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Heat and Dust
Set in colonial India during the 1920s, Heat and Dust tells the story of Olivia, a beautiful woman suffocated by the propriety and social constraints of her position as the wife of an important English civil servant. Longing for passion and independence, Olivia is drawn into the spell of the Nawab, a minor Indian prince deeply involved in gang raids and criminal plots. She is intrigued by the Nawab's charm and aggressive courtship, and soon begins to spend most of her days in his company. But then she becomes pregnant, and unsure of the child's paternity, she is faced with a wrenching dilemma. Her reaction to the crisis humiliates her husband and outrages the British community, breeding a scandal that lives in collective memory long after her death.
181 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
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About the author
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
56 books181 followersRuth 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 541 reviews
January 25, 2020
Fascinating book about the contradictions between and at the same time love of Indian and English culture… The beautiful, spoiled and bored Olivia, married to a civil servant living in India, shocks society in the tiny, suffocating hot town of Satipur, by eloping with an Indian prince, the Nawab. Fifty years later, her step-grand daughter goes back to the heat, dust and the squalor of the bazaar to find out more of Olivia’s scandal and discover India for herself. So the story moves back and forth in time. Fascinating story, well told.
Here’s a piece of the book: ‘ I try to find an explanation for him. I tell him that many of us are tired of the materialism of the West, and even if we have no particular attraction towards the spiritual message of the East, we come here in the hope of finding a simpler and more natural way of life. This explanation hurts him. He feels it to be a mockery. He says why should people who have everything – motor cars, refrigerators – come here to such a place where there is nothing? He says he often feels ashamed before me because of the way he is living. When I try to protest, he works himself up more’……’Why shouldn’t I laugh, he cries, not giving me a chance to say anything – he himself often feels like ‘laughing’ when he looks around him and sees the conditions in which people are living and the superstitions in their minds. Who would not laugh, he says, pointing out of the window where one of the town’s beggars happens to be passing, a teenage boy who cannot stand upright but drags the crippled underpart of his body behind him in the dust - who would not laugh, says Inder Lal, at a sight like that’ …………..
‘Heat and Dust’ was the Booker prize winner of 1975.
I read in a folder of the Booker Prize that authors were insulted that the judges found only two books worthy of shortlisting out of a total of 83 submissions. The other one was Thomas Keneally’s ‘Gossip from the Forest’.
Here’s a piece of the book: ‘ I try to find an explanation for him. I tell him that many of us are tired of the materialism of the West, and even if we have no particular attraction towards the spiritual message of the East, we come here in the hope of finding a simpler and more natural way of life. This explanation hurts him. He feels it to be a mockery. He says why should people who have everything – motor cars, refrigerators – come here to such a place where there is nothing? He says he often feels ashamed before me because of the way he is living. When I try to protest, he works himself up more’……’Why shouldn’t I laugh, he cries, not giving me a chance to say anything – he himself often feels like ‘laughing’ when he looks around him and sees the conditions in which people are living and the superstitions in their minds. Who would not laugh, he says, pointing out of the window where one of the town’s beggars happens to be passing, a teenage boy who cannot stand upright but drags the crippled underpart of his body behind him in the dust - who would not laugh, says Inder Lal, at a sight like that’ …………..
‘Heat and Dust’ was the Booker prize winner of 1975.
I read in a folder of the Booker Prize that authors were insulted that the judges found only two books worthy of shortlisting out of a total of 83 submissions. The other one was Thomas Keneally’s ‘Gossip from the Forest’.
February 10, 2021
1) Western writers on British India seem a bit obsessed with sex between English women and Indian men. There was A Passage to India by Forster in 1924 – the plot turns round a charge of rape of an English woman by an Indian man. Then The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott in 1966 – another charge of rape of an English woman by an Indian man. Then Heat and Dust in 1975 which gives us the shocking tale of an English woman who elopes with an Indian man.
2) This novel is another of those very melancholy drooping meandering quiet humble softly despairing everything under the surface not really a plot at all books like Hotel Du Lac and Staying On and The Remains of the Day. They can be brilliant – Remains of the Day is really great – but sometimes you want to light a jumping jack under their arses. Heat and Dust was just eurghhhhhhh.
3) 1975 must have been a dire year if this won the Booker Prize.
2) This novel is another of those very melancholy drooping meandering quiet humble softly despairing everything under the surface not really a plot at all books like Hotel Du Lac and Staying On and The Remains of the Day. They can be brilliant – Remains of the Day is really great – but sometimes you want to light a jumping jack under their arses. Heat and Dust was just eurghhhhhhh.
3) 1975 must have been a dire year if this won the Booker Prize.
September 19, 2014
3.5 stars
Winner of the Booker Prize in 1975; this is actually quite good. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is an interesting character; her parents fled the Nazis in the late 1930s and she lost many family members in the Holocaust. She lived initially in Britain and then married an Indian architect and moved to India in 1951. She remained there until the 1970s when she moved to the US where she continued her already creative relationship with the Merchant Ivory team and had a hand in a great many of their films. She is a perceptive writer, but is something of an outsider. Her work has been praised widely, but I think Rushdie’s comment about her being a “rootless intellectual” is most perceptive because it sums up the positives and negatives that have been expressed about her work. Keen observation, but the sense of distance.
This novel jumps between India in the 1970s and India in the 1920s. It revolves around Olivia in the 1920s, a new bride in India; married to a middle ranking and starchy civil servant and her step granddaughter (who is unnamed) in the 1970s who is trying to find out about Olivia. There are lots of parallels between the two stories. There are comparisons to be drawn between the two women, between the two India’s, between their two lovers.
The colonial servants are caricatures in many ways; and yet .... in 1983 I was training to be a priest (part of my disreputable past) and I was working in a parish in a wealthy area of Birmingham. I came across a very old couple who were ex- Indian colonial service/military police. They would have slotted into the 1920s section of this book quite nicely. There was no remorse (regret that we had let India go) and no understanding of what Imperialism and Empire was about. It was like stepping back in time. The Nawab in the book is certainly a caricature and has a lack of subtlety; he seems to be a composite of everything that might possibly be wrong with the Indian upper class.
However the portrayals of the two women, I found interesting and the character of Olivia was very good and she deserved a better backdrop. Her reactions to the stifling colonial community and her gradual rebellion were well written. The descriptive passages relating to the heat especially are good and you can feel the building tension in Olivia’s story. It is difficult to understand why Olivia falls for either of the men she falls for; but (apparently) power is a great aphrodisiac. In contrast the two men in the 1970s are entirely different; a hippy/aspiring holy man and a lower middle class unremarkable husband; quiescent in a way the 1920s men were not. Both of the British men fail to cope with India in entirely different ways and both women stay. As you may sense I am a little conflicted in what I think about it and am sitting firmly on the fence!
To conclude, I think I wanted more, but I’m not sure what.
Winner of the Booker Prize in 1975; this is actually quite good. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is an interesting character; her parents fled the Nazis in the late 1930s and she lost many family members in the Holocaust. She lived initially in Britain and then married an Indian architect and moved to India in 1951. She remained there until the 1970s when she moved to the US where she continued her already creative relationship with the Merchant Ivory team and had a hand in a great many of their films. She is a perceptive writer, but is something of an outsider. Her work has been praised widely, but I think Rushdie’s comment about her being a “rootless intellectual” is most perceptive because it sums up the positives and negatives that have been expressed about her work. Keen observation, but the sense of distance.
This novel jumps between India in the 1970s and India in the 1920s. It revolves around Olivia in the 1920s, a new bride in India; married to a middle ranking and starchy civil servant and her step granddaughter (who is unnamed) in the 1970s who is trying to find out about Olivia. There are lots of parallels between the two stories. There are comparisons to be drawn between the two women, between the two India’s, between their two lovers.
The colonial servants are caricatures in many ways; and yet .... in 1983 I was training to be a priest (part of my disreputable past) and I was working in a parish in a wealthy area of Birmingham. I came across a very old couple who were ex- Indian colonial service/military police. They would have slotted into the 1920s section of this book quite nicely. There was no remorse (regret that we had let India go) and no understanding of what Imperialism and Empire was about. It was like stepping back in time. The Nawab in the book is certainly a caricature and has a lack of subtlety; he seems to be a composite of everything that might possibly be wrong with the Indian upper class.
However the portrayals of the two women, I found interesting and the character of Olivia was very good and she deserved a better backdrop. Her reactions to the stifling colonial community and her gradual rebellion were well written. The descriptive passages relating to the heat especially are good and you can feel the building tension in Olivia’s story. It is difficult to understand why Olivia falls for either of the men she falls for; but (apparently) power is a great aphrodisiac. In contrast the two men in the 1970s are entirely different; a hippy/aspiring holy man and a lower middle class unremarkable husband; quiescent in a way the 1920s men were not. Both of the British men fail to cope with India in entirely different ways and both women stay. As you may sense I am a little conflicted in what I think about it and am sitting firmly on the fence!
To conclude, I think I wanted more, but I’m not sure what.
May 4, 2025
"I kept a journal to have a record of my early impressions. If I were to try to remember them now I might not be able to do so. They are no longer the same because I myself am no longer the same. India always changes people, and I have been no exception. But this is not my story, it is Olivia's."
************
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, a German Jew whose family fled the Nazis, moved to London just in time for the Blitz. Marrying a prominent Indian architect, she lived in Delhi for 24 years. Prawer considered herself a lifelong refugee from Germany. She is likely most well known as the screenwriter of many Merchant-Ivory films, and movie adaptions of Ishiguro and Forster novels, which won multiple academy awards. This novel won the 1975 Booker prize, about a woman who goes to India to learn about a grandmother involved in a scandal.
The narrator, Anne, begins on her arrival in Bombay in 1982 with a stack of letters grandmother Olivia wrote in 1923. She settles into Satipur, a city between Delhi and Lucknow. Olivia had went there to join her new husband Douglas, a British tax collector. Anne visits the abandoned palace of a prince Olivia met at a party. The Nawab was fabulously wealthy, highly intelligent and handsome, and spoiled his guests. Drawn to Olivia, he began to visit her during the daytime, while Douglas was away working long hours at the agency.
Olivia had difficulty adjusting to her new life in India, as did Prawer. Both had followed their husbands there. Anne feels ambivalent towards the natives as well as the foreigners who visit. In the rundown Raj residency British hippies camp out. They had come in search of enlightenment but found only dysentery. The caretaker refuses to unlock their bungalow without a bribe. Anne observes: "I suppose we look strange to them, eating their food and wearing their clothes". Prawer later wrote the poverty and backwardness were intolerable.
The houses where Olivia and the British had lived are now a ramshackle collection of civil offices. Anne slowly becomes accustomed to the culture, learning to speak Hindustani, sleeping outdoors in the hot season and dressing in a sari. She describes personal relations in her landlord's family, an arranged marriage, son and daughter-in-law living with his mother. Spending time with widows from around town, she visits suttee shrines and royal tombs. The writing is like Jane Austin spiked with cyanide, a satire of social conventions.
A family who had forced a mother to burn herself with her dead husband was arrested by Douglas. His dinner guests discussed the custom with paternalistic disapproval. A riot began at a Muslim shrine where Hindus had taken over and the Nawab is suspected by Douglas. Anne rescues a British ascetic who fell ill on pilgrimage. He stays in her room, eats her food and steals her money. Her landlord is incredulous there could be a white sadhu. The events alternate between 1923 and 1982 but the voice is consistently that of Prawer.
Most of the British enclave had decamped for Simla, the hill station resort, but Olivia and Douglas stayed behind in the heat and dust. Olivia visited the Nawab's palace every day. There was trouble in the countryside with a bandit gang, the Nawab probably implicated. Before Anne left London she had met the Nawab's nephew and heir, and his cosmopolitan expatriate friends. In contrast to the beggars and crippled in Satipur, they lived in luxury from treasures smuggled out of India, complaining the government made life unbearable.
Anne visits a shrine with her landlord where women pray to get pregnant. It is the same one where Olivia had gone with the Nawab. Olivia was anxious for a baby with Douglas that didn't seem to come and was willing to test the legend of the shrine. E. M. Forster suggested in 'A Passage to India' that the ways of the east would never be understood by the west, echoed by Prawer's colonists. But when the expectations of either society are transgressed both Indians and the British shared similar ideas of how women could and should act.
