A well-written book. Not sure why it won the Booker back in the day because it's a bit simplistic, but then expectations may have been different back then. That said, it's still an interesting book, portraying a slice of India in the days of the Raj, and contrasting it with a grandchild's experience 50 years later. I enjoyed the parallel storylines.

באמצע שנות ה 70, מקבלת צעירה אנגליה ששמה לא ידוע התכתבות בין אוליביה למרסיה. אוליביה, היא אישתו הראשונה של סבה דאגלס, והדיבור עליה הוא בגדר טאבו במשפחה. הצעירה מחליטה לנסוע להודו כדי לשחזר את חייה של אוליביה ולהבין את המסתורין האופפים את חייה. הסיפור נע בין המפגש של הצעירה עם הודו והמסע לגילוי מה באמת קרה לאוליביה, ובין חייה של אוליביה בהודו בשנות ה- 20 של המאה ה- 20 .

אוליביה התחתנה עם דאגלס באנגליה בשנות העשרים של המאה ה- 20. הוא איש מימשל אנגלי והם עוברים יחד לסטיפור, הודו. אוליביה מרותקת לחיים בהודו אבל כאשת נציג ממשל אנגלי היא ממלאת אחר המוסכמות האנגליות. בעלה עובד לאורך היום והיא נשארת בבית משועממת לפעמים עד השעות המאוחרות של הלילה. יום אחד היא ודאגלס מוזמנים למסיבה בארמונו של הנוואב - נסיך השליט של האזור. הארמון נמצא בקאתום והוא מלא זוהר.

לאחר המסיבה הנוואב מגיע עם פמלייתו לבקר את אוליביה, זה המועד שהיא מתחילה לכתוב גם למרסיה. לאחר ביקור או שניים הוא מתעקש שהיא תבוא לבקר אותו וכך מתחילה מערכת יחסים בין הנוואב לאוליביה כל זה מבלי שבעלה דאגלס מודע לכל הזרמים התת קרקעיים שחותרים תחת נשואיו.

אוליביה והנוואב מתחילים להיות חברים ובשלב כל שהוא הם הופכים למאהבים. אוליביה מגלה שהיא בהריון ואין לה מושג ממי הילד: מבעלה דאגלס או מהנוואב, שני הגברים מאושרים ומפתחים התנהגויות אובססיביות דומות שגורמות לאוליביה לחרדות נוספות. כשהיא מגלה שהיא רק כלי בלוח המשחק של הנוואב שניצל אותה בכדי להתנקם באנגלים היא יוצרת קשר עם הבאגום, אימו של הנוואב שמסייעת לה ומארגנת עבורה הפלה. לאחר ההפלה היא בורחת לארמון ומשם היא עוברת לכפר לא ידוע לרגלי ההימלאיה, שם קנה לה הנוואב בית.

במקביל לגילויים אלה, הצעירה שהגיעה להודו הולכת בצעדי אוליביה. היא נוסעת לסטיפור והיא רואה את השינויים המרחיקי לכת שחלו בהודו בשלושים שנה מאז המכתבים של אוליביה. לאורך הסיפור מלווה את המספרת אינדר לאל שלוקח אותה לארמון בקאתום ולמקדש פירדאו ביום החתונה של הבעל. בשלב מסויים המספרת ואינדר לאל הופכים לנאהבים והיא מגלה שהיא בהריון.

בניגוד לאוליביה, אומנם היא פורשת לכפר שלרגלי ההימליה, אך מחליטה ללדת את הילד.

אחת הבעיות בספר היא קפיצות באירועים שלא ברור לקורא איך התרחשו ומתי בדיוק קרו תחת אפו של הקורא בספר. לדוגמא, עד ההכרזה של אוליביה שהיא בהריון בכלל לא הבנתי שהיא והנוואב נאהבים כך גם עם המספרת. גם לא ברור מתי אוליביה מחליטה לבצע הפלה ואיך היא מארגנת את ההפלה עם הבאגום רק לאחר שאוליביה נמצאת כבר במהלך ההפלה והבאגום מגיעה מבינים את הסיטואציה. לא ברור מתי התגרשה מדאגלס וכיצד הסבירה לו את ההפלה. החורים האלה בעלילה מאוד פגמו לי בהנאה מהספר הזה שאחרת היה יכול להיות טוב מאוד. גם הקפיצות בין העבר להווה של המספרת, הנעלמות של הזהות של המספרת, מערכת יחסיה עם אינדר לאל כל אלה לא לגמרי ברורים וזאת למרות שהמספרת מרבה בתיאורים כשהיא מבקשת לעשות כן.

