I don't much care for Forster. I always feel as if he's left out part of the story, or his characters speak and behave in ways I can't believe. But this book takes up the fascinating topic of the tense and complex relationship between the English and the Indians they consider a subject race. Also, it's the source for a breathtakingly wonderful film - here's a link to the imdb page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087892/

Somewhere I read that in David Lean films, the landscape is as important an any actor, and that's true here. At the opening of the film, Adela Quested is moving through a cold rain in a herd of other umbrella-toting Londoners. She stops at a travel agency and looks in the window at posters of India: warm, dry, alluring. On arrival in India, she goes to a tea hosted by the British establishment at its club, and you can't help noticing the artificially maintained greenery, contained within a network of straight and perpendicular walks. The scene between Dr. Aziz and Mrs. Moore, which begins on page 17, is one of the most beautiful ever shot. And when Adela and Mrs. Moore are on the train up to the Marabar caves, Adela puts her head out the window and we see what she does: mountains, valley, jungles - an unforgettable view!

Forster doesn't even really attempt to describe any of these images. Even if he did, unless you have a much stronger visual imagination than I do, or have travel memories on which to draw, you're not going to get the picture of India that Lean shows us with such generosity. A film that improves on its original book is very rare, but this is one of them.

But that's just one person's opinion. Future readers, what do YOU think?

Placed in GoryDetails' Based on the Book bookbox

I'll be keeping this one.