2,498 word
There is quite a bit to recommend about E. M. Forster’s 1924 novel A Passage to India despite the fact that as a novel it is not very good. It keeps a lazy, middling pace throughout and seems to rely upon its post-First World War readership’s hunger for detail about everything Indian — from the landscape to the wildlife to the people and customs — for much of its appeal. If you’re already familiar with most of this — or if you just don’t care — then the plot and characters will make up for it, but just barely. It’s as if Forster found it distasteful to produce anything as vulgar as suspense — or, Heaven forfend, a cliffhanger. (more…)