מערכת היחסים הטעונה בין הממשל הבריטי והממשל ההודי ובכלל המתח בין תרבויות אלה ניכר מאוד בספר ומושקעת מחשבה עמוקה איך להביא אותו לידי ביטוי בצורות שונות. העוני, חרפת הרעב, הרליגיוזיות של ההודים גם הם תופסים מקום נכבד. אבל כל אלה באים באמת על חשבון העלילה שכפי שתיארתי די מלאת חורים. עכשיו מעניין אותי לקרוא את "המעבר להודו" מאת פורסטר.

At 181 pages, the story in this novella deserves a larger canvas, with two concurrent stories happening in two different time-periods in India. The end of the Raj 1920s and forward to the 1970s. The story of two related women of approx. the same. The book won the 1975 Booker Prize.
The 1970s woman is narrating the story, or is it both stories, and unusually, her name is not revealed. This book would have been a masterpiece if it was a saga, a much bigger book. As a novella, the jolting back and forth between '20s and '70s breaks the spell for me, a bit disconcerting. I'll probably come back later and give this 5 stars. While reading it I was more interested in the narrator's tale, and towards the end I was really into this story and moved by both the 1920s Olivia's and the 1970s narrator's journey and situation resulting from their personal life choices.
I liked that the focus of this story centred on two women, but all the male characters are either weak, bad, dissolute, domineering, selfish, or indifferent. Some of the female characters also have these traits. I think the narrator has a strong character and is self-assured. I liked her.
I was aware while reading it of my own recent experience of India earlier this year, which influenced my disappointment in the author not giving enough of a vivid sense of the intensity of the experience of India. I almost bailed out on this one, glad I didn't.

I look forward to seeing the film version of Heat and Dust. If I can find a copy.

Dévoré

A story about the complicated facets of love and power, and how we often do not strive for what we most desire; it is always within our reach, if we are brave enough.

A brief, sardonic summary:

Olivia: It’s so hot here! There’s so much dust! My dear Douglas is right; English women weren’t meant for the heat. I’m bored and passive aggressive, and entirely unwilling to go out of my comfort zone to cultivate independent thought. To remain in disingenuous infatuation with the man I am married to, I will slip into an affair with tangible consequences I avoid considering!

Douglas: I would prefer to stay in my comfort zone and marry a woman who never exerts her opinions forcefully. Isn’t she sweet? That way, I will feel safe and in control, always. Until she becomes pregnant with another man’s child.

Nawab: All you British people are the same. I’m going to f*ck your wife.

3.5 stars

This was my first trial in reading Mrs Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's novel due to my disappointment with Ms Arundhati Roy's latest one entitled "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness" (Knopf 2017) in which I could not go on around page 30 even though I had immensely enjoyed reading her "The God of Small Things" (Fourth Estate 2009).

For our better understanding, we should start with its brief synopsis:

The beautiful, spoilt and bored Olivia, married to a civil servant, outrages society in the tiny, suffocating town of Satipur by eloping with an Indian prince. Fifty years later, her step-granddaughter goes back to the heat, the dust and the squalor of the bazaars to solve the enigma of Olivia's scandal. (back cover)

However, when we read the four-line Goodreads one (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...), there is a key word denoting her writing technique, that is 'interwoven'. As we can see from the first page with an anonymous narrator, Olivia's step-granddaughter, called herself 'I' who set the scene in nearly two pages and started her journal entries fifty years later (that is in 1973) on 2, 16, 20, 24 February (11+ pages) then flashbacked (interwoven) to the year 1923 (6 pages) depicting Olivia's story. Having an intermission by an asterisk, the journal resumed writing on 28 February (4+ pages), then the year 1923 again [I scribbled ? nearby]. If you understand her technique, you could guess that after reading some 23 pages after this 1923 you would read another series of the entries with recorded dates and months. This writing cycle goes on like this till the end, neither chapter nor topic is available.

