What happened to Adela Quested in the Marabar Caves?
That is the question at the heart of E.M. Forster's novel about the fragility of Anglo-Indian relationships and racial tension in colonial India. After a mysterious event during a visit to the Marabar Caves, the charming Dr Aziz is accused of assaulting Miss Quested, a naive young woman recently arrived from England. As the trial begins, the darker side of colonialism is exposed. This is not the India of white linen suits, gin and tonics and polo but an India of simmering resentment, countless cultural misunderstandings and, of course, breath-taking racism.
It's hard to say whether I liked this book or not. Like a lot of 19th and early 20th century fiction, it's a bit heavy going (lots of description, lots of talking about feelings etc) so not really a book for the breakfast table. However when I did settle down to it, I did get absorbed in it. I wanted to find out how it all would end. I was a bit disappointed though. You never do find out what happened in the Caves of Marabar but I suppose that isn't the tale that Forster had to tell. It wasn't even all about colonialism. At the book's very core is Forster's dissection of the human character itself. His characters are not heroic. They are bigoted, naive, repressed, selfish and as the trail continues, both Indians and the English become bitter and resentful.
In Forster's own words A Passage to India is "about something wider than politics... about the universe as embodied in the Indian earth and in the Indian sky". And that is exactly what you get; a sprawling novel that explores not only the fragile and dangerous realities of colonialism but tries to pin down the very nature of India and the people within it.
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