'Heat and Dust' is well written, full of wry humor and dry wit. Descriptions of people and places are three dimensional and explain why Prawer was so successful as a screenwriter. Her complex and conflicted relationship with India began during the early years of independence, spanning to a period when there was renewed interest in the Raj among readers and film fans. She used the award money from this novel to buy a condo in Manhattan, in the same building as Merchant and Ivory, and felt more at home on the Upper East Side.
************
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, a German Jew whose family fled the Nazis, moved to London just in time for the Blitz. Marrying a prominent Indian architect, she lived in Delhi for 24 years. Prawer considered herself a lifelong refugee from Germany. She is likely most well known as the screenwriter of many Merchant-Ivory films, and movie adaptions of Ishiguro and Forster novels, which won multiple academy awards. This novel won the 1975 Booker prize, about a woman who goes to India to learn about a grandmother involved in a scandal.
The narrator, Anne, begins on her arrival in Bombay in 1982 with a stack of letters grandmother Olivia wrote in 1923. She settles into Satipur, a city between Delhi and Lucknow. Olivia had went there to join her new husband Douglas, a British tax collector. Anne visits the abandoned palace of a prince Olivia met at a party. The Nawab was fabulously wealthy, highly intelligent and handsome, and spoiled his guests. Drawn to Olivia, he began to visit her during the daytime, while Douglas was away working long hours at the agency.
Olivia had difficulty adjusting to her new life in India, as did Prawer. Both had followed their husbands there. Anne feels ambivalent towards the natives as well as the foreigners who visit. In the rundown Raj residency British hippies camp out. They had come in search of enlightenment but found only dysentery. The caretaker refuses to unlock their bungalow without a bribe. Anne observes: "I suppose we look strange to them, eating their food and wearing their clothes". Prawer later wrote the poverty and backwardness were intolerable.
The houses where Olivia and the British had lived are now a ramshackle collection of civil offices. Anne slowly becomes accustomed to the culture, learning to speak Hindustani, sleeping outdoors in the hot season and dressing in a sari. She describes personal relations in her landlord's family, an arranged marriage, son and daughter-in-law living with his mother. Spending time with widows from around town, she visits suttee shrines and royal tombs. The writing is like Jane Austin spiked with cyanide, a satire of social conventions.
A family who had forced a mother to burn herself with her dead husband was arrested by Douglas. His dinner guests discussed the custom with paternalistic disapproval. A riot began at a Muslim shrine where Hindus had taken over and the Nawab is suspected by Douglas. Anne rescues a British ascetic who fell ill on pilgrimage. He stays in her room, eats her food and steals her money. Her landlord is incredulous there could be a white sadhu. The events alternate between 1923 and 1982 but the voice is consistently that of Prawer.
Most of the British enclave had decamped for Simla, the hill station resort, but Olivia and Douglas stayed behind in the heat and dust. Olivia visited the Nawab's palace every day. There was trouble in the countryside with a bandit gang, the Nawab probably implicated. Before Anne left London she had met the Nawab's nephew and heir, and his cosmopolitan expatriate friends. In contrast to the beggars and crippled in Satipur, they lived in luxury from treasures smuggled out of India, complaining the government made life unbearable.
Anne visits a shrine with her landlord where women pray to get pregnant. It is the same one where Olivia had gone with the Nawab. Olivia was anxious for a baby with Douglas that didn't seem to come and was willing to test the legend of the shrine. E. M. Forster suggested in 'A Passage to India' that the ways of the east would never be understood by the west, echoed by Prawer's colonists. But when the expectations of either society are transgressed both Indians and the British shared similar ideas of how women could and should act.
'Heat and Dust' is well written, full of wry humor and dry wit. Descriptions of people and places are three dimensional and explain why Prawer was so successful as a screenwriter. Her complex and conflicted relationship with India began during the early years of independence, spanning to a period when there was renewed interest in the Raj among readers and film fans. She used the award money from this novel to buy a condo in Manhattan, in the same building as Merchant and Ivory, and felt more at home on the Upper East Side.
January 9, 2022
Written in 1975, this book won the Booker prize of that year.
Set in 'modern day' (of 1975), but with over half the novel recounting events which happened fifty years prior, this books covers two very different times in India. It is set in Sitapur, in Uttar Pradesh.
Our main character in modern day is unnamed, but is visiting India to investigate the story of her step-grandmother (her fathers, fathers first wife - her father was the child of the second wife).
The story of Olivia Rivers (in 1923), is a family embarrassment - she crossed cultural lines and shocked society when she had an affair with an Indian Prince (the Nawab), and falls pregnant. Olivia feels smothered by the social restrictions of a colonial wife, with her husbands stuffy British colleagues and friends, and is befriended the charismatic Nawab, spending her spare time with him and his live-in British friend Harry.
The characters are well defined, especially the stuffy British wives, who live up to the colonial stereotype, the Indian characters remain interesting and traditional. The story is well woven, with plenty of overlap between the two time periods.
An easy and excellent read. 4 stars.
Set in 'modern day' (of 1975), but with over half the novel recounting events which happened fifty years prior, this books covers two very different times in India. It is set in Sitapur, in Uttar Pradesh.
Our main character in modern day is unnamed, but is visiting India to investigate the story of her step-grandmother (her fathers, fathers first wife - her father was the child of the second wife).
The story of Olivia Rivers (in 1923), is a family embarrassment - she crossed cultural lines and shocked society when she had an affair with an Indian Prince (the Nawab), and falls pregnant. Olivia feels smothered by the social restrictions of a colonial wife, with her husbands stuffy British colleagues and friends, and is befriended the charismatic Nawab, spending her spare time with him and his live-in British friend Harry.
The characters are well defined, especially the stuffy British wives, who live up to the colonial stereotype, the Indian characters remain interesting and traditional. The story is well woven, with plenty of overlap between the two time periods.
An easy and excellent read. 4 stars.
April 26, 2017
An eloquent and beautifully poised novella comparing and contrasting the experiences of two English women in India. The unnamed narrator travels to India to investigate and tell the story of her father's first wife, a bored housewife who has an affair with a local prince. Their two stories are alternated and have many parallels, as well as contrasts between colonial and independent India. It is easy to see why this book won the Booker prize.
January 9, 2019
[2.5] An only-just-postcolonial novel about the British in India, by an author who described herself as "a Central European with an English education and a deplorable tendency to constant self-analysis," and who was married to an Indian man.
Some friends will see from that quote why I might have been interested in Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, but I read this very short book mostly to improve my count of Booker winners (this being only the 14th), as I'm active in a group where many people have read more. That characterisation - along with her scriptwriting work for Merchant Ivory - was pretty much all I remembered about the author at the time I started reading Heat and Dust. (And I only learnt a few months ago that she wasn't, as I'd always previously assumed, Anglo-Indian.) About ¾ of the way through the book, I read more about RPJ and her attitude to India, and this at least partly cancelled out one of the interpretations of the book I'd been building up to that point.
Although I was intensely engaged in note-taking and thinking all through the book, the analysis was almost all I got out of it. I found the prose boring, and the parallels between the two protagonists' stories became heavy-handed.
There are two alternating narratives in Heat and Dust. One is told in the third-person, about Olivia, the bored, naïve and sheltered new young wife of Douglas, a British colonial official in West Bengal; we are told in the book's opening sentence that she ran off with a Nawab in 1923. The other is a first-person narrative contemporary to the book's writing in the 1970s, by the unnamed British granddaughter of Douglas' second marriage (whom I'll refer to as the narrator or the granddaughter.) She is in her late 20s or early 30s and travels to India, with a cache of Olivia's letters, to see the scenes of this family scandal which is now beginning to be talked about, and to experience some of the 'simplicity' of India that attracted young Westerners on the hippie trail.
No less than five of the first ten Booker Prize winners (1969-77) address the British Empire and its end. I haven't read any of the others, but it's clear from these wins that it was a big topic for British literary fiction at the time, and was predominantly written about from the British viewpoint (all the winners other than V.S. Naipaul were British or Irish). I had never been very keen to read these novels, as I expected the writing about India and Indian people would be clumsy from a contemporary viewpoint, and I didn't expect there would be much to learn about the old India hands that I hadn't already seen in old documentaries and light novels read when I was younger. Starting Heat & Dust, I wondered if it might be different because the author had lived in post-independence India for 24 years with her Indian architect husband - surely very a different experience from that of colonial staff or tourists.
Through most of the book, before I'd done more research, I developed a tentative hypothesis that Prawer Jhabvala a was notably progressive and perceptive in her attitudes by the standards of her time, and was subtly critiquing the granddaughter and people of her generation from similar old colonial service families - and the hippies - who thought they were more open-minded about India than they actually were. Thus, the stereotypes in the third-person story about Olivia were present because the granddaughter was telling that story and because that was how she, and the sources from which she got the information, saw the people involved. (The wilful, coercively seductive Muslim Nawab, for instance, seems to fit the old desert sheikh stereotype in romance.) This made it seem like a potentially rather interesting piece of literature for its time, and such layered complexity would explain its Booker win (although some 2010s commentators, such as those who criticise the lionising of sexist or abusive male narrators, e.g in Rebecca Solnit's essay on Lolita, would argue that the widespread critical elevation of such narrators is at best questionable). I was never 100% sure about this analysis, and was planning to write a review in which I outlined both that interpretation and a simpler, less favourable one. 1975 must not have been a great year for British and Commonwealth literature anyway, as the Booker shortlist consisted of only two titles. Even though what I read about Prawer Jhabvala and her feelings about India pointed towards the simpler interpretation - in which the granddaughter's attitudes have a fair bit in common with the author's, and in which the story of Olivia and the Nawab is told straight - one could perhaps argue the book still has something going for it *because* it has the flexibility to be interpreted in more than one way.
Pankaj Mishra's 2004 NYT review of another Prawer Jhabvala book refers to a 1980s essay of hers which said "'how intolerable India -- the idea, the sensation of it -- can become' to someone like her… Jhabvala spoke of the intense heat, the lack of a social life and the 'great animal of poverty and backwardness' that she couldn't avoid". (Heat & Dust does contain a lot of hackneyed scenes of vast crowds and poverty - but at the same time everyone here whom I've heard talk about going to India, including British people of Indian descent, has said that it's one of the things you notice at first because of the contrast - so I'm not totally sure what the correct take on that is, except that it's overused while other less stereotypical aspects may go ignored in western writing about India.) I can certainly relate to the dissatisfaction of living in a place you don't like, and to some other ways which Mishra describes her: "the confident exile -- of the much displaced person who, finally secure in her inner world and reconciled to her isolation, looks askance at people longing for fulfillment in other cultures and landscapes", or " When fully absorbed by self-analysis, the perennial outsider usually ends up regarding all emotional and intellectual commitment as folly. Such cold-eyed clarity, useful to a philosopher or mystic, can only be a disadvantage for the novelist, who needs to enter, at least temporarily, her characters' illusions in order to recreate them convincingly on the page." And these days more than ever, lack of respect for a place where you've spent a lot of time will win you few friends. (IME it takes about as long to wear off as the time you lived there.) I think there may be limited use in reading this novel these days, especially for those who find the writing as uninspiring as I did; to learn about India in the 1920s or the 70s it's probably better to read non-fiction, and its frequently stereotypical attitudes will annoy some readers.
Where there may be interesting things going on are in the cynical caricatures of young British hippies by a westerner who's been in India longer, and in feminism / attitudes to women.
When the granddaughter tries to explain the hippies to her Indian landlord (a few years younger than herself), it sounds as if she has a little affinity with them: "I tell him that many of us are tired of the materialism of the West, and even if we have no particular attraction towards the spiritual message of the-East, we come here in the hope of finding a simpler and more natural way of life." [Directly following this is one of the very few occasions in which a convincing Indian voice appears, in his reply, "This explanation hurts him. He feels it to be a mockery. He says why should people who have everything -motor cars, refrigerators - come here to such a place where there is nothing? He says he often feels ashamed before me because of· the way he is living. When I try to protest, he works himself up more, He says he is perfectly well aware that, by Western standards, his house as well as his food and his way of eating it would be considered primitive, inadequate - indeed,. he himself would be considered so because of his unscientific mind and ignorance of the modem world. Yes he knows very well that he is lagging far behind in all these respects and on that account I am well entitled to laugh at him. Why shouldn't I laugh! he cries, not giving me a chance to say anything - he himself often feels like laughing when he looks around him and sees the conditions in which people are living and the superstitions in their minds."
