Because I found this book flawless, I didn’t know where to being when providing my review. Remembering back to school book reports for inspiration, I began…
I read A Passage to India, by EM Forster. It is a fiction book, based in India during the early British Empire…
At this point I became nauseated about how children are taught to think about a book so I deviated…
The main themes of this book are around prejudices and bigotry. However, A Passage to India doesn’t say “Look how bad these racist people are”. Instead it exposes deeper, instinctual feelings, and investigates the causes of such intolerance. I feel To Kill a Mockingbird is superficial, underdeveloped and obvious, compared to this masterpiece.
A Passage to India reveals that there are no true victims, because each societal group is both the perpetrator and the receiver of discrimination, and narrow-mindedness. Everyone, save perhaps the Dalai Lama, stereotypes.
In case you have not noticed from my other reviews, I like books that ask questions and pose problems, not ones which prescribe answers. Forster allows the reader to develop their own view of the characters.
The plot is fantastic. When I thought I knew what was going to happen, I was surprised. Forster knows just when to provide long, vivid descriptions, dialogue, action, and when to change the course of the story.
His language is beautiful, but not too fanciful. It is intelligent, but not patronising, and doesn’t have the average reader reaching for the dictionary every few pages. He uses a set of metaphors, idioms and linguistic tools, which are not common in today’s language, but which are easily relatable and provide for interesting reading.I could go on and on but I dislike blogs which require scrolling, and don’t wish to be a hypocrite. Happy reading!