House In Pondicherry

by Lee Langley

The third in a series of novels set in India. This novel is set in Pondicherry, a tropical Paris flourishing on the shore of the Coromandel coast. At the centre of the novel is the figure of Oriane, a young French girl who meets a political agitator seeking sanctuary under the French flag.

Genres: India

275 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Award-winning novelist and travel-writer, Lee Langley was born in Calcutta in the late 1930s, of Scottish parents, and she spent most of her early childhood there. Her parents separated when she was 4, and she spent the next 6 years travelling through India with her mother, where she got caught up in the Indian independence riots. Her family returned to the UK as feelings rose higher against the British. Lee Langley has since written of a sense of loss and exile from a place that she had loved as a child. She won the Writers’ Guild Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. Lee Langley has also written film scripts and has adapted novels for TV. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and is also an active committee member of the P.E.N., the writers’ organization that campaigns for freedom of speech internationally. Lee Langley is married to the novelist Theo Richmond, and lives in Richmond in London.

Reviews

[dianne b. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is set in French India and spans the almost magical life of Oriane, the inheritor of a grand French family (or so they believe) who consider all other cultures far inferior, potentially dangerous, and certainly polluting. Unfortunately, this conflicts - at least initially - with Oriane’s own instincts, visions, and interests. It also puts her into a social group of one. Pondicherry, built to be a tiny Paris in the beautiful state of Tamil Nadu is a powerful character as is the rapidly changing character of India itself. In fact all of the main characters are creations of irony and conflict - the English Public School, Oxbridge educated unrequited love interest who is still completely bound by the rules of his Brahman family - Oriane’s old friend’s grandson who returns from France to help build an utopian city and is just so damn nice to everyone that he is completely unreliable. As one of his daughters says as she returns home after meeting him: “The smile lit up his face, offering warmth, intimacy. But she saw now that the smile, like a trompe-l’oeil doorway painted on a stone wall, led nowhere.”

As the novel progresses and secrets are revealed, people find they aren’t who they thought they were, and the malevolence of prejudice - as always - tightly circumscribes both experience and happiness. Brittle anger handled with loving patience, and gentle care handled with disregard and denigration; i find myself wondering what is culture and what is character?

This is a wonderful historical novel complete with the lights, colors, heat, smells, & flavors of India, as well as unforgettable characters. Lee Langley writes about something sad, just missed, could have been, better perhaps than anyone else, and this is no exception.

Slightly educational addendum:
For those of you (like me) old enough to have traveled when these could still be found, a tip on the care of palm leaf books - "..rubbing the surface gently with citronella oil to preserve it and bring up the Sanscrit writing..” who knew?

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Langley, in her more historical novels writes about empire its past and how it affects the present. She was born in India and has often written about India; doing so again in this novel. Here Langley takes a slightly different approach; this is about Pondicherry; the small part of southern India which remained French. There is a good story spanning the lifetime of the main character into which Langley weaves the past and present, the abuses of empire and the birth of modern India.
The main character is Oriane (a name lifted from Proust, whose influence is ever present in the novel).Her parents run the Hotel de France in Pondicherry, where Oriane grows up. She never marries and remains there most of here life, even when her parents return to France. The hotel remains a little piece of France in India, even though Oriane never goes to France.
Running a;ongside Oriane's story is that of Auroville and the Sri Aurobindo Ashram (these actually exist, whereas the hotel does not) and Oriane's uneasy relationship to it and with Raymond, her nephew, who uses his skills as an architect to assist the community. Oriane's decades long friendship with Guruvappa also runs through the book and Langley weaves in some eighteenth century history and some explorations in the Tamil language as part of the package.
The encroachments of the modern, the dying of a way of life, the end of empire (the French left after the British)and the growth of modern India are all described. There is a sense of wistfulness, but no sentimentality. Modernity is looked at neutrally with its gains and its losses. There are also several love stories buried within, sometimes in unexpected places and the death of one particular character, a very minor character, is heartrendingly sad.
On the whole the novel holds together well, reads easily and is rather good. I am amazed it seems to be relatively unknown

[Maya Gopalakrishnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

All 5 stars for nostalgia! The descriptions of the beach, the streets, the ashram meditation chamber to bougainvillea and cashew fragrance filled auroville lanes are all spot on. The book really captures the essence and idea of what Pondy is in various layers: in direct descrptions, in how the characters think and secondarily using the translations Oriane and Guru work on. The characters: Guru, Oriane, Raymond, Gita and Shetty are all familiar and comfortable people who you would meet in Pondy. The plot is actually hardly substantial. There is a loose historical narrative. It is definitely a book for ectopic pondiyetes who are yearning for the elusive Pondy fragrance. Highly recommended.

[Suzesmum · Rating 3 out of 5]

203📖🇮🇳INDIA: PONDICHERRY🇮🇳 The second of Lee Langley’s India trilogy (spoiler alert, I didn’t read the third), it is a complex story of a girl trying to find her father. There’s a real beauty in this former French colony that makes me want to visit, though the plethora of white yogis and their ashrams are less appealing to me.