Я как обычно поначалу не совсем поймала идею автора - ну какая-то скучающая жена британского офицера в Индии сбежала с местным принцем, не бог весть какая история, просто анекдот. Мало что ли историй о сбежавших жёнах. Но постепенно история стала раскрываться передо мной.
Автор ведёт две линии, до мелочей одинаковые, только разделённые годами, примерно пятьюдесятью. Нарратор более поздней истории приезжает в Индию искать следы первой жены своего деда - именно она и сбежала с индусом в далёком 1923 году. Старая история постепенно обрастает деталями - как скучно было Оливии одной поджидать мужа, как она познакомилась с местным князьком. Затем перед нами постепенно открывается, насколько чудовищно поведение доблестных британских офицеров. Они жуткие расисты, пришли всем диктовать свои правила. Миллионы подчинённых индийцев почему-то должны этим правилам следовать, тогда как уж они-то лучше всех знают, как в своей собственной стране жить. В конце более современной истории индус высказывает здравую расистскую идею: европейцы не предназначены жить в Индии, они не предназначены ни для климата, ни для еды, ни даже морально.
Оливия влюбляется в Индию. В отличие от своих сограждан британцев она готова принять её именно такой, какой она была все эти столетия до прихода британцев, и какой продолжает оставаться несмотря на их попытки прогнуть страну под себя. Также её князь, набоб по-русски, не весьма впечатляюще приятный человек, хотя автор рассказывает нам, что он очаровывающ.
Для таких как я, автор разжёвывает, насколько это немыслимо для 1923 года - не только влюбиться в человека не своей расы, но и презреть священные узы брака. Даже более того, в конце мы видим, как Оливия преступает ещё один рубеж, смертный грех для христианки. Таким образом, Оливия далеко впереди своего времени по личной свободе женщин. Вторая сюжетная линия, как-бы-внучка, во всяком случае духовная, Оливии, шаг за шагом проходит путь Оливии. Её уже не сковывает такое огромное количество рамок. Таким образом рушатся барьеры, но какая-то женщина должна стать первой, совершить немыслимый для своего времени поступок, чтобы создать прецедент и всё стало проще.
В итоге получается довольно захватывающая история о правах человека.

Unnamed narrator, in the 1970s is searching for information about her grandfather's first wife, Olivia Rivers, in 1920s India. The book takes us back and forth from the 1970s through the narrator's diary entries back to the 1920s in Raj India and Olivia's story. The book contrasted Raj and the India of the present. The strongest element of the story was the evocation of India, especially through its descriptions of the climate--mostly "heat and dust." This also served as a metaphor for the heating up and consummation of the affair between Olivia and the Nawab , a minor prince. I disliked all of the characters: Olivia was a whiner and the present-day woman was just...there. But both were mesmerized by India and chose different outcomes as solution to the same dilemma. I liked the author's simple, spare style, clipped and terse dialogue and evocation of the country.

Има нещо в тази книга, което вярвам че е така, защото изпитах на свой гръб - с Индия трябва да се държиш на разстояние, защото допуснеш ли я в сърцето си, тя лесно може да те завлече ' от другата страна'.
Което, като се замисля, не е толкова лошо.

The winner of the Booker Prize, this slim novel packs a big punch. There is one timeline from 1923 ("Olivia's story") and a second contemporary (1970s) timeline. Race, sexuality, spirituality, class systems, gender roles, layers of identity— all of these big tickets items are filtered through a deceptively spare narrative.

This author is perhaps best known for being the screen writer/ collaborator on many of those wonderful Merchant Ivory productions.

Big themes distilled into the essence of character and rendered with intimacy and grace — that is what this writer achieves.

Written in 1975, this book won the Booker prize of that year.

Set in 'modern day' (of 1975), but with over half the novel recounting events which happened fifty years prior, this books covers two very different times in India. It is set in Sitapur, in Uttar Pradesh.

Our main character in modern day is unnamed, but is visiting India to investigate the story of her step-grandmother (her fathers, fathers first wife - her father was the child of the second wife).

The story of Olivia Rivers (in 1923), is a family embarrassment - she crossed cultural lines and shocked society when she had an affair with an Indian Prince (the Nawab), and falls pregnant. Olivia feels smothered by the social restrictions of a colonial wife, with her husbands stuffy British colleagues and friends, and is befriended the charismatic Nawab, spending her spare time with him and his live-in British friend Harry.

The characters are well defined, especially the stuffy British wives, who live up to the colonial stereotype, the Indian characters remain interesting and traditional. The story is well woven, with plenty of overlap between the two time periods.

An easy and excellent read. 4 stars.

هند جادویی و افسونگر
البته خیلی جالبه که راوی در زمان حال وقتی به هند
سفر میکنه کثافت و بدبختیش رو هم میبینه و باز هم
شیفته میشه و به قول خودش از خط قرمز عبور میکنه
ستاره پنجم رو به ترجمه خوب کتاب دادم
که تجربه خوندنش رو لذت بخش کرد و با
زیرنویسهای خوبش متن رو قابل فهمتر کرد
شاید بهتره به خود هند سفر کنم عوض خوندن این همه
کتاب درباره هند ولی اینها خیلی گسترده میکنند دید
آدم رو و همینطور یک آمادگی میدن به آدم که شاید
سفر یکماهه هم برات به اندازه یه اقامت طولانی تر
جذاب و عمیق باشه
خطر اسپویل شدن
Spoiler :
شخصیتهای کتاب در فاصله حدود پنجاه سال دوباره
تکرار میشند و همزاد اونها با داستانهایی که در امروز
اتفاق میفته به صورت قرینه شخصیت پردازی میشند
راوی.... الیویا
ایندرلعل.... نواب
چید ....هری
بقیه آدمها تقریبن تیپ هستند... مثل داگلاس و مادر نواب و
ماجی