A hippie couple who came to India after being swept up by a swami's talk in London on universal love can be summarised thus:
"Why did you come?" I asked her.
"To find peace." She laughed grimly: "But all I found was dysentery."
These young travellers don't seem to be particularly well off, so the reader doesn't have to endure the most tedious aspects of the 21st-century "gap yah" caricature. (Some even have regional accents!) This is instead about an absurd gulf between romantic expectation and physical reality, and how some Indian spiritual teachers seem to be either milking a cash-cow, or are just oblivious to realities: e.g. apparently training up a white lad as a mendicant sadhu, when Indian people are unlikely to give money to a white British man begging. Even the 1970s episodes seem to echo the old colonial idea of the 'white man's graveyard': the narrative intimates that the climate and the bugs are even bad for westerners who've been in India for several years, although an Indian doctor argues with the granddaughter that "this climate does not suit you people too well. And let alone you people, it does not suit even us."
One feature of 1960s-70s hippie culture that has emerged from the shadows in recent years is how some women felt exploited because "free love" meant they felt obliged to have sex with men they didn't really want. Heat & Dust contains the first example I remember seeing from something written at the time: the unwantedness is clear, but so is a certain amount of buying-into the spiritual side.
I don't think it's entirely a "white feminist" book, in that nebulous 21st century term on which I will certainly not claim to be any kind of expert. Perhaps there is a certain amount of cheap hippyish respect for natural local medicine and so forth, but there is a theme running through the book being subtly positive about greater solidarity between women. If Olivia had sought a respectable acquaintance with the Begum, or if she had gone to Simla with Beth, perhaps she would never have got into the mess she did with the Nawab. The two Bertha-from-Jane-Eyre figures still don't get a lot to say but they are at least shown to be victims rather than monsters; the granddaughter wants to arrange better treatment for the one in the 1970s, and she seems to be genuinely open to befriending some of the Indian women she meets (though we can't tell what they make of her). Other than a doctor or two, and possibly the Nawab's London-based grandson, the Indian men don't come out of this awfully well, in terms of specific characters or general descriptions. Though neither do most of the white British men, other than possibly Douglas, who had "the eyes of a boy who read adventure stories and had dedicated himself to live up to their code of courage and honour" (too normie and straightforward for Olivia ultimately?). The granddaughter sounds kind of optimistic at the end, but I felt the author wasn't very convinced by her either; I think RPJ treats everyone with detached cynicism, although some more politely than others.
I'm not sure I'd really recommend Heat & Dust for anything other than some sort of academic project on early British post-colonial literature. I mean, the second I reached the end, I heard myself saying as if by a reflex, "thank fuck that's finished … that was a bit crap" - though hopefully the above paragraphs show it's not quite that simple, and I did kind of enjoy trying to analyse it. It is very short, so at least I wasn't bored for that long. And Booker completists will read it despite its not having aged terribly well.
Some friends will see from that quote why I might have been interested in Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, but I read this very short book mostly to improve my count of Booker winners (this being only the 14th), as I'm active in a group where many people have read more. That characterisation - along with her scriptwriting work for Merchant Ivory - was pretty much all I remembered about the author at the time I started reading Heat and Dust. (And I only learnt a few months ago that she wasn't, as I'd always previously assumed, Anglo-Indian.) About ¾ of the way through the book, I read more about RPJ and her attitude to India, and this at least partly cancelled out one of the interpretations of the book I'd been building up to that point.
Although I was intensely engaged in note-taking and thinking all through the book, the analysis was almost all I got out of it. I found the prose boring, and the parallels between the two protagonists' stories became heavy-handed.
There are two alternating narratives in Heat and Dust. One is told in the third-person, about Olivia, the bored, naïve and sheltered new young wife of Douglas, a British colonial official in West Bengal; we are told in the book's opening sentence that she ran off with a Nawab in 1923. The other is a first-person narrative contemporary to the book's writing in the 1970s, by the unnamed British granddaughter of Douglas' second marriage (whom I'll refer to as the narrator or the granddaughter.) She is in her late 20s or early 30s and travels to India, with a cache of Olivia's letters, to see the scenes of this family scandal which is now beginning to be talked about, and to experience some of the 'simplicity' of India that attracted young Westerners on the hippie trail.
No less than five of the first ten Booker Prize winners (1969-77) address the British Empire and its end. I haven't read any of the others, but it's clear from these wins that it was a big topic for British literary fiction at the time, and was predominantly written about from the British viewpoint (all the winners other than V.S. Naipaul were British or Irish). I had never been very keen to read these novels, as I expected the writing about India and Indian people would be clumsy from a contemporary viewpoint, and I didn't expect there would be much to learn about the old India hands that I hadn't already seen in old documentaries and light novels read when I was younger. Starting Heat & Dust, I wondered if it might be different because the author had lived in post-independence India for 24 years with her Indian architect husband - surely very a different experience from that of colonial staff or tourists.
Through most of the book, before I'd done more research, I developed a tentative hypothesis that Prawer Jhabvala a was notably progressive and perceptive in her attitudes by the standards of her time, and was subtly critiquing the granddaughter and people of her generation from similar old colonial service families - and the hippies - who thought they were more open-minded about India than they actually were. Thus, the stereotypes in the third-person story about Olivia were present because the granddaughter was telling that story and because that was how she, and the sources from which she got the information, saw the people involved. (The wilful, coercively seductive Muslim Nawab, for instance, seems to fit the old desert sheikh stereotype in romance.) This made it seem like a potentially rather interesting piece of literature for its time, and such layered complexity would explain its Booker win (although some 2010s commentators, such as those who criticise the lionising of sexist or abusive male narrators, e.g in Rebecca Solnit's essay on Lolita, would argue that the widespread critical elevation of such narrators is at best questionable). I was never 100% sure about this analysis, and was planning to write a review in which I outlined both that interpretation and a simpler, less favourable one. 1975 must not have been a great year for British and Commonwealth literature anyway, as the Booker shortlist consisted of only two titles. Even though what I read about Prawer Jhabvala and her feelings about India pointed towards the simpler interpretation - in which the granddaughter's attitudes have a fair bit in common with the author's, and in which the story of Olivia and the Nawab is told straight - one could perhaps argue the book still has something going for it *because* it has the flexibility to be interpreted in more than one way.
Pankaj Mishra's 2004 NYT review of another Prawer Jhabvala book refers to a 1980s essay of hers which said "'how intolerable India -- the idea, the sensation of it -- can become' to someone like her… Jhabvala spoke of the intense heat, the lack of a social life and the 'great animal of poverty and backwardness' that she couldn't avoid". (Heat & Dust does contain a lot of hackneyed scenes of vast crowds and poverty - but at the same time everyone here whom I've heard talk about going to India, including British people of Indian descent, has said that it's one of the things you notice at first because of the contrast - so I'm not totally sure what the correct take on that is, except that it's overused while other less stereotypical aspects may go ignored in western writing about India.) I can certainly relate to the dissatisfaction of living in a place you don't like, and to some other ways which Mishra describes her: "the confident exile -- of the much displaced person who, finally secure in her inner world and reconciled to her isolation, looks askance at people longing for fulfillment in other cultures and landscapes", or " When fully absorbed by self-analysis, the perennial outsider usually ends up regarding all emotional and intellectual commitment as folly. Such cold-eyed clarity, useful to a philosopher or mystic, can only be a disadvantage for the novelist, who needs to enter, at least temporarily, her characters' illusions in order to recreate them convincingly on the page." And these days more than ever, lack of respect for a place where you've spent a lot of time will win you few friends. (IME it takes about as long to wear off as the time you lived there.) I think there may be limited use in reading this novel these days, especially for those who find the writing as uninspiring as I did; to learn about India in the 1920s or the 70s it's probably better to read non-fiction, and its frequently stereotypical attitudes will annoy some readers.
Where there may be interesting things going on are in the cynical caricatures of young British hippies by a westerner who's been in India longer, and in feminism / attitudes to women.
When the granddaughter tries to explain the hippies to her Indian landlord (a few years younger than herself), it sounds as if she has a little affinity with them: "I tell him that many of us are tired of the materialism of the West, and even if we have no particular attraction towards the spiritual message of the-East, we come here in the hope of finding a simpler and more natural way of life." [Directly following this is one of the very few occasions in which a convincing Indian voice appears, in his reply, "This explanation hurts him. He feels it to be a mockery. He says why should people who have everything -motor cars, refrigerators - come here to such a place where there is nothing? He says he often feels ashamed before me because of· the way he is living. When I try to protest, he works himself up more, He says he is perfectly well aware that, by Western standards, his house as well as his food and his way of eating it would be considered primitive, inadequate - indeed,. he himself would be considered so because of his unscientific mind and ignorance of the modem world. Yes he knows very well that he is lagging far behind in all these respects and on that account I am well entitled to laugh at him. Why shouldn't I laugh! he cries, not giving me a chance to say anything - he himself often feels like laughing when he looks around him and sees the conditions in which people are living and the superstitions in their minds."
A hippie couple who came to India after being swept up by a swami's talk in London on universal love can be summarised thus:
"Why did you come?" I asked her.
"To find peace." She laughed grimly: "But all I found was dysentery."
These young travellers don't seem to be particularly well off, so the reader doesn't have to endure the most tedious aspects of the 21st-century "gap yah" caricature. (Some even have regional accents!) This is instead about an absurd gulf between romantic expectation and physical reality, and how some Indian spiritual teachers seem to be either milking a cash-cow, or are just oblivious to realities: e.g. apparently training up a white lad as a mendicant sadhu, when Indian people are unlikely to give money to a white British man begging. Even the 1970s episodes seem to echo the old colonial idea of the 'white man's graveyard': the narrative intimates that the climate and the bugs are even bad for westerners who've been in India for several years, although an Indian doctor argues with the granddaughter that "this climate does not suit you people too well. And let alone you people, it does not suit even us."
One feature of 1960s-70s hippie culture that has emerged from the shadows in recent years is how some women felt exploited because "free love" meant they felt obliged to have sex with men they didn't really want. Heat & Dust contains the first example I remember seeing from something written at the time: the unwantedness is clear, but so is a certain amount of buying-into the spiritual side.
I don't think it's entirely a "white feminist" book, in that nebulous 21st century term on which I will certainly not claim to be any kind of expert. Perhaps there is a certain amount of cheap hippyish respect for natural local medicine and so forth, but there is a theme running through the book being subtly positive about greater solidarity between women. If Olivia had sought a respectable acquaintance with the Begum, or if she had gone to Simla with Beth, perhaps she would never have got into the mess she did with the Nawab. The two Bertha-from-Jane-Eyre figures still don't get a lot to say but they are at least shown to be victims rather than monsters; the granddaughter wants to arrange better treatment for the one in the 1970s, and she seems to be genuinely open to befriending some of the Indian women she meets (though we can't tell what they make of her). Other than a doctor or two, and possibly the Nawab's London-based grandson, the Indian men don't come out of this awfully well, in terms of specific characters or general descriptions. Though neither do most of the white British men, other than possibly Douglas, who had "the eyes of a boy who read adventure stories and had dedicated himself to live up to their code of courage and honour" (too normie and straightforward for Olivia ultimately?). The granddaughter sounds kind of optimistic at the end, but I felt the author wasn't very convinced by her either; I think RPJ treats everyone with detached cynicism, although some more politely than others.
I'm not sure I'd really recommend Heat & Dust for anything other than some sort of academic project on early British post-colonial literature. I mean, the second I reached the end, I heard myself saying as if by a reflex, "thank fuck that's finished … that was a bit crap" - though hopefully the above paragraphs show it's not quite that simple, and I did kind of enjoy trying to analyse it. It is very short, so at least I wasn't bored for that long. And Booker completists will read it despite its not having aged terribly well.
January 2, 2022
A somewhat dissatisfying book with the ending. An unnamed Step Great Grand daughter goes to India to find out about her mysterious and scandalous Grandmother Olivia. The story switches between 1923 and the 1970s.
Olivia is a spoilt woman married to Douglas a work obsessed civil servant managing a part of India. She becomes embroiled through a friendship with Harry an English companion of the Nawab a local ruler. The story documents her seduction by the Nawab while in parallel her granddaughter emulates her behavior.
Its an odd story. Colonialism and imperialism laid bare in its obscenity with caricatures of the English. Mysticism, politics and the caste system are woven into the story. Overall a good novella but not a great one, surprised it won a Booker.
