Rating: 
Summary: Evocative but contrived
Review: I needn't repeat the story here--very briefly, the author creates two women's lives, one the wife of a British colonial officer in the 1920's, the other his grand niece who returns to India 50 years later to unravel the mystery of Olivia, the officer's wife who ran away with an Indian prince. To understand the historical background, it helps to know that British India was in fact governed in two ways--the British controlled part of the country directly, but at least half of India was still under the rule of Indian princes, who were granted an allowance by the British who expected them to maintain order in their states. The Nawab was one of these princes.From a historical point of view the novel was fascinating in describing the lives of the British as the Empire disintegrated--their kindly arrogance, their isolation from the people, the idleness of their families. No wonder Olivia was lured away! And the Nawab's life was worse--we see him resorting to crime and extortion to maintain his luxurious life-style as ethnic conflict swirls around him. This work won the Booker prize. But from a novelistic point of view it left me unsatisfied. Rather improbably, the two women follow paralell paths, each becoming pregnant as a result of affairs with Indian men. Olivia ends up sequestered in a house maintained for her by the Nawab in the mountains--it seems that she is totally alone, not even having a relationship with him. Douglas' niece also ends up heading toward the mountains, but to a very different kind of life, one that promises spiritual and personal fulfillment. Is she "redeeming" Olivia's life through her different choices? Has she made peace with India, in contrast to Olivia, who let it destroy her? Perhaps this is the rather clumsy point. I enjoyed this novel, and you will too, for its historical perspective and description of life in India during two very different periods, although separated by only 50 years. The plot is contrived but don't let that bother you.
Rating: 
Summary: Liked it but wished it were more.
Review: I really did enjoy the book for the most part. It was fun light reading. My trouble with the book is that it could have been so much more. Both female characters could have had whole novels written about them but we never get beyond of the surface of either one of them. You got a favor of the riches and depavity of old Indian culture but no details. Again my major fault is not that the book was bad but that the book itself hinted at what it could be but wasn't.
Rating:
Summary: Liked it but wished it were more.
Review: I really did enjoy the book for the most part. It was fun light reading. My trouble with the book is that it could have been so much more. Both female characters could have had whole novels written about them but we never get beyond of the surface of either one of them. You got a favor of the riches and depavity of old Indian culture but no details. Again my major fault is not that the book was bad but that the book itself hinted at what it could be but wasn't.
Rating:
Summary: India and Empire
Review: It is incredible what Ruth Prawer Jhabvala manages to do in well under 200 pages: Two women's lives, two periods in Indian history are the material for a fascinating tale about living in a foreign country. Olivia is married to a dutiful Raj official, but fascinated by a local prince. Fifty years later another woman travels to India, a descendent of Olivia's neighbours; she tries to find out what happened to Olivia, but she cannot do that as a distant observer. Just like Olivia, her life is beginning to become part of the Indian lives going on around her... There is much to learn from this book: about love, about India, what it means to live in a foreign country. It is a great book, but somehow - compared to other books by the brilliant Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - there was a little bit too much didacticism in it for my taste: It seemed to me that the narrators were always trying to explain India to the reader. Which is, in a way, a good thing, isn't it?
Rating:
Summary: GREAT BOOK, weak ending....
Review: It was a really great novel, I really enjoyed reading it. Towards the end though it changed. it seemed to me that someone else wrote the ending, or as if she had been in a hurry to finish it off. It is a pity though to spoil such a great story! I liked the way she managed to clearly separate the two stories, but at the same time they were linked. It was evident when we were in 1923, and when in the narrator's present. One advice: don't watch the movie, it will spoil the book a lot, it is very superficial, and it is hard to understand the concepts behind it without having read the book in advance. However STICK TO THE BOOK!!It is worth reading, don't mind the ending......
Rating:
Summary: looking for enlightenment in all the wrong places
Review: Jhabvala is best known for her screenplays for Merchant and Ivory, in fact, the trio later made this book into a film. The novel tells the parallel tales of an unnamed young Englishwoman narrator and her grandfather's scandalous first wife; the one in modern day India, the other in the Raj India of the 1920's. As the younger woman travels to the scene of episodes in the older woman's letters, she reveals details of the scandal. Almost inevitably she begins to make the same mistakes as her predecessor and ends the novel in similar straights. This is an enormously deja vu inducing book. We've encountered every scene and character countless times before--the rigidly rational British colonial administrators, the catty British wives, the noble natives, the effete British men and foolish women who are seduced by the setting and the scandal ripped from the pages of Mandingo. Two passages in the novel have the ring of truth: The narrator meets several Western youths who have come to India seeking some mystic revelations, but as one of them says: [I came] to find peace, but all I found was dysentery. and following the initial scandal, one Major Minnies concludes: ...it is all very well to love and admire India--intellectually, aesthetically, he did not mention sexually but he must have been aware of that factor too--but always with a virile, measured, European feeling. One should never, he warned, allow oneself to become softened (like Indians) by an excess of feeling; because the moment that happens--the moment one exceeds one's measure--one is in danger of being dragged over to the other side. These are the two sentiments one takes away from the novel. The East is more likely to provide disease than enlightenment and Western reason is superior to Eastern sensuality. GRADE: C
Rating:
Summary: Evocative
Review: Jhabvala's book, Heat and Dust, is set India, in two eras - the 1920's and the 1970's. The two time periods are brought together through the narrator. She has journeyed to India to research the life of her grandfather's first wife, Olivia, who left him to marry an Indian prince. The narrator chronicles her own Indian adventures while telling the reader what she has learned of Olivia. The device of using the journal is very well done, and allows the reader to see how the lives of these two women intersect in very profound ways. The descriptions of India throughout the book in both eras were amazing and very evocative, both of the individual eras and of the landscape. While technically very well written, I did not find the book fully enjoyable. I did not feel as though the characters of either of the two women were fully fleshed out, and I found this distracting throughout the book. Many of the minor characters were even less well developed, and this made them seem like little more than stereotypes. While not the best book I have read recently, it is short and a quick read, and worth the time.
