The Fiction of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: The Politics of Passion PDF
Preview The Fiction of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: The Politics of Passion
THE FICTION OF RUTH PRA WER JHABV ALA The Fiction of Ruth PralVer Jhabvala The Politics of Passion Laurie Sucher Pal grave Macmillan ISBN 978-1-349-20241-6 ISBN 978-1-349-20239-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-20239-3 © Laurie Sucher 1989 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1989 All rights reserved. For information, write: Scholarly and Reference Division, St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 First published in the United States of America in 1989 ISBN 978-0-312-02336-2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sucher, Laurie, 1942- The fiction of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: the politics of passion 1 Laurie Sucher. p. cm. Based on the author's thesis (Ph.D.)-SUNY at Stony Brook. Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-312-02336-2: $29.95 (est.) 1. Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer, 1927- -Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. PR9499.3.J5Z886 1989 823--dc19 88-32678 CIP To the memory of my parents Augusta and Irving Sucher Contents Acknowledgements x PART ONE QUEST 1 Introduction: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and her Fiction 3 Overview 13 The Later Novels and Short Stories 18 2 Dangerous Quest 22 Being Known 22 Unsuitable Attachments 27 PART TWO TO THE ASHRAM 3 Gurus: Short Stories 39 'An Experience of India' 40 'A Spiritual Call' 44 4 Gurus: A New Dominion or Travelers 48 Dominion: the Political Context 48 Britons in the New Dominion: Raymond and Lee 50 Names 54 Ashrams 56 'Gothic' Aspects 61 PART THREE THE DEMON-LOVER 5 'The Housewife' 69 vii viii Contents 6 'Desecration' 77 Knowing and Being Known 81 The 'Unknown Woman' 92 7 Demon-Lovers and Holy Mothers: Heat and Dust 98 'Going Too Far' 103 Parallel Structures 107 Olivia and the Anglo-Indians 109 Motifs: Graveyards, Husbands, Pianos, Hijra 115 Nature Imagery 121 The 'New' Story: Holy Mothers 124 Wives and Widows in Satipur 127 Disregarding Pollution Taboos 131 Anti-Romantic Lovers 133 Literary Allusion: A Passage to India 134 'Harry' and E. M. Forster 136 PART FOUR BACK IN THE WEST 8 Difficult Adjustments: Three Stories 143 Homosexual Men, Heterosexual Women 143 'A Birthday in London' 149 'Commensurate Happiness' 157 'Grandmother' and Other Old Women 161 9 In Search of Love and Beauty 168 The Gothic Way and the Greek Way: Three Generations of Searchers 168 New York as a Setting 169 Critical Response 176 Contents ix The Pantheon of In Search of Love and Beauty 177 'The Point' 184 Two Houses 187 Natasha's Answer 192 10 The International 'Trick': Three Continents 200 Some Preparatory Stories 201 Three Continents 205 Victims of Global Disinheritance 216 'Expiation': Other Victims 221 Notes 228 Selected Bibliography 238 Index 247 Acknowledgements My thanks go to Professor Susan Squiers, English Department, SUNY at Stony Brook, where this study was first conceived as a doctoral thesis; to Arun Aurora of the Foreign Languages Department, Chicago Public Library; to 'Andrea', who like Ruth Jhabvala is a refugee from state terror, this time in Guatemala, and who took good care of my children while I worked; and finally, to my husband, Michael Gaster. x Part One Quest
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