Olivia is a spoilt woman married to Douglas a work obsessed civil servant managing a part of India. She becomes embroiled through a friendship with Harry an English companion of the Nawab a local ruler. The story documents her seduction by the Nawab while in parallel her granddaughter emulates her behavior.
Its an odd story. Colonialism and imperialism laid bare in its obscenity with caricatures of the English. Mysticism, politics and the caste system are woven into the story. Overall a good novella but not a great one, surprised it won a Booker.
October 7, 2013
This short novel tells the story of two women, in two different era's. First there is the spoiled and unhappy Oliva, in 1923 colonial India, who outrages society by having an affair with the local Nawab. Olivia's husband Douglas divorces her and remarries. In the 1970's, his granddaughter arrives in India to revisit the places her family once lived and to try to discover the truth about the scandal that surrounded her grandfather's first wife.
There are a great deal of parallel events that occur during this novel; allowing you to see how attitudes have changed over the years. Olivia is a young woman who is simply bored with the life she finds herself leading - with her respectable neighbours, dull dinner parties and absent husband. The Nawab is looked upon with some contempt by Douglas and the other men in the English community. "Only a very little prince..." as his friend Harry remarks, he is regarded as "the worst type of ruler - the worst type of Indian - you can have," by Douglas. Living apart from his wife, dissatisfied and also bored, events throw him and Olivia together with disastrous consequences.
Although this is a short read, it really packs an emotional punch and it is beautifully written. Both the story of Oliva and that of her step-granddaughter almost merge, as you find yourself changing viewpoints with an ease that belies the skill of the author. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala died at the age of 85 this year (2013) but her work stands the test of time and this 1975 Booker winning novel will remain a classic.
There are a great deal of parallel events that occur during this novel; allowing you to see how attitudes have changed over the years. Olivia is a young woman who is simply bored with the life she finds herself leading - with her respectable neighbours, dull dinner parties and absent husband. The Nawab is looked upon with some contempt by Douglas and the other men in the English community. "Only a very little prince..." as his friend Harry remarks, he is regarded as "the worst type of ruler - the worst type of Indian - you can have," by Douglas. Living apart from his wife, dissatisfied and also bored, events throw him and Olivia together with disastrous consequences.
Although this is a short read, it really packs an emotional punch and it is beautifully written. Both the story of Oliva and that of her step-granddaughter almost merge, as you find yourself changing viewpoints with an ease that belies the skill of the author. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala died at the age of 85 this year (2013) but her work stands the test of time and this 1975 Booker winning novel will remain a classic.
May 16, 2022
In the 1970s, many Westerners went to India to escape materialism, a concept insulting to Indians, according to Inder Lal, one of the characters in this book. This search for a simpler way of life felt patronising as most Indians lived in poverty. Inder Lal felt ashamed of the way he lived and could not comprehend who would choose such deprivation over material comforts.
I found this book fascinating and satisfying. I’m not overly keen on the dual time period formula (I feel it’s a bit hackneyed now) but it works well here. The narrator, in addition to telling her own story, relates the story of her grandfather’s first wife, Olivia, who arrived in India in 1923 to join her husband, Douglas. The British community firmly believes that the Indians would not be able to manage their own affairs without them. There are few likeable characters. Despite being on another continent, they are all as class conscious as they would be in England, as we see by Olivia’s disparagement of Mrs Saunders, the doctor’s wife, because she doesn’t have the right accent. There is, of course, a parallel here with the Indian caste system.
Olivia becomes enthralled with the Nawab, a provincial ruler. [I’m more accustomed to seeing this spelled as Nabob but there are many spellings.] He is a complex character and there seems to be some ambiguity around his relationships with all the young men who live in the palace with him, including Harry who becomes Olivia’s friend and who is clearly in love with his host. Olivia is either too naive to see this or chooses to ignore it as it would interfere with what she feels is his romantic allure. She hides many of her visits to the palace from her husband, Douglas, a fact that strains credibility in such a small community. Surely someone would have noticed the chauffeur driven car arriving twice daily? Would Douglas really have believed she was only visiting Harry?
The narrator is Douglas’s granddaughter and she has come to India to research Olivia’s life and to have an adventure of her own. Unlike Olivia who chooses not to see the poverty just outside the palace walls, she is well aware of it as she lives in a poor community in which she makes many friends. The indifference shown to those who have nothing and no one, the living conditions of the poorest, the miserable lives of disempowered women, are all horrifying to read about. There are no heroes in this story. There is no taking sides. Having said that, the most acerbic observation is aimed at the colonialists: there are British cemeteries everywhere! they have turned out to be the most lasting monument.
For what is really only a novella, this is a complex and powerful story. As I’ve said, the dual time period formula is not my favourite. I dislike the parallels that arise between the two main characters as they seem, at times, too contrived. That is why it’s not a 5 star read for me but easily 4.5 stars.
I found this book fascinating and satisfying. I’m not overly keen on the dual time period formula (I feel it’s a bit hackneyed now) but it works well here. The narrator, in addition to telling her own story, relates the story of her grandfather’s first wife, Olivia, who arrived in India in 1923 to join her husband, Douglas. The British community firmly believes that the Indians would not be able to manage their own affairs without them. There are few likeable characters. Despite being on another continent, they are all as class conscious as they would be in England, as we see by Olivia’s disparagement of Mrs Saunders, the doctor’s wife, because she doesn’t have the right accent. There is, of course, a parallel here with the Indian caste system.
Olivia becomes enthralled with the Nawab, a provincial ruler. [I’m more accustomed to seeing this spelled as Nabob but there are many spellings.] He is a complex character and there seems to be some ambiguity around his relationships with all the young men who live in the palace with him, including Harry who becomes Olivia’s friend and who is clearly in love with his host. Olivia is either too naive to see this or chooses to ignore it as it would interfere with what she feels is his romantic allure. She hides many of her visits to the palace from her husband, Douglas, a fact that strains credibility in such a small community. Surely someone would have noticed the chauffeur driven car arriving twice daily? Would Douglas really have believed she was only visiting Harry?
The narrator is Douglas’s granddaughter and she has come to India to research Olivia’s life and to have an adventure of her own. Unlike Olivia who chooses not to see the poverty just outside the palace walls, she is well aware of it as she lives in a poor community in which she makes many friends. The indifference shown to those who have nothing and no one, the living conditions of the poorest, the miserable lives of disempowered women, are all horrifying to read about. There are no heroes in this story. There is no taking sides. Having said that, the most acerbic observation is aimed at the colonialists: there are British cemeteries everywhere! they have turned out to be the most lasting monument.
For what is really only a novella, this is a complex and powerful story. As I’ve said, the dual time period formula is not my favourite. I dislike the parallels that arise between the two main characters as they seem, at times, too contrived. That is why it’s not a 5 star read for me but easily 4.5 stars.
October 27, 2021
The winner of the Booker Prize, this slim novel packs a big punch. There is one timeline from 1923 ("Olivia's story") and a second contemporary (1970s) timeline. Race, sexuality, spirituality, class systems, gender roles, layers of identity— all of these big tickets items are filtered through a deceptively spare narrative.
This author is perhaps best known for being the screen writer/ collaborator on many of those wonderful Merchant Ivory productions.
Big themes distilled into the essence of character and rendered with intimacy and grace — that is what this writer achieves.
This author is perhaps best known for being the screen writer/ collaborator on many of those wonderful Merchant Ivory productions.
Big themes distilled into the essence of character and rendered with intimacy and grace — that is what this writer achieves.
August 31, 2018
I’d been looking forward to reading this book, not least because Ruth Prawer Jhabvala wrote the screenplays for wonderful films such as A Room With A View and Howards End, and a personal favourite of mine, The Remains of the Day. I’m also drawn to books set in India. Lastly, because Heat and Dust won the Man Booker Prize in 1975, although admittedly that year there was only one other book on the shortlist – Thomas Keneally’s Gossip From the Forest. You can understand my disappointment then that I didn’t like Heat and Dust as much as I’d hoped.
Told in alternating story lines from the point of view of Olivia and her step-granddaughter (the narrator), the book moves between the 1920s and the 1970s as the narrator seeks to piece together the story of Olivia, supposedly from her letters and journals (but more of that later) and by retracing her steps, visiting the places Olivia lived in India. Throughout the book, there is a real sense of history repeating itself in the lives of the two women. Sometimes it’s a case of mistakes of the past being repeated, sometimes it’s the two women making different choices when faced with the same dilemma and sometimes it’s just the author’s clever inclusion of subtle echoes between the two timelines, such as visits to the same places.
The author evokes the atmosphere of the Indian cities and countryside through which both women travel. However, they each have quite different responses to the India they encounter. Olivia’s experience is one of boredom and isolation, of long days spent alone while her husband, Douglas, is at work, mixing just with other Europeans and then only at weekly dinner parties where very little of the culture of India is allowed to intrude. In a reference to the book’s title, ‘The rest of the time Olivia was alone in her big house with all the doors and windows shut to keep out the heat and dust.’
The narrator’s response is almost the complete opposite. She embraces the atmosphere of India and, rather than feeling closed in, feels freer than she did back in England, as she emulates her Indian neighbours by sleeping outside at night because of the heat. ‘I lie awake for hours: with happiness, actually. I have never known such a sense of communion. Lying like this under the open sky there is a feeling of being immersed in space – though not in empty space, for there are all these people sleeping all around me, the whole town and I am part of it. How different from my often very lonely room in London with only my own walls to look at and my books to read.’
I suppose I should have felt sympathy for Olivia’s frustration but I’m afraid I couldn’t because she seemed so unprepared to do anything about it that didn’t involve destroying her marriage. I couldn’t decide if her professed devotion to her husband, Douglas, was actually that or in fact more reliance or dependence on him. Olivia also comes across as spoiled and self-centered. For example, when she first encounters the Nawab at a party in his palace and he appears to single her out for attention, her reaction is that ‘here at last was one person in India to be interested in her the way she was used to’. What? Similarly, Olivia professes to be ‘by no means a snob’ (she prefers to think of herself as ‘aesthetic’, as if that excuses what follows) but on a visit to the sick Mrs. Saunders, she describes that poor lady as ‘still the same unattractive woman lying in bed in a bleak, gloomy house’. Also, Olivia muses that Mrs. Saunders’ accent ‘was not that of a too highly educated person’. Right, so not a snob then.
I also really struggled to understand why Olivia (or anyone else, for that matter) should be attracted to the Nawab. He comes across as arrogant and manipulative – bordering on coercive – especially towards Harry, the young Englishman he has supposedly befriended. At one point, Harry says of the Nawab, ‘He’s a very strong person’, admitting ‘one does not say no to such a person’. The Nawab seems unashamed of his influence over Harry, to the point of self-righteousness, saying to Olivia and Douglas at one point, ‘But don’t you see, Mr. and Mrs. Rivers, he is like a child that doesn’t know what it wants! We others have to decide everything for him’. Olivia is so under the Nawab’s spell, however, that her reaction is – amazingly – to envy Harry ‘for having inspired such a depth of love and friendship’.
At the beginning of the book, the narrator comments that ‘India always changes people, and I have been no exception’. She goes on to say, ‘But this is not my story, it is Olivia’s as far as I can follow it’. My trouble was that I was never sure exactly by what means the narrator was telling Olivia’s story because the reader is often party to Olivia’s thoughts, and to Douglas’s on some occasions. Clearly, that insight couldn’t be derived purely from Olivia’s letters and journals. Furthermore, by the end of the book, how much more does the reader actually know about why Olivia acted the way she did and the consequences of her actions? Even the narrator admits ‘there is no record of what she [Olivia] became later, neither in our family nor anywhere else as far as I know. More and more I want to find out…’ You and me both, I thought.
Heat and Dust is interesting from the point of view of comparing the experiences of India by two women separated by fifty years and I liked the way the author created echoes of the earlier timeline in the later one. However, I found it difficult to engage with the key characters and some of their actions and attitudes.
Told in alternating story lines from the point of view of Olivia and her step-granddaughter (the narrator), the book moves between the 1920s and the 1970s as the narrator seeks to piece together the story of Olivia, supposedly from her letters and journals (but more of that later) and by retracing her steps, visiting the places Olivia lived in India. Throughout the book, there is a real sense of history repeating itself in the lives of the two women. Sometimes it’s a case of mistakes of the past being repeated, sometimes it’s the two women making different choices when faced with the same dilemma and sometimes it’s just the author’s clever inclusion of subtle echoes between the two timelines, such as visits to the same places.
