Golden Afternoon

Share of Summer ##2

by M.M. Kaye

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Genres: Biography, India, Nonfiction, Memoir, Autobiography, Travel, History

432 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

M. M. Kaye (Mary Margaret) was born in India and spent her early childhood and much of her early-married life there. Her family ties with the country are strong: her grandfather, father, brother and husband all served the British Raj. After India's independence, her husband, Major-General Goff Hamilton of Queen Victoria's Own Corps of Guides (the famous Indian Army regiment featured in The Far Pavilions), joined the British Army and for the next nineteen years M. M. Kaye followed the drum to Kenya, Zanzibar, Egypt, Cyprus and Germany.
M. M. Kaye won worldwide fame for The Far Pavilions, which became a worldwide best-seller on publication in 1978. This was followed by Shadow of the Moon and Trade Wind. She also wrote and illustrated The Ordinary Princess, a children's book and authored a dozen detective novels, including Death in Kashmir and Death in Zanzibar. Her autobiography has been published in three volumes, collectively entitled Share of Summer: The Sun in the Morning, Golden Afternoon, and Enchanted Evening. In March 2003, M. M. Kaye was awarded the Colonel James Tod International Award by the Maharana Mewar Foundation of Udaipur, Rajasthan, for her "contribution of permanent value reflecting the spirit and values of Mewar".

Reviews

[Evelyn Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it, but again there are a lot of minutely detailed descriptions of her daily life. Mostly concerning all the parties she went to in India.
For all that, looking back what I remember most is the sadness. The first volume of her autobiography details her childhood in India, and she made it sound a complete idyll. She played with all the children around her, regardless of whether they were English or Hindu or Muslim. Apparently, children that young are considered not to be part of any caste yet. Everyone was her friend. Or at least she had a lot of friends of all kinds.
But when she finished with boarding school and went back to India, everything had changed. All the people she'd been looking forward to seeing again had all moved up. The girls of her age (18ish) were all married, some with several children. The boys were all off at college or in trade. Everyone had grown up and become part of their caste or religious group and she did not fit in.
That didn't stop her from going to a lot of (British) parties and participating in the social whirl of the British Raj in the 20 and 30s. But it did make her long looked-for return to India bittersweet.

[Tracey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very exquisite autobiography of life in India during the roaring twenties . It reminded me of my auntie Florrie, she had travelled there with husband and had some amazing memorabilia that she had brought back with her from India !

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would rate this a little lower than the previous memoir as it did have some slumps. Still overall charming and interesting though.

[Sonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This second volume of MM Kaye's autobiography details (and I mean details; how did she do it without a diary she claims not to have kept?) her life in India after she returns there with her parents and sister after boarding school in England. I loved the sections about Kashmir and floating down the Ganges, especially the little story about the elephant playing games. There was a little too much detail about the amateur theatrics and parties but I guess those were a large part of this stage in her life. I wonder how many people she has offended, though, because she doesn't hold back with her criticism in some cases, especially in her defense of the Raj. On a sad note, just yesterday on the news I saw a photo of the bombing and fighting going on in Srinagar probably on a street where she once walked.

[Mirjam · Rating 3 out of 5]

For all of us who cannot help but give over to read about the " romanticism " of the Rajh.
With appologies

[Peter Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A loving,warm memoir of life in the Raj in the 1920s.She has a intimate,easy flowing style and writes with honest eyes as she sees it from her admittedly privileged position.Parties,dances,trips away,amateur dramatics,love affairs etc are all dealt with honestly.She eventually sees her mother as a rather silly woman,loves her father deeply and describes all their various problems.It struck me as a very sad memoir of long ago with all the people now long dead and the whole life gone.This is a book for historians to see life from the inside of the Raj, for people intrigued by depictions of Raj life on movies and TV and for lovers of her fiction,especially the Far Pavilions.

[Derek Henderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written, and initially quite gripping when the author arrives back in India as a young woman. But the last two-thirds of the book really start to drag- and endless litany of parties, people and places.

[Darla Ebert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mollie Kaye writes so lovingly and in such a picturesque way of India. I enjoyed very nearly every single page and would highly recommend Ms. Kaye's fiction but more than that, her life story told within two auto biographies.

