This is such a difficult book to describe. It’s a sketch of the conflict between India and Britain, both in the overarching Britain-is-policing-India sort of way, and in a specific-individual sort of way. The two parallel each other. The main characters are Dr. Aziz, an Indian doctor; Adela and Ms. Moore, both British women in India for the first time; and Fielding, a British man in sympathy with Indians. They are supplemented by an entire cast of Indians and British people who live in the country. The conflict comes when Adela accuses Dr. Aziz of attacking her in a cave on an outing. This creates a strong division between the British and the Indians, creates and destroys friendships, and becomes even more complicated as several new twists to the whole story go on. I don’t want to spoil it.

This book is very difficult for me to process. First, I have to admit, the prose was extremely dry. It took nearly 200 pages before anything happened. I have never been to India, and I couldn’t really see it through Forster’s eyes, though I know he lived in India more than once in his life. He was probably intimately familiar with the conflict there, and seemed to understand both sides of the story. I think that’s what I liked best about this book – you did get to see both sides. It was clear that both the Indians and the British had reasons for feeling and acting the way they did. It wasn’t the typical “Brits must be bad” story, and it wasn’t a discriminatory “Indians are lower beings” story either. Instead, Forster wrote a story where no one is all good, and no one is all bad. It’s culture conflict. A big melting pot where no one understands anyone else, no matter how they try.

Despite being dry, though, Forster really wrote well in places. There were a ton of one-liners that struck me throughout; just beautiful writing. And then, I definitely felt for the characters from time to time – particularly when the plot was moving and not just looking at the landscape. When Aziz was accused, I thought this was going to be a Tess of the D’Urbervilles sort of book, where no matter what the Indian man did, he was going to suffer, because that’s simply what happened back then. I got frustrated and angry and upset, because I hate that that’s always what happened. At the same time, I couldn’t stop reading. Finally, 200 pages in, and the book got interesting. The characters became something more than sketch.

I wasn’t expecting all the turns this book took. I was expecting a complete thrashing of British Imperialism through the complete destruction of this innocent Indian man. But like I said above, this was far more balanced than that. I don’t know what Forster felt about Imperialism, and I admit, my knowledge of historical politics is woefully pitiful. I’m sure there were more political messages in here than I picked out. Mostly, I picked out human lessons.

I picked out that two people on the same side can be driven apart by misunderstanding, suspicion, and fear. I learned that even if you try really hard to work through cultural differences, those differences remain and you may not always win. I learned that good people can become total bastards if they start to discriminate. And more. None of these are new lessons, but I was happy to see them in this book, rather than a blanket political message.

My favorite thing about this book is that neither the British nor the Indians ended up any better than each other as human beings. For the record, from my extremely limited knowledge, I think British Imperialism (and, frankly, all imperialism) was/is wrong, but as I said, I saw the more human side of this rather than the political side. Obviously, most of the British were prejudiced against the Indian people, but the book opens with a story of three Indian men, including Aziz, offering up their own stereotypical judgments of white people. There’s a huge conflict between Muslim and Hindu Indians as well, with the two sides hating each other worse than in the Indian/British conflict. All of this helped the book to be even more balanced.

I will admit, this wasn’t my favorite book ever. It was too dry for me to get everything out of it that was in there. I was bored a lot of the time, particularly in the first half. However, like I said, there were some excellent lines, and I’ve heard Forster’s other books are better than this one. I’m looking forward to reading more.