The author evokes the atmosphere of the Indian cities and countryside through which both women travel. However, they each have quite different responses to the India they encounter. Olivia’s experience is one of boredom and isolation, of long days spent alone while her husband, Douglas, is at work, mixing just with other Europeans and then only at weekly dinner parties where very little of the culture of India is allowed to intrude. In a reference to the book’s title, ‘The rest of the time Olivia was alone in her big house with all the doors and windows shut to keep out the heat and dust.’
The narrator’s response is almost the complete opposite. She embraces the atmosphere of India and, rather than feeling closed in, feels freer than she did back in England, as she emulates her Indian neighbours by sleeping outside at night because of the heat. ‘I lie awake for hours: with happiness, actually. I have never known such a sense of communion. Lying like this under the open sky there is a feeling of being immersed in space – though not in empty space, for there are all these people sleeping all around me, the whole town and I am part of it. How different from my often very lonely room in London with only my own walls to look at and my books to read.’
I suppose I should have felt sympathy for Olivia’s frustration but I’m afraid I couldn’t because she seemed so unprepared to do anything about it that didn’t involve destroying her marriage. I couldn’t decide if her professed devotion to her husband, Douglas, was actually that or in fact more reliance or dependence on him. Olivia also comes across as spoiled and self-centered. For example, when she first encounters the Nawab at a party in his palace and he appears to single her out for attention, her reaction is that ‘here at last was one person in India to be interested in her the way she was used to’. What? Similarly, Olivia professes to be ‘by no means a snob’ (she prefers to think of herself as ‘aesthetic’, as if that excuses what follows) but on a visit to the sick Mrs. Saunders, she describes that poor lady as ‘still the same unattractive woman lying in bed in a bleak, gloomy house’. Also, Olivia muses that Mrs. Saunders’ accent ‘was not that of a too highly educated person’. Right, so not a snob then.
I also really struggled to understand why Olivia (or anyone else, for that matter) should be attracted to the Nawab. He comes across as arrogant and manipulative – bordering on coercive – especially towards Harry, the young Englishman he has supposedly befriended. At one point, Harry says of the Nawab, ‘He’s a very strong person’, admitting ‘one does not say no to such a person’. The Nawab seems unashamed of his influence over Harry, to the point of self-righteousness, saying to Olivia and Douglas at one point, ‘But don’t you see, Mr. and Mrs. Rivers, he is like a child that doesn’t know what it wants! We others have to decide everything for him’. Olivia is so under the Nawab’s spell, however, that her reaction is – amazingly – to envy Harry ‘for having inspired such a depth of love and friendship’.
At the beginning of the book, the narrator comments that ‘India always changes people, and I have been no exception’. She goes on to say, ‘But this is not my story, it is Olivia’s as far as I can follow it’. My trouble was that I was never sure exactly by what means the narrator was telling Olivia’s story because the reader is often party to Olivia’s thoughts, and to Douglas’s on some occasions. Clearly, that insight couldn’t be derived purely from Olivia’s letters and journals. Furthermore, by the end of the book, how much more does the reader actually know about why Olivia acted the way she did and the consequences of her actions? Even the narrator admits ‘there is no record of what she [Olivia] became later, neither in our family nor anywhere else as far as I know. More and more I want to find out…’ You and me both, I thought.
Heat and Dust is interesting from the point of view of comparing the experiences of India by two women separated by fifty years and I liked the way the author created echoes of the earlier timeline in the later one. However, I found it difficult to engage with the key characters and some of their actions and attitudes.
October 11, 2023
One of the great Booker prize winners - a novel which I read nearly forty years ago and has been on my list of books to reread for at least the last thirty. A short novel but it has so much to say, and says it so well and so succinctly about everything from class, race, gender, relations between and about all the previous and as well the conflicts arising from encounters between people from different races, cultures, backgrounds and the exploration of those interactions.
It is a truly great novel and should be in print and she should be read because she could write rings around almost any author writing in English today. She is unique, my attempt to shelve her only displays the limits of my poor classifications and I would insist that anyone thinking of reading this or any of her novels first explore her biography.
Outside of the obvious 'classics' there aren't many fiction authors who I last read forty years ago that I would award five stars to - with Ms. Jhabvala to do otherwise would not only be an insult to her but reflect a shocking admission of my own inadequacies as a reader.
A beautiful, stunning, nuanced and glorious novel.
It is a truly great novel and should be in print and she should be read because she could write rings around almost any author writing in English today. She is unique, my attempt to shelve her only displays the limits of my poor classifications and I would insist that anyone thinking of reading this or any of her novels first explore her biography.
Outside of the obvious 'classics' there aren't many fiction authors who I last read forty years ago that I would award five stars to - with Ms. Jhabvala to do otherwise would not only be an insult to her but reflect a shocking admission of my own inadequacies as a reader.
A beautiful, stunning, nuanced and glorious novel.
July 26, 2021
Two stories of women whose journeys to India are separated by half a century. One, Olivia, in the later later colonial period in the 1920s, the other, an unnamed relative in the 1970s, who sets out to find out what happened to Olivia. It says much about colonial attitudes and about how experiences can change someone. A short but satisfying read.
May 14, 2021
Winner of the Booker Prize 1975.
I like this book, but there are too many questions left hanging in the air for me to give it more stars.
The author draws a story of two women and their perception of India. The tale flips back and forth between the two women and their respective time frames set fifty some years apart, one before the independence of India and the other after.
The first woman is the young Olivia Rivers married to a British officer stationed in Satipur. The year is 1923. He’s handsome, she’s pretty and the two are in love, but she can’t seem to get pregnant. She becomes bored by the lifestyle of British expat society. The allure of India pulls her. She runs off with an Indian prince.
The second woman is the granddaughter of the husband Olivia deserted. After Olivia’s elopement her husband remarried another British expat. Fifty years after Olivia’s disappearance, this granddaughter returns to India to find out more about Olivia whom no one in the family speaks of.
In reading the book we compare the experiences of the two women and to what extent India has and has not changed before and after independence. The similarities are striking.
I like how the book captures the feel of India, in a somber, dark and enigmatic way. India has a unique allure. It has also attributes that repel. Who is drawn to it, who is repulsed by it and why are what I thought about. Although I appreciate the ambiance evoked, too many questions concerning the characters’ actions are left unanswered. We are not told enough to understand the choices made by the characters. This is why I cannot give the book more than three stars.
Julie Christie narrates the audiobook well. She switches between English spoken with a British accent and English spoken with an Indian accent. Three stars for the narration—it’s good.
I like this book, but there are too many questions left hanging in the air for me to give it more stars.
The author draws a story of two women and their perception of India. The tale flips back and forth between the two women and their respective time frames set fifty some years apart, one before the independence of India and the other after.
The first woman is the young Olivia Rivers married to a British officer stationed in Satipur. The year is 1923. He’s handsome, she’s pretty and the two are in love, but she can’t seem to get pregnant. She becomes bored by the lifestyle of British expat society. The allure of India pulls her. She runs off with an Indian prince.
The second woman is the granddaughter of the husband Olivia deserted. After Olivia’s elopement her husband remarried another British expat. Fifty years after Olivia’s disappearance, this granddaughter returns to India to find out more about Olivia whom no one in the family speaks of.
In reading the book we compare the experiences of the two women and to what extent India has and has not changed before and after independence. The similarities are striking.
I like how the book captures the feel of India, in a somber, dark and enigmatic way. India has a unique allure. It has also attributes that repel. Who is drawn to it, who is repulsed by it and why are what I thought about. Although I appreciate the ambiance evoked, too many questions concerning the characters’ actions are left unanswered. We are not told enough to understand the choices made by the characters. This is why I cannot give the book more than three stars.
Julie Christie narrates the audiobook well. She switches between English spoken with a British accent and English spoken with an Indian accent. Three stars for the narration—it’s good.
January 30, 2018
3.5 stars
This was my first trial in reading Mrs Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's novel due to my disappointment with Ms Arundhati Roy's latest one entitled "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness" (Knopf 2017) in which I could not go on around page 30 even though I had immensely enjoyed reading her "The God of Small Things" (Fourth Estate 2009).
For our better understanding, we should start with its brief synopsis:
However, when we read the four-line Goodreads one (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...), there is a key word denoting her writing technique, that is 'interwoven'. As we can see from the first page with an anonymous narrator, Olivia's step-granddaughter, called herself 'I' who set the scene in nearly two pages and started her journal entries fifty years later (that is in 1973) on 2, 16, 20, 24 February (11+ pages) then flashbacked (interwoven) to the year 1923 (6 pages) depicting Olivia's story. Having an intermission by an asterisk, the journal resumed writing on 28 February (4+ pages), then the year 1923 again [I scribbled ? nearby]. If you understand her technique, you could guess that after reading some 23 pages after this 1923 you would read another series of the entries with recorded dates and months. This writing cycle goes on like this till the end, neither chapter nor topic is available.
One of the difficulties is that some Indian terms seemingly unfamiliar to its readers have occasionally been used, for example, the Nawab, the Begum, the Baba, etc.; therefore, they simply stare in the face with vague understanding or in the dark. As for me, I guessed from the context and thought the Nawab should be an honorable title [an independent ruler (p. 78)], the Begum his mother, the Baba a holy man.
As for its plot, I think, we can keep going and arguably enjoy her narrations and dialogs; however, there is something related to the step-granddaughter whose unnecessarily absurd and precarious indulgence is so dramatic that it is unimaginably stunning and I just wonder why and if what she has done is morally right since what she has committed reveals her carnal relations with Chid, a vagrant Hindu sadhu with his flat Midlands accent so I console myself that everyone can be capable of doing anything fictitious as part of fiction imagined by its author.
In conclusion, what I would say about this novel as her debut to me is that I was a bit disappointed for some reason; therefore, I think I should try reading hers more as an exploratory means like how I have satisfactorily done with the fictions and nonfictions by Mr Graham Greene.
This was my first trial in reading Mrs Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's novel due to my disappointment with Ms Arundhati Roy's latest one entitled "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness" (Knopf 2017) in which I could not go on around page 30 even though I had immensely enjoyed reading her "The God of Small Things" (Fourth Estate 2009).
For our better understanding, we should start with its brief synopsis:
The beautiful, spoilt and bored Olivia, married to a civil servant, outrages society in the tiny, suffocating town of Satipur by eloping with an Indian prince. Fifty years later, her step-granddaughter goes back to the heat, the dust and the squalor of the bazaars to solve the enigma of Olivia's scandal. (back cover)
However, when we read the four-line Goodreads one (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...), there is a key word denoting her writing technique, that is 'interwoven'. As we can see from the first page with an anonymous narrator, Olivia's step-granddaughter, called herself 'I' who set the scene in nearly two pages and started her journal entries fifty years later (that is in 1973) on 2, 16, 20, 24 February (11+ pages) then flashbacked (interwoven) to the year 1923 (6 pages) depicting Olivia's story. Having an intermission by an asterisk, the journal resumed writing on 28 February (4+ pages), then the year 1923 again [I scribbled ? nearby]. If you understand her technique, you could guess that after reading some 23 pages after this 1923 you would read another series of the entries with recorded dates and months. This writing cycle goes on like this till the end, neither chapter nor topic is available.
One of the difficulties is that some Indian terms seemingly unfamiliar to its readers have occasionally been used, for example, the Nawab, the Begum, the Baba, etc.; therefore, they simply stare in the face with vague understanding or in the dark. As for me, I guessed from the context and thought the Nawab should be an honorable title [an independent ruler (p. 78)], the Begum his mother, the Baba a holy man.
As for its plot, I think, we can keep going and arguably enjoy her narrations and dialogs; however, there is something related to the step-granddaughter whose unnecessarily absurd and precarious indulgence is so dramatic that it is unimaginably stunning and I just wonder why and if what she has done is morally right since what she has committed reveals her carnal relations with Chid, a vagrant Hindu sadhu with his flat Midlands accent so I console myself that everyone can be capable of doing anything fictitious as part of fiction imagined by its author.
In conclusion, what I would say about this novel as her debut to me is that I was a bit disappointed for some reason; therefore, I think I should try reading hers more as an exploratory means like how I have satisfactorily done with the fictions and nonfictions by Mr Graham Greene.