[William Rowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful description of the Twenties and. Thera

She gives one a feeling for living her life. There is a 3rd, but not a 4th on’50s. her take on Europe in the 50s,my childhood, would become.

[Debbie Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Volume 2 of M.M. Kaye's life. Reads like a novel.

[Gail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully descriptive writing evoking a time and country that is lost forever.

[Atoorva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful read.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating account of times, places, and lifestyles that no longer exist in the form described and seem strange when viewed from the present day. It is almost unfathomable now that the British Raj could live so blindly and with so little regard for the native peoples of the world they inhabited. Kaye shares much that is interesting and amusing, sometimes incredible. I pored over her photographs. But it’s also discordant to hear her express so much love for India and what is now Pakistan while barely mentioning the people to whom the land belonged (she only speaks of them as subservient to white Europeans). Still, she impressed upon me the utter beauty of Kashmir, and she certainly took me into real social circles and situations I couldn’t imagine. Long-winded though Kaye is, I soaked up all her details.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the first part of Mollie Kaye's autobiography a few years ago, and although I enjoyed it, I didn't engage with her very well, and was left feeling as if I rather disliked her. The first book Sun in the Morning which I registered on bookcrossing and released - only takes us up to when Mollie is 10 years old and goes off to boarding school. This book I am keeping as I liked it so much more.

In this installment - we begin in 1927 - Mollie is 19 and she, her sister and parents travel back to India, a place Mollie has spent her years at school dreaming of. I throroughly enjoyed this book, and felt much warmer toward Mollie Kaye - although she is very much a product of her upbringing and generation, and in several places defends the Raj to the hilt - as by the time she was writing these books when she was quite elderly - she knew full well what many people's view of the Raj now was. Mollie shows us Delhi, Kashmir, and Tonk, in her irrespresible company we visit Simla and the houseboats of the Nageem Bagh Navy. Her memory is just extraordinary - her ability to conjure up landscapes in quite fine detail from decades earlier, and her memory for events, parties and theatre productions from the 1920's when she was writing in the 1990's. She admits in the book that her fantastic memory is something she has taken for granted and had only recently realised that not everyone is blessed with the ability to recall distant events so exactly. Just like all young girls in what ever age they live, Mollie must find her way among the more beautiful and more confident girls, she has one or two social disasters, and falls in love a few times, but her biggest love affair of all is the one she had with India itself, and it is this almost obsessional love for the country and it's people that makes this so readable.

[Maura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part 2 of her autobiography makes me wish even more that I had known this lady personally. Her font of stories seems endless, blessed as she was with an interesting life and a great memory. Her storytelling skill is still strong, and her colorful descriptions of places and events make them reel in my head as though I were watching a movie. I wish someone would take her biography on as a mini-series; I think it would be fascinating to watch, with all the exotic locations in India, Kashmir, and China. I am looking forward to Volume 3 - it's on its way (former library book bought through Amazon) as I write this.

[Les Dangerfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

The 'bright young things' in British India of the 1920s. A very interesting insight into the lifestyle of a reasonably well heeled British family spending cold seasons in the newly established capital of Delhi and in Tonk, a lesser known princely state in Rajasthan, a world which disappeared in the 40s after the Second World War and Indian independence. Mollie Kaye's love for India is clear throughout the book, though it is partly a love for a lifestyle she could not have experienced without the privileged lifestyle which came with British expat life in India the time.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw in Book Lust by Nancy Pearl that some people thought The Far Pavillions was the best book they'd ever read...kind of an Indian Gone With the Wind. I read it and liked it but M.M.Kaye's three volume autobiography about growing up in India fascinated me even more! They're wonderful tales about living under the British Raj. Rumer Godden has also written a book about that time period. Very appealing to me as I grew up living all over the world as an Army Brat

[Mia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kaye's memory is seemingly prodigious. It's difficult to comprehend the incredible number (to me, anyway) of acquaintances, events, friendships, outings, adventures, excursions, dress and costume making, unusual pets, etc. all against this backdrop of a very exotic and much-loved landscape -- crocodile hunts included. She describes many vanished worlds, not only the end of the British raj.

[Martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little bit of a let down (The Sun in the Morning was so detailed!) but still a great story, especially the part of how she and her husband met.

[Linda Wulf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining, enjoyed it even more than the Sun in the Morning.

[L F · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh,to have lived this woman's privileged life.