One of the difficulties is that some Indian terms seemingly unfamiliar to its readers have occasionally been used, for example, the Nawab, the Begum, the Baba, etc.; therefore, they simply stare in the face with vague understanding or in the dark. As for me, I guessed from the context and thought the Nawab should be an honorable title [an independent ruler (p. 78)], the Begum his mother, the Baba a holy man.

As for its plot, I think, we can keep going and arguably enjoy her narrations and dialogs; however, there is something related to the step-granddaughter whose unnecessarily absurd and precarious indulgence is so dramatic that it is unimaginably stunning and I just wonder why and if what she has done is morally right since what she has committed reveals her carnal relations with Chid, a vagrant Hindu sadhu with his flat Midlands accent so I console myself that everyone can be capable of doing anything fictitious as part of fiction imagined by its author.

In conclusion, what I would say about this novel as her debut to me is that I was a bit disappointed for some reason; therefore, I think I should try reading hers more as an exploratory means like how I have satisfactorily done with the fictions and nonfictions by Mr Graham Greene.

A somewhat dissatisfying book with the ending. An unnamed Step Great Grand daughter goes to India to find out about her mysterious and scandalous Grandmother Olivia. The story switches between 1923 and the 1970s.

Olivia is a spoilt woman married to Douglas a work obsessed civil servant managing a part of India. She becomes embroiled through a friendship with Harry an English companion of the Nawab a local ruler. The story documents her seduction by the Nawab while in parallel her granddaughter emulates her behavior.

Its an odd story. Colonialism and imperialism laid bare in its obscenity with caricatures of the English. Mysticism, politics and the caste system are woven into the story. Overall a good novella but not a great one, surprised it won a Booker.

This short novel had been on my shelf for years. I probably originally bought it because of my great admiration for the scripts she wrote for Merchant-Ivory films. This is great too. Interwoven stories of Anglo-Indians in two time periods. Quite romantic and lovely writing.

I really wanted to love this, was keen to feel some Indian heat and distraction in British wet January. It won the Booker in 1974 and perhaps thinking back to watching my mum doing the ironing while watching the Jewel in the Crown, I trusted it to transport me.

Actually though it’s really quite dull - and there’s nobody to care about, not even slightly. The anonymous narrator has gone to India to research the story of her grandfather’s first wife, who eventually tires of her British civil servant husband and ran away with an Indian Nawab. It sounds way more enticing than it actually is. The two stories run in parallel for a while - the wife and the Nawab, both rather childish and restless, and the narrator, and her landlord , annoyingly detached and aimless, until both of stories sort of bump into a pregnancy and, well drift off. No really, they do.

There are lots of great details relating to both heat, and dust. Pianos. Cars. It’s atmospheric in a way. To the limited extent that people speak to each other, it’s almost convincing. I can see why she was a favourite of Merchant Ivory. But there’s something dry weetabix-ish about it all, as if the protagonists don’t care about their own story, it’s too hot. And dusty. And the plot is like something left behind, like the rings of a drink on a coffee table.

I don’t know if this was a bum choice in 1974 or it just hasn’t aged well, it feels ersatz.

Mostly set in British India, it is the story of Olivia - a married British woman and her fling with a minor Prince/Nawab. We will never get to know why Olivia decided to cheat on her husband. Perhaps it was the boredom, perhaps the fact her husband mostly went away for work. We get to meet different characters and caricatures of the period and get a fascinating glimpse into British India and dynamism of its people.

Smooth writing. I didn't think it would be this easy to read a story with parallel perspectives in two different timelines. The transitions between them were silken.

Anyway, it was interesting to read narratives from the pre and post-independence era from a British perspective unburdened with racial philosophies and (because this is literature and not a textbook) political influences. Also, very little plot. There'll be no jump scares, no twists or turns. From the synopsis, you already know the entire story. Don't expect an O Henry here.

Highlights the stark differences and some similarities between the 1920s and the 1970s in India. The novel highlights the contrast between the sexual repression of the 1920s and the freedom of the 1970s, as well as the evolving roles and liberties (especially of women) during these times.
Initially, I was concerned it might be too similar to A Passage to India, given the shared setting and era. However, Heat and Dust distinguishes itself with a more intimate and atmospheric narrative, focusing deeply on personal transformation and the theme of leaving the past behind. And not surprisingly there’s a lot of heat and dust in it…. Overall a good story on the theme of the Westerner seduced and transformed by the Orient, but one I feel like I’ve already heard before in different guises.