May 15, 2022
Published in 1975, this book tells the story of an unnamed British woman who travels to India in search of her step–grandmother’s past. Her English step-grandmother, Olivia, had lived with her husband, a British official, in Satipur in the 1920s, during the era of the British Raj. She had developed a friendship with the local Nawab, an Indian Muslim prince. Later, the friendship became an infatuation, and a scandal ensued. The narrator has always been intrigued with her family’s history. In the 1970s, she inherits Olivia’s letters and journals, which further piques her curiosity. While in India, the narrator’s life starts to parallel that of her step-grandmother.
Throughout this story, the reader will become familiar with conditions in India in the 1920s – poverty, disease, crime, and the ever-present “heat and dust.” The letters contain the views of Olivia’s British social circle. Their view of India’s population comes across as mostly negative. Women have a subservient role and are expected to be dutiful and reserved. Olivia, through her contact with the Nawab, provides his views of the British, so the reader gains multiple perspectives. Both the British and the Nawab live in relative luxury compared to the majority of the population.
The reader comes to understand why Olivia and the Nawab are mutually attracted. He treats her with respect, confides in her, and sees her as a woman of agency. It is a character-driven novel. The 1970s story is narrated in first person. The historical story is told as if it were unfolding. Near the end there is conflict introduced by two male characters that results in Olivia taking a drastic action. It is not a happy story and not for anyone seeking one with all the loose ends tied up. I can see why this book won the Booker prize.
Throughout this story, the reader will become familiar with conditions in India in the 1920s – poverty, disease, crime, and the ever-present “heat and dust.” The letters contain the views of Olivia’s British social circle. Their view of India’s population comes across as mostly negative. Women have a subservient role and are expected to be dutiful and reserved. Olivia, through her contact with the Nawab, provides his views of the British, so the reader gains multiple perspectives. Both the British and the Nawab live in relative luxury compared to the majority of the population.
The reader comes to understand why Olivia and the Nawab are mutually attracted. He treats her with respect, confides in her, and sees her as a woman of agency. It is a character-driven novel. The 1970s story is narrated in first person. The historical story is told as if it were unfolding. Near the end there is conflict introduced by two male characters that results in Olivia taking a drastic action. It is not a happy story and not for anyone seeking one with all the loose ends tied up. I can see why this book won the Booker prize.
February 11, 2018
It took less than a day to read this - 180 pages long and easy to read - but it's a rich and fruitful book. It comprises two stories in parallel: the tale of Olivia who abandons her British husband when she goes to India; and of her un-named relative who goes to Satipur some fifty years later to solve the mystery of what became of Olivia. She ends up becoming 'seduced' by India too.
Olivia is naive but adventurous, and she doesn't like the other British wives and their disdain for Indian religion and culture. She is bored by their vapid lifestyle, and she outrages 'society' by visiting the local Naweb, an impoverished rogue in league with the Dacoits (bandits). The Naweb seems to exert a strange magnetic influence on those around him, including Harry, Olivia's only discerning friend and the one who helps her out when things go awry.
In the process of discovering these scandals about her great-aunt , the narrator finds herself following in some of her footsteps. However, whereas during the British Raj Olivia was isolated from the 'real India' by class, caste and custom whatever her wishes may have been, in post-independence India her successor lives amongst Indians, and can make different decisions about how to live her life. Once again India is depicted as a place that attracts those interested in its 'spirituality' but the dropout Chid's distaste for life as a mendicant shows just how silly it is for affluent outsiders to hanker for a life of poverty and hardship.
The title shows that Jhabvala had no illusions about the reality of life for most Indians.
I finished reading and journalled this book on 13.10.05.
Cross-posted at The Complete Booker: http://completebooker.blogspot.com.au...
Olivia is naive but adventurous, and she doesn't like the other British wives and their disdain for Indian religion and culture. She is bored by their vapid lifestyle, and she outrages 'society' by visiting the local Naweb, an impoverished rogue in league with the Dacoits (bandits). The Naweb seems to exert a strange magnetic influence on those around him, including Harry, Olivia's only discerning friend and the one who helps her out when things go awry.
In the process of discovering these scandals about her great-aunt , the narrator finds herself following in some of her footsteps. However, whereas during the British Raj Olivia was isolated from the 'real India' by class, caste and custom whatever her wishes may have been, in post-independence India her successor lives amongst Indians, and can make different decisions about how to live her life. Once again India is depicted as a place that attracts those interested in its 'spirituality' but the dropout Chid's distaste for life as a mendicant shows just how silly it is for affluent outsiders to hanker for a life of poverty and hardship.
The title shows that Jhabvala had no illusions about the reality of life for most Indians.
I finished reading and journalled this book on 13.10.05.
Cross-posted at The Complete Booker: http://completebooker.blogspot.com.au...
December 5, 2017
اول اینکه: کتاب خیلی جذاب و پرکشش بود. اگر یه وقتی خواستین کتابی به نسبت کوتاه بخونید که داستان داشته باشه و حوصله تون هم سر نره، حتما انتخاب خوبی هست. متن انگلیسیش هم به بسیار بسیار ساده است و اگر خواستین رمان انگلیسی ساده بخونید، گزینه مناسبی هست واقعا.
دوم اینکه: داستان هم یک سری خوبی ها داشت، و هم یه سری نقاط ضعف که خیلی توی ذوق میزد. اول خوبی هاش رو میگم:
1. داستان از زاویه ی دید دو تا خانوم انگلیسی در دو بازه زمانی متفاوت ، اما به موازات همدیگه، درهند نقل میشه. رفت و برگشت بین این دو دنیای موازی خیلی حرفه ای و تمیز بود. با اینکه همه ی آدم ها و فضاها در این دو دنیا با هم متفاوت بودن، ولی همون صحنه ای که دنیای اول تموم میشد، دقیقا شروع صحنه ی دنیای دوم بود. اگر فیلم بود میگفتم حقش هست اسکار بهترین تدوین رو ببره. یه جاهایی حتی اون آخرها بود که در جریانِ یک دیالوگ در دنیای اول، یهو میرفتیم دنیای دوم. به این شکل که در جواب کسی که در دنیای اول داشت حرف میزد، کسی از دنیا دوم جواب میداد و داستان یکهو در دنیای دوم ادامه پیدا میکرد. فرمی بود که شاید برای سینما خیلی عادی باشه، اما شخصا توی کتابی بهش برنخورده بودم.
2. کنار اینها، داستان خیلی موقعیت خوبی رو برای دونستن از هند به عنوان "مستعمره انگلیس" (و نه خود هند فقط) فراهم میکنه. درواقع دید خوبی از حس انگلیس ها به هند به آدم میده. دیدش کامل نبود اما محور داستان درواقع بر دو نگاه متضاد (حتی شاید سه نگاه اگر چید رو هم در نظر بگیریم) به هندی ها تکیه کرده بود. نگاه اول، نگاه کسانی بود که با وجود اینکه حتی در هند به دنیا اومده بودن هنوز نگاه بالا به پایین به هندی ها داشتن. نگاه دوم ، نگاه شخصیت های اصلی داستان بود. کسانی که اول کار علاقه و حسی به هند ندارن (مثلا عاشق بودا و مذاهب شرقی و زیبایی های هند نشدن)، منتها با گذشت زمان در فضای هند و آدم هاش حل میشن و بهش "فرار میکنن" یا به قول خود کتاب :"هند نقطه ضعفشون رو پیدا میکنه و اونها رو به زانو در میاره." خیلی قشنگ این تفاوتِ نگاه ها به هند رو در آورده بود.
3. چیز دیگه ای که راجع به کتاب دوست داشتم این بود که رابطه هندی-انگلیسی ها رو، هم از دید "مسیونرانگلیسی- حاکم(اشراف) هندی" توصیف کرد (دنیای اول) و هم از دید "انگلیسی عادی/بدبخت-هندی عادی/گدا." اینجوری تونسته بود مقدار خوبی از نگاه استعمارگری و قدیمی فرار کنه و خواندده رو با ابعاد مختلفِ اون بستر تاریخی و اجتماعی آشنا کنه. کلا بعد از کتاب حس خاصی به هند داشتم، انگار با قشرهای متعددی از هندی ها مواجه شده بودم در داستان.
4. در کنار همه ی این خوبی ها ولی شخصیت های کتاب خیلی خلی خیلی خام بودن. دیالوگ های بیخوی و بی سر و ته زیاد داشت و روابط آدم ها خیلی ناقص شکل گرفته بود. مثلا درباره ی نواب، واضح بود که نتونسته جذابیت و کاریزماش رو توی دیالوگ ها و حرف ها و کارهاش دربیاره و مجبور بود هی از زبون بقیه بگه که چقدر جذاب و تو دل بروست. و در نهایت هم نمیشد درک کرد چرا الیویا هی مدام بهش سر میزد و آخر هم که باهاش فرار کرد. این قضیه به خصوص سر نواب مهم بود چون به نوعی نواب نمادِ هند بود که جذاب هست و رمزآلود و اغواگر . اینکه نتونسته بود شخصیت نواب (و ایندر لعل) رو دربیاره یعنی نتونسته بود نشون بده چرا هند یه سری از انگلیسی ها رو تا آخر عمر و حتی پس از استقلال هند توی خودش نگه داشت؟ سوالی که بعد از خوندن کتاب توی ذهنم پررنگ تر شد: "هند چی داشت مگه ؟"
از شخصیت هری هم نگم که اساسا حضور و داستانش بیش از اندازه غیر قابل درک بود. اصلا همین الان که دارم این رو مینویسم هی یاد خرده داستان ها و شخصیت های کتاب میفتم و هی از خودم میپرسم "راستی حکمت فلانی و فلان حرف چی بود آخه؟ " خیلی حس کردم داستان سوژه رو داشته و کمی هول هولی نوشته شده که فقط هدفش رو ارضا کنه. آخر کتاب هم مثل فیلم ها که سرنوشت شخصیت ها رو توی سکانس آخر مینویسن و راوی میخونه بود. حتی شاد بدتر و نچسب تر.
در کل به نظرم فیلم نامه ای بود که با ضرب و زور شده بود کتاب ومتاسفانه از ابزارِ" نوشتن " اصلا استفاده نشده بود.
دوم اینکه: داستان هم یک سری خوبی ها داشت، و هم یه سری نقاط ضعف که خیلی توی ذوق میزد. اول خوبی هاش رو میگم:
1. داستان از زاویه ی دید دو تا خانوم انگلیسی در دو بازه زمانی متفاوت ، اما به موازات همدیگه، درهند نقل میشه. رفت و برگشت بین این دو دنیای موازی خیلی حرفه ای و تمیز بود. با اینکه همه ی آدم ها و فضاها در این دو دنیا با هم متفاوت بودن، ولی همون صحنه ای که دنیای اول تموم میشد، دقیقا شروع صحنه ی دنیای دوم بود. اگر فیلم بود میگفتم حقش هست اسکار بهترین تدوین رو ببره. یه جاهایی حتی اون آخرها بود که در جریانِ یک دیالوگ در دنیای اول، یهو میرفتیم دنیای دوم. به این شکل که در جواب کسی که در دنیای اول داشت حرف میزد، کسی از دنیا دوم جواب میداد و داستان یکهو در دنیای دوم ادامه پیدا میکرد. فرمی بود که شاید برای سینما خیلی عادی باشه، اما شخصا توی کتابی بهش برنخورده بودم.
2. کنار اینها، داستان خیلی موقعیت خوبی رو برای دونستن از هند به عنوان "مستعمره انگلیس" (و نه خود هند فقط) فراهم میکنه. درواقع دید خوبی از حس انگلیس ها به هند به آدم میده. دیدش کامل نبود اما محور داستان درواقع بر دو نگاه متضاد (حتی شاید سه نگاه اگر چید رو هم در نظر بگیریم) به هندی ها تکیه کرده بود. نگاه اول، نگاه کسانی بود که با وجود اینکه حتی در هند به دنیا اومده بودن هنوز نگاه بالا به پایین به هندی ها داشتن. نگاه دوم ، نگاه شخصیت های اصلی داستان بود. کسانی که اول کار علاقه و حسی به هند ندارن (مثلا عاشق بودا و مذاهب شرقی و زیبایی های هند نشدن)، منتها با گذشت زمان در فضای هند و آدم هاش حل میشن و بهش "فرار میکنن" یا به قول خود کتاب :"هند نقطه ضعفشون رو پیدا میکنه و اونها رو به زانو در میاره." خیلی قشنگ این تفاوتِ نگاه ها به هند رو در آورده بود.