رابطه ی بین
هری و نواب و بعدها هری و فردی وجود داره که به نظر
همجنسگرایانه هست یعنی هری هیچوقت با زنها رابطه نداره مادر نواب باهاش راحته حتی داگلاس هم ایرادی نمیبینه
همسرش با هری رفت و آمد کنه انگار هری محرم همه
هست فکر میکنم اشاره های مستقیم تر حذف شده اند
این یه لذت نامشروع خوندن کتاب به فارسی هست تو ایران که حدس بزنی کجاش رو سانسور کردند و چرا سانسور کردند
اما اگر واقعن در همین حد در کتاب در مورد هری توضیح داده شده باشه
اونوقت به نظرم ناقص هست و شخصیت پردازی و منطق درونی داستان با هم جور نیست

Published in 1975, this book tells the story of an unnamed British woman who travels to India in search of her step–grandmother’s past. Her English step-grandmother, Olivia, had lived with her husband, a British official, in Satipur in the 1920s, during the era of the British Raj. She had developed a friendship with the local Nawab, an Indian Muslim prince. Later, the friendship became an infatuation, and a scandal ensued. The narrator has always been intrigued with her family’s history. In the 1970s, she inherits Olivia’s letters and journals, which further piques her curiosity. While in India, the narrator’s life starts to parallel that of her step-grandmother.

Throughout this story, the reader will become familiar with conditions in India in the 1920s – poverty, disease, crime, and the ever-present “heat and dust.” The letters contain the views of Olivia’s British social circle. Their view of India’s population comes across as mostly negative. Women have a subservient role and are expected to be dutiful and reserved. Olivia, through her contact with the Nawab, provides his views of the British, so the reader gains multiple perspectives. Both the British and the Nawab live in relative luxury compared to the majority of the population.

The reader comes to understand why Olivia and the Nawab are mutually attracted. He treats her with respect, confides in her, and sees her as a woman of agency. It is a character-driven novel. The 1970s story is narrated in first person. The historical story is told as if it were unfolding. Near the end there is conflict introduced by two male characters that results in Olivia taking a drastic action. It is not a happy story and not for anyone seeking one with all the loose ends tied up. I can see why this book won the Booker prize.

In this short novel the reader follows the stories of two English women: the narrator whose name is never revealed and Olivia, her step-grandmother. Set in 1923 during Colonial times and fifty years later in Independent India, the novel follows the narrator's attempt to trace Olivia's life: her dissatisfaction with being an administrator's wife and her attraction to an Indian ruler who offered her an escape from it. Both women become pregnant and, although the choices they make are different, they end up leaving the 'heat and dust' of the plains for the cool heights of the mountains. Olivia spent the rest of her life in India. We don't know what happened to the narrator.

The writer's account of both Colonial and modern day India is both realistic and unromantic. She reveals the weakness and biases of Englishmen and Indians alike as well as the harsh reality of the lives they lead. (She was in a good position to do this, herself having married an Indian and lived in India for a quarter of a century.) However, her style of writing left me uninvolved with her characters, especially Olivia, though I had more empathy for the narrator. What did interest me was to see how different life in India was for the two women, one thwarted by boredom and convention from which she eventually escaped, the other free to make choices and follow her own inclinations.

کتاب فوق‌العاده جذاب بود. بسیار پر کشش. پرش بین دو زمان و شباهت‌های بین‌شون خیلی جالب بود. ولی ۴ ستاره دادم چون نفهمیدم آخرش هدف داستان چی بود!
دلایل انتخاب‌های اولیویا رو نمی‌تونستم تحلیل کنم. ضمن اینکه داستان بیشتر تعریف می‌کرد که چه اتفاقی افتاد. خیلی به اینکه احساسات اولیویا به چه شکل تغییر می‌کنند و در درونش چی می‌گذره نپرداخته بود.

The story of a young woman tracing the life of her grandmother who was the wife of an Englishman working in India. The story is told by letters her grandmother had written back in the 1920's alternating with the present day experiences of the young woman in India. The experiences of the young woman, unwittingly, paralleled to a certain extent those of her grandmother. A very nicely written book.

I loved this in the same way I love Forster - a story set in an age that bears no resemblance to today's sub-continent. Oh! the ridiculousness, but people's hearts were truly broken on the 'eti-quetti' of such ridiculousness.

Sad.


I am sure that there will be no need to delve into this glum pre-Ghandian time, or at least I should be more truthful and say that the source colonialists would wish there will be no need to delve into the pre-Ghandian era.

In your teens and 20s you are impatient to leave your roots and fly away to explore a whole new world, the charm of new, and in your 30s or 40s you think of going deeper and deeper to dig your roots, the hidden treasures, the legacy, the pas, the charm of old, even if it lies in Heat and Dust.

This is what this book stands for, when a young woman, goes back to India to explore her family's ties and the underlying gossips or truth for that matter. She is different and she chooses a different life and journey for her. The choice to go digging into the old scandal when a British officers wife ran away with an Indian prince. The charm of a scandal, probably love or just plain simple boredom.

Why do we do this? Why do we leave the comforts and security of home to explore the world or why we dig deeper rather than just grow and expand ourselves. Is it regressive or progressive. The question is why do we experiment or cherish. The basic nature of all human beings, this is what makes us different. We don't learn from our mistakes, we don't leave the past alone, we redo and relive assuming it will be different this time.

Overall Heat and Dust is a simple well written story. It could be a story of any strange foreigner yousee roaming around the ruins of India exploring the Indian heritage or probably their own history thru the British regime of the past. History, heritage, heirlooms the only possessions, rest belongs to others.

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