India

by Pierre Loti

This is a travelogue that describes the experiences of the author who visited India in the very early 20th century. On the way to India he stopped briefly in Ceylon and went to Anuradhapura. From there he came to Travencore and spent a considerable time there. He then goes to Tanjore in the Madras presidency, and then onwards to Madura. Leaving Madura he proceeds to Pondicherry and then further on to Hyderabad and Golconda. Having journeyed in the South he goes North to Udaipur and Jaipur before he visits Benaras. All along the way he describes what he saw and experienced; the nature of the people, the topography, the customs and habits of the natives, their religious places and processions, the courts of the kings and the palaces, etcetera.

Genres: India, France

283 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1903

About the author

Louis Marie-Julien Viaud was a writer, who used the pseudonym Pierre Loti.

Viaud was born in Rochefort, Charente-Maritime, France, to an old Protestant family. His education began in Rochefort, but at the age of seventeen, being destined for the navy, he entered the naval school in Brest and studied on Le Borda. He gradually rose in his profession, attaining the rank of captain in 1906. In January 1910 he went on the reserve list.

His pseudonym has been said to be due to his extreme shyness and reserve in early life, which made his comrades call him after "le Loti", an Indian flower which loves to blush unseen. Other explanations have been put forth by scholars. It is also said that he got the name in Tahiti where he got a sun burn and was called Roti (because he was all red like a local flower), he couldn't pronounce the r well so he stuck with Loti. He was in the habit of claiming that he never read books (when he was received at the Académie française, he said, "Loti ne sait pas lire" ("Loti doesn't know how to read"), but testimony from friends and acquaintances proves otherwise, as does his library, much of which is preserved in his house in Rochefort. In 1876 fellow naval officers persuaded him to turn into a novel passages in his diary dealing with some curious experiences at Istanbul. The result was Aziyadé, a novel which, like so many of Loti's, is part romance, part autobiography, like the work of his admirer, Marcel Proust, after him. (There is a popular cafe in current-day Istanbul dedicated to the time Loti spent in Turkey.) He proceeded to the South Seas as part of his naval training, and several years after leaving Tahiti published the Polynesian idyll originally named Rarahu (1880), which was reprinted as Le Mariage de Loti, the first book to introduce him to the wider public. This was followed by Le Roman d'un spahi (1881), a record of the melancholy adventures of a soldier in Senegambia.

Loti on the day of his reception at the Académie française on 7 April, 1892. In 1882, Loti issued a collection of four shorter pieces, three stories and a travel piece, under the general title of Fleurs d'ennui (Flowers of Boredom).

In 1883 he entered the wider public spotlight. First, he publish the critically acclaimed Mon frere Yves (My Brother Yves), a novel describing the life of a French naval officer (Pierre Loti), and a Breton sailor (Yves Kermadec), described by Edmund Gosse as "one of his most characteristic productions".[1] Second, while taking part as a naval officer in the undeclared hostilities that preceded the outbreak of the Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885), Loti wrote an article in the newspaper Le Figaro about atrocities that occurred during the French bombardment of the Thuan An forts that guarded the approaches to Hue (August 1883), and was threatened with suspension from the service, thus gaining wider public notoriety.

In 1886 he published a novel of life among the Breton fisherfolk, called Pêcheur d'Islande (Iceland Fisherman), which Edmund Gosse characterized as "the most popular and finest of all his writings."[1] It shows Loti adapting some of the Impressionist techniques of contemporary painters, especially Monet, to prose, and is a classic of French literature. In 1887 he brought out a volume "of extraordinary merit, which has not received the attention it deserves",[1] Propos d'exil, a series of short studies of exotic places, in his characteristic semi-autobiographic style. The novel of Japanese manners, Madame Chrysanthème— a precursor to Madame Butterfly and Miss Saigon and a work that is a combination of narrative and travelog— was published the same year.

During 1890 he published Au Maroc, the record of a journey to Fez in company with a French embassy, and Le Roman d'un enfant (The Story of a Child), a somewhat fictionalized recollection of Loti's childhood that would greatly influence Marcel Proust. A collection

Reviews

[icaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dopo Edward Said (Orientalismo) come si fa ad amare ancora Loti? E' il Grande Viaggiatore che incarna tutti i peggiori difetti dell'europeo fin de siècle. Sì , è vero, ma nessuno è capace come lui di vedere la polvere di cui tutti siamo fatti, di cui sono fatte le magnifiche e grandiose realizzazioni di civiltà agonizzanti o morte molto prima del suo passaggio, di trovare senso e riposo in questa certezza della morte (degli individui come delle civiltà) che, alla fine ci accomuna tutti e annulla ogni individualità e ogni senso di superiorità razziale.

[Sol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Redacción lenta y elaborada, pero muy sentimental y sensorial. Aporta una historia antigua y naive, bien escrita, absorbente y seductora que te abstrae. Me ha encantado, pero es lo que es, que es un diario de la experiencia exótica india escrito en 1900. Lo he disfrutado muchísimo pero hay que cogerlo con ganas y sabiendo a qué se viene. Lo empecé hace años y no podía leer más de un párrafo seguido y ahora me lo he leído en un mes así que bien.

[Krisz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, insightful descriptions of Indian landscape, people, traditions. My favourite part was when PL wrote about a Frenchman who is giving away money and food for the poor - but if you read it closely, he writes about himself of course, only not wanting to brag.
There is no story within, so it is best to devour this book 10-20 pages a day, enjoying the descriptions and imagining that has been country.
I wonder if PL indeed stayed there to enlightenment?

[Diego Pignatelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pierre Loti has remarkable descriptive abilities but his pace is quite slow for the XXI century.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

admirablement bien écrit mais récit décousu.

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Descriptif, rythme lent, très bien écrit, point de vue extérieur, dépaysant, on se laisse porter. Ces récits et impressions de voyage sont le reportage télévisé et la photographie du 19e siècle. Un peu long. Ça donnait envie de découvrir l'Inde et d'aller voir les photos.