3. چیز دیگه ای که راجع به کتاب دوست داشتم این بود که رابطه هندی-انگلیسی ها رو، هم از دید "مسیونرانگلیسی- حاکم(اشراف) هندی" توصیف کرد (دنیای اول) و هم از دید "انگلیسی عادی/بدبخت-هندی عادی/گدا." اینجوری تونسته بود مقدار خوبی از نگاه استعمارگری و قدیمی فرار کنه و خواندده رو با ابعاد مختلفِ اون بستر تاریخی و اجتماعی آشنا کنه. کلا بعد از کتاب حس خاصی به هند داشتم، انگار با قشرهای متعددی از هندی ها مواجه شده بودم در داستان.
4. در کنار همه ی این خوبی ها ولی شخصیت های کتاب خیلی خلی خیلی خام بودن. دیالوگ های بیخوی و بی سر و ته زیاد داشت و روابط آدم ها خیلی ناقص شکل گرفته بود. مثلا درباره ی نواب، واضح بود که نتونسته جذابیت و کاریزماش رو توی دیالوگ ها و حرف ها و کارهاش دربیاره و مجبور بود هی از زبون بقیه بگه که چقدر جذاب و تو دل بروست. و در نهایت هم نمیشد درک کرد چرا الیویا هی مدام بهش سر میزد و آخر هم که باهاش فرار کرد. این قضیه به خصوص سر نواب مهم بود چون به نوعی نواب نمادِ هند بود که جذاب هست و رمزآلود و اغواگر . اینکه نتونسته بود شخصیت نواب (و ایندر لعل) رو دربیاره یعنی نتونسته بود نشون بده چرا هند یه سری از انگلیسی ها رو تا آخر عمر و حتی پس از استقلال هند توی خودش نگه داشت؟ سوالی که بعد از خوندن کتاب توی ذهنم پررنگ تر شد: "هند چی داشت مگه ؟"
از شخصیت هری هم نگم که اساسا حضور و داستانش بیش از اندازه غیر قابل درک بود. اصلا همین الان که دارم این رو مینویسم هی یاد خرده داستان ها و شخصیت های کتاب میفتم و هی از خودم میپرسم "راستی حکمت فلانی و فلان حرف چی بود آخه؟ " خیلی حس کردم داستان سوژه رو داشته و کمی هول هولی نوشته شده که فقط هدفش رو ارضا کنه. آخر کتاب هم مثل فیلم ها که سرنوشت شخصیت ها رو توی سکانس آخر مینویسن و راوی میخونه بود. حتی شاد بدتر و نچسب تر.
در کل به نظرم فیلم نامه ای بود که با ضرب و زور شده بود کتاب ومتاسفانه از ابزارِ" نوشتن " اصلا استفاده نشده بود.
February 10, 2020
The opening of this book tells that Olivia finds her way to the Nawab (a minor Indian Prince), leaving her husband. I have had a string of reading lately where there is marital trouble and I wasn't exactly in the mood for another. But this felt entirely different. Olivia seems wholeheartedly in love with Douglas, her husband, and he with her. So what happened?
Olivia's story takes place in 1923 when the British ruled India. Her story is told by Olivia's step-granddaughter. There are two stories of two Indias because the granddaughter also has a story, alternating with Olivia's throughout. I liked them both. Part of what kept me reading was to find out why the granddaughter came to India.
The prose is good, though not beautiful - there is no sentence I wanted to read again because it was beautiful. I did read this one twice: He wanted to linger, but his syce stood holding his horse, his peon carried his files, his bearer stood waiting with his solar topee. The "he/his" was Douglas, Olivia's husband. It indicates the kind of lifestyle enjoyed by the British while they ruled. I think the characterizations of the two women could have been more fully-fleshed, though the women were real enough for the novel to be believable.
I'd like to stretch this to 5-stars, but it just doesn't quite make it. It's better than a middlin' 4-stars, though.
Olivia's story takes place in 1923 when the British ruled India. Her story is told by Olivia's step-granddaughter. There are two stories of two Indias because the granddaughter also has a story, alternating with Olivia's throughout. I liked them both. Part of what kept me reading was to find out why the granddaughter came to India.
The prose is good, though not beautiful - there is no sentence I wanted to read again because it was beautiful. I did read this one twice: He wanted to linger, but his syce stood holding his horse, his peon carried his files, his bearer stood waiting with his solar topee. The "he/his" was Douglas, Olivia's husband. It indicates the kind of lifestyle enjoyed by the British while they ruled. I think the characterizations of the two women could have been more fully-fleshed, though the women were real enough for the novel to be believable.
I'd like to stretch this to 5-stars, but it just doesn't quite make it. It's better than a middlin' 4-stars, though.
Read
September 14, 20186.5/10
Ho hummmmm .....
Always the same story, isn’t it? And when there’s nothing new to say, just don’t say it.
Paul Scott re-visited E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India, and surpassed him by a country mile. After Scott, there was nothing left to say about India.
They should have given Jhabvala’s Booker to Scott for one of his other novels in the Raj Quartet. (As it was, they only gave him one, for Staying On.)
When Booker starts making sense, I’ll read more Bookers. As it stands, I now read them, on the main, because somebody in book club gets a hankering. I happily avoid them, for good reason, this one being a prime example.
Ok. Tantrum finished.
But buoy is set: read this if you need a good snooze under a banyan tree. Otherwise, find Scott’s Quartet and be prepared to have heart and mind changed forever on India.
Ho hummmmm .....
Always the same story, isn’t it? And when there’s nothing new to say, just don’t say it.
Paul Scott re-visited E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India, and surpassed him by a country mile. After Scott, there was nothing left to say about India.
They should have given Jhabvala’s Booker to Scott for one of his other novels in the Raj Quartet. (As it was, they only gave him one, for Staying On.)
When Booker starts making sense, I’ll read more Bookers. As it stands, I now read them, on the main, because somebody in book club gets a hankering. I happily avoid them, for good reason, this one being a prime example.
Ok. Tantrum finished.
But buoy is set: read this if you need a good snooze under a banyan tree. Otherwise, find Scott’s Quartet and be prepared to have heart and mind changed forever on India.
July 8, 2022
I came to this novel because of the Greta Scacchi/Julie Christie film made in 1983. It has always been memorable and every eight or nine years I put it up on the screen and watch it again. Jhabvala's book, however, doesn't measure up to the quality of the film, whose screenplay she also wrote. It simply falls flat, being far too talky and lacking in all those layers of imagery the film pulled off. The desolate hot plains leading to the Nawab's palace, the enticing sense of comfort of Douglas and Olivia's bungalow, or even the cold snowy inclines of the Himalayas at film's end. Heat and Dust, I think, was the best film that Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala ever produced. Never again would they achieve such formal complexity or avoid the cloying sentimentality that absolutely pollutes films such as Room with a View, Howards End, and The Remains of the Day.
It is nearing fifty years since Jhabvala published Heat and Dust in 1975. That is almost as much a difference in time as the distance between the book's publication and its "past" setting in 1923. Yet, as the modern story, set in the early 1970s, takes place, it seems much closer and not too much different from today, 2022. So many of its discoveries align with the same situation a contemporary heroine might face. And they seem utterly alien to the 1923 world of the British raj and Olivia and her colonial administrator husband. That world exists in a romantic haze, compared to the dirt and squalor which surround the modern story. And what is the story? Well, it's about the modern quest to discover who you are, where you come from, and how much you have in common with those that precede you. Good and interesting notions. But all done much more successfully in the film than this novel. In another decade or less, I'll probably take out Heat and Dust, the movie, and watch it again. I'll never get the enthusiasm to read once more through the novel.
It is nearing fifty years since Jhabvala published Heat and Dust in 1975. That is almost as much a difference in time as the distance between the book's publication and its "past" setting in 1923. Yet, as the modern story, set in the early 1970s, takes place, it seems much closer and not too much different from today, 2022. So many of its discoveries align with the same situation a contemporary heroine might face. And they seem utterly alien to the 1923 world of the British raj and Olivia and her colonial administrator husband. That world exists in a romantic haze, compared to the dirt and squalor which surround the modern story. And what is the story? Well, it's about the modern quest to discover who you are, where you come from, and how much you have in common with those that precede you. Good and interesting notions. But all done much more successfully in the film than this novel. In another decade or less, I'll probably take out Heat and Dust, the movie, and watch it again. I'll never get the enthusiasm to read once more through the novel.
December 4, 2015
চমৎকার ছিমছাম একটা উপন্যাস। রুথ প্রাওয়ার জাবভালা আজ আর বেঁচে নেই, তবে রেখে গেছেন বুকার পুরস্কার বিজয়ী এই বইটি, আর মার্চেন্ট-আইভরি টীমের সাথে বানানো ৮০ আর ৯০ দশকের বিখ্যাত কিছু চলচ্চিত্র। আরো কিছু বইও লিখেছিলেন, কিন্তু ঔপন্যাসিক হিসেবে তার কুশলী হাতের প্রধান টেস্টিমনি হয়ে থাকবে এই "হীট এন্ড ডাস্ট"।
