Three Continents (Paperback, New Ed)

Again, as in In Search of Love and Beauty (1983), Jhabvala plumbs the (here dangerous) fatuity of materially well-cushioned, self-drunk beings, tag ends of once-vital dynasties of power or thought. The lightly sardonic tone hardens early on into a chilling urgency, as a brace of blankly nihilistic young twins - rooted to nothing but a hunger for passionate invasion (a need quickly met) - achieve a richly ornamental annihilation through New York (both town and country), London and India. The pair become meshed in a foggily idealistic "world movement" led by a channing, but hardly spiritual, Indian, and get plowed for a financial killing (and just plain killing?) by a truly evil man. Narrator Harriet Wishwell (pronounced "Withcell') and her twin brother Michael, wealthy heirs of a once-prominent American family, "always wanted something other - better - than [they] had." Nothing less than absolute truth and purity - hardly supplied by dilettante parents - is the goal, and in this direction Michael brings an extraordinary trio to mother Lindsay's massive New York estate: "The Rawul," plump remnant of an ancient kingdom; his "consort" Rani (really Renee); and their "adopted son," the sexually stirring Cristi. A huge group of "pale, devoted" followers take over the estate to serve The Rawul and his movement, "International Transcendentalism." At first, Harriet swings on the side of sanity and family ties, while Michael - like Harriet, he will inherit a fortune in two years - has promised all his worldly goods to the Movement. In those two years, there will be abortive rebellions and assertions of familial love - but too late, for a murderer-sadist-thief will strike again and again at core vulnerabilities (sexual and spiritual) of the twins until the day is his in the fungal decay of the Rawul's kingdom. Crowded with somewhat hortatory portraits of traditional eminences (an old American diplomat; an imperious real Rani), a handful of good and gentle people, and a demimonde of crooks and the doomed, this is a mesmerizing, icy tale of the progress of valueless youth into self self-destruction, and a twilit morality where one "can get used to" almost anything. (Kirkus Reviews)

Three Continents is a tale of the clash between the easternized West and the westernized East. Twins Harriet and Michael -- spoiled, quixotic, and extremely wealthy -- have eschewed the vapid world of cocktail parties and adulteries that seems to be their inheritance. In constantly searching to complete themselves, they become the perfect fodder for the charismatic Rawul of Dhoka and his sinister Sixth World Movement.

General

Imprint:	Counterpoint
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	July 1999
First published:	September 1999
Authors:	Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Dimensions:	216 x 140 x 26mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - Trade
Pages:	388
Edition:	New Ed
ISBN-13:	978-1-58243-032-4
Categories:	Books > Fiction > General & literary fiction > Modern fiction
LSN:	1-58243-032-2
Barcode:	9781582430324

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