This is E. M. Forster's fascinating account of two visits he made to the state of Dewas Senior in 1912 and 1921.
Consisting largely of letters written home, interspersed with later comments, THE HILL OF DEVI conveys all the excitement, amusement and curiosity aroused in Forster by his experiences.
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E.M. Forster likely could not have penned his great masterpiece, A PASSAGE TO INDIA, unless he had worked for a year as the private secretary to an Indian Maharajah. He saw firsthand the puzzling rituals, botched attempts at modernization, and baffling cultural paradoxes that define the Indian story.
...one incident which he recalls, the nine-day festival commemorating the birth of Krishna, had a profound effect upon him ('the strangest and strongest Indian experienc e ever granted me') and inspired the whole final section of A PASSAGE TO INDIA. Forster saw his visits to Dewas Senior as 'the great opportunity of my life' and in THE HILL OF DEVI he gives an impressive and sensitive portrayal of an aspect of India which has long since desappeared.
In THE HILL OF DEVI, he presents the Maharajah as a genius, a wit and even a bit of a saint, but also as a ruler harassed by the colonial bureaucracy and fearful for his life. The Maharajah's downfall deepened Forster's insights into the dilemma that wracked Indian culture.
"Forster has written nothing more sparkling...imbued with delicious humor." [Times Literary Supplement]
- Autor: Edward Morgan Forster
- Kategoria: literatura podróżnicza
- Język: angielski
- ISBN: 0140095063
- Data wydania: 1983-01-01
- Liczba stron: 174
- Ocena: 0,0
- Wydawnictwo: Penguin Books