লেখিকার জীবনকাহিনী বিংশ শতকের ক্লাসিক গল্প। ১৯৩৯ সালে হিটলারের তাড়া খেয়ে জার্মানীর কোলোন শহর থেকে বিলেতে পালিয়ে এলো ছোট ইহুদি মেয়ে রুথ প্রাওয়ার, সপরিবারে, একদম টায়ে টায়ে, দ্বিতীয় বিশ্বযুদ্ধ শুরু হওয়ার মাত্র কিছুদিন আগে। আর কয়েকদিন দেরী হয়ে গেলেই ভবলীলা সাঙ্গ হয়ে যেতো হয়তো, আউশভিতস বা বুখেনভাল্ডের গ্যাস চুল্লিতে। রুথের বয়স তখন ১২। তারো ১২ বছর পর ভারতীয় আর্কিটেক্ট স্বামীকে নিয়ে চল�� এলেন ভারতবর্ষে, ইংরেজের বিদায়-ঘন্টার নিনাদ মাত্র মিইয়ে যাচ্ছে উপমহাদেশ থেকে। তারপর শুধু লেখালেখি আর লেখালেখি - অনবরত ৫০ বছর। ভারতীয় না হয়েও ভারতকে যে হাতে-গোণা কয়েকজন শ্বেতাঙ্গ লেখক একদম ভেতর থেকে দেখেছিলেন, জানার বোঝার সিরিয়াস চেষ্টা করেছিলেন - জাবভালা আছেন সেই খাটো লিস্টে। রাজ কোয়ার্টেট খ্যাত পল স্কট আছেন আরেকজন। ব্রিটিশ রাজের শেষ দিনগুলোতে হামবড়া বোকাচোদা ইংরেজের আস্ফালন আর উল্লম্ফনের করুণ চিত্র এঁকেছেন। পায়ের তলা থেকে শীঘ্রই মাটি সরে যাওয়া এক পাতি-সভ্যতার সমাপ্তি।
"হীট এন্ড ডাস্ট"-এর গল্প সোজা-সাপ্টা। ১৯২৩ সালে সতিপুর টাউনের ডেপুটি কালেক্টর ডগলাস সাহেব তার নতুন বৌ অলিভিয়া-কে বিলেত থেকে নিয়ে এলেন ভারতে। আশপাশের পুরনো ইংরেজ পরিবারদের সাথে মিলে মিশে চলে অলিভিয়া, ঘর সাজায়, পিয়ানো বাজায়। চরম বোরিং জীবন। একদিন পাশের গ্রাম খাতমের নবাব নিমন্ত্রণ পাঠালেন সবাইকে, নবাব বাড়িতে ঘটা করে দাওয়াতের আয়োজন। সেখানেই ঘটে যায় অঘটন - সুপুরুষ নবাবের নজরে পড়ে যায় তরুণী অলিভিয়া। এবং অলিভিয়ার নজরে নবাব। পরবর্তী ২০০ পৃষ্ঠা এই চোখাচোখির পরিণামের কাহিনী।
অর্ধশতক পরে প্রয়াত অলিভিয়ার এক দূর সম্পর্কের নাতনী তার সন্ধানে চলে আসে ভারতে। পুরনো চিঠির জের ধরে ধরে আবিষ্কার করে সতিপুর গ্রাম আর খাতম, পাঁচ দশকে কতটুকুই বদলেছে আসলে? দারুন নৈপুণ্যে গল্পের কাঠামো সাজিয়েছেন লেখিকা - ফ্ল্যাশব্যাকে ১৯২৩ সালে অলিভিয়া-নবাব-ডগলাস-হ্যারি, নিমেষে আবার বর্তমানে, বেনামী ইংরেজ তরুণী, ইন্দর লাল, মা-জি, শ্বেতাঙ্গ সাধু চিদ... আবার ফ্ল্যাশব্যাক, আবার ফ্ল্যাশ ফরোয়ার্ড... এভাবে করেই আমরা টের পাই যে হারিয়ে যাওয়া বড় নানুর সাথে পঞ্চাশ বছরের তফাতে অথচ বিশ্বস্ত সমান্তরালে চলছে নাতনী।
আজকে বইটির যত না খ্যাতি, তার চেয়ে বেশি পরিচিত সম্ভবত সিনেমাটি - শশী কাপুরের নবাব আর গ্রেটা স্কাক্কি'র অলিভিয়া সেলুলয়েডে অনন্ত জীবন দান করেছেন রুথ প্রাওয়ার জাবভালা'র উপন্যাসকে।
লেখিকার জীবনকাহিনী বিংশ শতকের ক্লাসিক গল্প। ১৯৩৯ সালে হিটলারের তাড়া খেয়ে জার্মানীর কোলোন শহর থেকে বিলেতে পালিয়ে এলো ছোট ইহুদি মেয়ে রুথ প্রাওয়ার, সপরিবারে, একদম টায়ে টায়ে, দ্বিতীয় বিশ্বযুদ্ধ শুরু হওয়ার মাত্র কিছুদিন আগে। আর কয়েকদিন দেরী হয়ে গেলেই ভবলীলা সাঙ্গ হয়ে যেতো হয়তো, আউশভিতস বা বুখেনভাল্ডের গ্যাস চুল্লিতে। রুথের বয়স তখন ১২। তারো ১২ বছর পর ভারতীয় আর্কিটেক্ট স্বামীকে নিয়ে চল�� এলেন ভারতবর্ষে, ইংরেজের বিদায়-ঘন্টার নিনাদ মাত্র মিইয়ে যাচ্ছে উপমহাদেশ থেকে। তারপর শুধু লেখালেখি আর লেখালেখি - অনবরত ৫০ বছর। ভারতীয় না হয়েও ভারতকে যে হাতে-গোণা কয়েকজন শ্বেতাঙ্গ লেখক একদম ভেতর থেকে দেখেছিলেন, জানার বোঝার সিরিয়াস চেষ্টা করেছিলেন - জাবভালা আছেন সেই খাটো লিস্টে। রাজ কোয়ার্টেট খ্যাত পল স্কট আছেন আরেকজন। ব্রিটিশ রাজের শেষ দিনগুলোতে হামবড়া বোকাচোদা ইংরেজের আস্ফালন আর উল্লম্ফনের করুণ চিত্র এঁকেছেন। পায়ের তলা থেকে শীঘ্রই মাটি সরে যাওয়া এক পাতি-সভ্যতার সমাপ্তি।
"হীট এন্ড ডাস্ট"-এর গল্প সোজা-সাপ্টা। ১৯২৩ সালে সতিপুর টাউনের ডেপুটি কালেক্টর ডগলাস সাহেব তার নতুন বৌ অলিভিয়া-কে বিলেত থেকে নিয়ে এলেন ভারতে। আশপাশের পুরনো ইংরেজ পরিবারদের সাথে মিলে মিশে চলে অলিভিয়া, ঘর সাজায়, পিয়ানো বাজায়। চরম বোরিং জীবন। একদিন পাশের গ্রাম খাতমের নবাব নিমন্ত্রণ পাঠালেন সবাইকে, নবাব বাড়িতে ঘটা করে দাওয়াতের আয়োজন। সেখানেই ঘটে যায় অঘটন - সুপুরুষ নবাবের নজরে পড়ে যায় তরুণী অলিভিয়া। এবং অলিভিয়ার নজরে নবাব। পরবর্তী ২০০ পৃষ্ঠা এই চোখাচোখির পরিণামের কাহিনী।
অর্ধশতক পরে প্রয়াত অলিভিয়ার এক দূর সম্পর্কের নাতনী তার সন্ধানে চলে আসে ভারতে। পুরনো চিঠির জের ধরে ধরে আবিষ্কার করে সতিপুর গ্রাম আর খাতম, পাঁচ দশকে কতটুকুই বদলেছে আসলে? দারুন নৈপুণ্যে গল্পের কাঠামো সাজিয়েছেন লেখিকা - ফ্ল্যাশব্যাকে ১৯২৩ সালে অলিভিয়া-নবাব-ডগলাস-হ্যারি, নিমেষে আবার বর্তমানে, বেনামী ইংরেজ তরুণী, ইন্দর লাল, মা-জি, শ্বেতাঙ্গ সাধু চিদ... আবার ফ্ল্যাশব্যাক, আবার ফ্ল্যাশ ফরোয়ার্ড... এভাবে করেই আমরা টের পাই যে হারিয়ে যাওয়া বড় নানুর সাথে পঞ্চাশ বছরের তফাতে অথচ বিশ্বস্ত সমান্তরালে চলছে নাতনী।
আজকে বইটির যত না খ্যাতি, তার চেয়ে বেশি পরিচিত সম্ভবত সিনেমাটি - শশী কাপুরের নবাব আর গ্রেটা স্কাক্কি'র অলিভিয়া সেলুলয়েডে অনন্ত জীবন দান করেছেন রুথ প্রাওয়ার জাবভালা'র উপন্যাসকে।
August 24, 2014
Книга, която не позволява да я оставиш до последната страница, да заспиш или да мислиш за друго. Кратка, красиво написана, проследяваща паралелно живота на две жени, които Индия белязва завинаги и ги превръща в авантюристки с трудно обяснимо понякога поведение.
"Индия винаги намира слабото ти място и цели в него."
Едната е отегчена, скучаеща съпруга на високопоставен английски служител, другата – негова внучка от втория му брак, търсеща истината за старателно премълчаваната и скандална за времето си случка в семейството. Историите на двете не са просто истории за любов и внезапна страст. Половинвековното разстояние между тях показва Индия паралелно преди и след независимостта. Някои промени са осезаеми, но и през 1923 г., и в началото на 70-те, тя си е все така мръсна и гладна, с ужасяващо много болни и неграмотни и въпреки цялата мизерия - загадъчна и обсебваща.
"Индия винаги намира слабото ти място и цели в него."
Едната е отегчена, скучаеща съпруга на високопоставен английски служител, другата – негова внучка от втория му брак, търсеща истината за старателно премълчаваната и скандална за времето си случка в семейството. Историите на двете не са просто истории за любов и внезапна страст. Половинвековното разстояние между тях показва Индия паралелно преди и след независимостта. Някои промени са осезаеми, но и през 1923 г., и в началото на 70-те, тя си е все така мръсна и гладна, с ужасяващо много болни и неграмотни и въпреки цялата мизерия - загадъчна и обсебваща.
August 3, 2020
Two women, separated by half a century, move from England to India where they uncover new aspects of themselves. I enjoyed the sense of place and the development of the characters.
April 3, 2016
This is a lovely little novel. It immerses you in two different yet parallel India's. One of colonial 1923 and the other independence circa 1970s. It is very hard not to draw comparisons with E.M Fosters great novel "A Passage to India" both dealing with the English/Indian cultural clash and the somewhat mystical draw of India on the European character. I have a particular fondness for literature dealing with the follies of Englishman in foreign lands so this slight novel really appealed. My only complaint is it does end rather abruptly, I could have read a much longer novel with both Olivia and the Nawab as central characters.
March 26, 2020
3.5 stars - not because it wasn't well written but because I read Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's short story collection, Out of India: Selected Stories, prior to reading Heat and Dust, so the novel seemed less dynamic and compelling to me.
December 5, 2020
Има нещо в тази книга, което вярвам че е така, защото изпитах на свой гръб - с Индия трябва да се държиш на разстояние, защото допуснеш ли я в сърцето си, тя лесно може да те завлече ' от другата страна'.
Което, като се замисля, не е толкова лошо.
Което, като се замисля, не е толкова лошо.
November 6, 2017
هند جادویی و افسونگر
البته خیلی جالبه که راوی در زمان حال وقتی به هند
سفر میکنه کثافت و بدبختیش رو هم میبینه و باز هم
شیفته میشه و به قول خودش از خط قرمز عبور میکنه
ستاره پنجم رو به ترجمه خوب کتاب دادم
که تجربه خوندنش رو لذت بخش کرد و با
زیرنویسهای خوبش متن رو قابل فهمتر کرد
شاید بهتره به خود هند سفر کنم عوض خوندن این همه
کتاب درباره هند ولی اینها خیلی گسترده میکنند دید
آدم رو و همینطور یک آمادگی میدن به آدم که شاید
سفر یکماهه هم برات به اندازه یه اقامت طولانی تر
جذاب و عمیق باشه
خطر اسپویل شدن
Spoiler :
شخصیتهای کتاب در فاصله حدود پنجاه سال دوباره
تکرار میشند و همزاد اونها با داستانهایی که در امروز
اتفاق میفته به صورت قرینه شخصیت پردازی میشند
راوی.... الیویا
ایندرلعل.... نواب
چید ....هری
بقیه آدمها تقریبن تیپ هستند... مثل داگلاس و مادر نواب و
ماجی
رابطه ی بین
هری و نواب و بعدها هری و فردی وجود داره که به نظر
همجنسگرایانه هست یعنی هری هیچوقت با زنها رابطه نداره مادر نواب باهاش راحته حتی داگلاس هم ایرادی نمیبینه
همسرش با هری رفت و آمد کنه انگار هری محرم همه
هست فکر میکنم اشاره های مستقیم تر حذف شده اند
این یه لذت نامشروع خوندن کتاب به فارسی هست تو ایران که حدس بزنی کجاش رو سانسور کردند و چرا سانسور کردند
اما اگر واقعن در همین حد در کتاب در مورد هری توضیح داده شده باشه
اونوقت به نظرم ناقص هست و شخصیت پردازی و منطق درونی داستان با هم جور نیست
البته خیلی جالبه که راوی در زمان حال وقتی به هند
سفر میکنه کثافت و بدبختیش رو هم میبینه و باز هم
شیفته میشه و به قول خودش از خط قرمز عبور میکنه
ستاره پنجم رو به ترجمه خوب کتاب دادم
که تجربه خوندنش رو لذت بخش کرد و با
زیرنویسهای خوبش متن رو قابل فهمتر کرد
شاید بهتره به خود هند سفر کنم عوض خوندن این همه
کتاب درباره هند ولی اینها خیلی گسترده میکنند دید
آدم رو و همینطور یک آمادگی میدن به آدم که شاید
سفر یکماهه هم برات به اندازه یه اقامت طولانی تر
جذاب و عمیق باشه
خطر اسپویل شدن
Spoiler :
شخصیتهای کتاب در فاصله حدود پنجاه سال دوباره
تکرار میشند و همزاد اونها با داستانهایی که در امروز
اتفاق میفته به صورت قرینه شخصیت پردازی میشند
راوی.... الیویا
ایندرلعل.... نواب
چید ....هری
بقیه آدمها تقریبن تیپ هستند... مثل داگلاس و مادر نواب و
ماجی
رابطه ی بین
هری و نواب و بعدها هری و فردی وجود داره که به نظر
همجنسگرایانه هست یعنی هری هیچوقت با زنها رابطه نداره مادر نواب باهاش راحته حتی داگلاس هم ایرادی نمیبینه
همسرش با هری رفت و آمد کنه انگار هری محرم همه
هست فکر میکنم اشاره های مستقیم تر حذف شده اند
این یه لذت نامشروع خوندن کتاب به فارسی هست تو ایران که حدس بزنی کجاش رو سانسور کردند و چرا سانسور کردند
اما اگر واقعن در همین حد در کتاب در مورد هری توضیح داده شده باشه
اونوقت به نظرم ناقص هست و شخصیت پردازی و منطق درونی داستان با هم جور نیست
June 3, 2019
Започна много интересно, но ентусиазмът ми бързо “увяхна”. Не ме докосна с нищо, направо ми беше скучна. Някои от персонажите ми се сториха категорично излишни.
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