep corners of our own soul while taking momentous journeys outside. One of the greatest joys of this novel is that there are no villains or heroes as such, just complex characters who are placed uncomfortably together with not much in common, and there the friction leads to drama. And the greatest reward of any journey is serendipity, the discovery of things completely unplanned, and that’s where the novel saves itself from being a travel diary alone. I will surely come back to it some other time.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most delightful books I have read in a long time. The first half of the book traces a 14 year old's trip from England to India. The author does a fabulous job of describing the sights, sounds and smells of the journey. Her description of India captures nuances to make me feel I was there. I ordered this book from the UK. Originally written in 1949, it was published again by Persephone in 2003. The author took a long break from writing when her husband died and she had two small children. I would love to read more by this author but her books are not available in my library and Amazon would need to ship from the UK. She also wrote As Green As Grass and The Great Western Beach.