Rating:
Summary: Evocative
Review: Jhabvala's book, Heat and Dust, is set India, in two eras - the 1920's and the 1970's. The two time periods are brought together through the narrator. She has journeyed to India to research the life of her grandfather's first wife, Olivia, who left him to marry an Indian prince. The narrator chronicles her own Indian adventures while telling the reader what she has learned of Olivia. The device of using the journal is very well done, and allows the reader to see how the lives of these two women intersect in very profound ways. The descriptions of India throughout the book in both eras were amazing and very evocative, both of the individual eras and of the landscape. While technically very well written, I did not find the book fully enjoyable. I did not feel as though the characters of either of the two women were fully fleshed out, and I found this distracting throughout the book. Many of the minor characters were even less well developed, and this made them seem like little more than stereotypes. While not the best book I have read recently, it is short and a quick read, and worth the time.
Rating: 
Summary: RESISTANCE IS FUTILE
Review: One cannot help it but see Merchant and Ivory all over this book. Not to say that Jhabvala did this on purpose, however, the book reads like it was writer to be made into a movie, and guess what, it was. Jhabvala is an artist, no doubt about that. That she succeeded in exploring the human condition should be evident if you read "Heat and Dust" in its entirety. Her exploration of both the fascination/seduction of cultures different from ours coupled with the turmoil of the decision to terminate a pregnancy ranks among the best in this genre. Part Anna Karenina, part Madame Bovary, both Olivia and the narrator (the grandchild of Olivia's husband with his second wife) are both seeking to transgress. As if knowing that life should hold more for them, they both seek to and explore "what lies beyond". As a man who will never know the true horrors of terminating a pregnancy, I am grateful to Jhabvala for allowing me into the inner sanctum, if only briefly. Having said all that, the book is problematic as all period pieces cannot help but be. Movies and books of this sort love to deal with a set of dilemmas or explore some aspect of the human condition within a specific framework set in a time and place - period pieces. Writers like Jhabvala skillfully weave stories full of the charm and color that this set of props provide. The problem is, period pieces such as this one form a set of impressions in a readers mind and sometimes the relations to reality is blurred. Readers have to be careful that this is fiction and although loosely based on historical accounts, it can never be an accurate representation. That Jhabvala used the period piece setting, the woman's voice and the human condition and fused it into a masterpiece is a no brainer. A wonderful read, a seductive piece, a cornucopia to the senses - but is it live or Memorex? Miguel Llora
Rating:
Summary: A Powerful, Beautifully Written Novel Of Two Women & India
Review: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's powerful and beautifully written novel of an "outrageous" Anglo-Indian romance in 1920s Khatm and Satipur won the Booker Prize in 1983. The author has crafted parallel tales of two young women, distantly related and separated by two generations. Anne, the story's narrator, travels to India to discover more about the mystery surrounding her grandfather's first wife, Olivia. Douglas Rivers, an upper echelon English civil servant, married and brought his adored wife, Olivia, with him to India in 1923, during the British Raj. She was a beautiful, spoiled and spirited young woman, who found it difficult to adjust to life in the British colonial community of Satipur. Feeling suffocated by the inbred group she was forced to socialize with, Olivia longed for independence, intellectual stimulation and a more passionate life. She hoped that a baby would solve her problems but found it more difficult to become pregnant than she had thought. Shortly after their arrivel in India, Douglas, Olivia and some of the more important members of the community were invited to the palace of the Nawab of Khatm and she was immediately intrigued by the handsome, charismatic prince. He courted her friendship aggressively and then the friendship turned passionate. When faced with a crisis Olivia was forced to make life altering decisions which would have far reaching effects and cause scandal throughout British India and England that would last for generations. Anne stays in the town where her grandfather and Olivia lived fifty years before. Trying to piece together the puzzle that was Olivia and discover what motivated her to change her life so drastically, Anne visits the places her "step-grandmother" frequented and interviews people who knew her or knew of her. She also reads the letters and journals that Olivia wrote so long ago, and oddly enough, Anne ventures into experiences similar to Olivia's adventures, but more acceptable in our modern time. Anne's spiritual and sensual journey in the 1970s parallels Olivia's as the color, heat, exotic landscapes, and people of India penetrate her western upbringing. Anne writes in her own diary: "Fortunately, during my first few months here, I kept a journal, so I have some record of my early impressions. If I were to try and recollect them now, I might not be able to do so. They are no longer the same because I myself am no longer the same. India always changes people, and I have been no exception." This short and delicately written novel packs a powerful punch and paints an extraordinary portrait of British colonials in India, with their sense of cultural and moral superiority over the local population. However, even more compelling and unusual, is the story of two women, generations apart, who follow similar paths under the spell of India.
JANA
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