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Taking us from a sweltering Indian rooftop at night to the marble
halls of an ageing Bollywood star's palace, this is a new
collection of short stories from Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. A wedding is
planned between two innocents at a crumbling mansion of a grand
Hudson Valley estate, while among the white-socked convent girls of
post-colonial New Delhi a mixed-race couple contemplate their son's
alienation and the failure of hope. A young English girl
infiltrates Fifth Avenue theatrical royalty and a lovely Broadway
starlet exacts a clever, protracted revenge against her nemesis.
Speaking of mortality and family rivalry, of the transfer of power
from old to young, of love and the loss of innocence, this is a
delicious assortment of fairytales and parables.
Six colourful, comic characters inhabit A Backward Place. All but
one are Westerners who have come to Delhi to experience an
alternative way of life. But, far from being hippies, their ability
to adapt to this exotic culture often leaves something to be
desired. Etta, an aristocratic, faded beauty maintains her Parisian
chic while Clarissa talks enthusiastically about the simple life
but stops short of ever roughing it herself. On the other hand Bal,
the one Indian protagonist, holds quite Western aspirations to
Hollywood glamour. A Backward Place humorously explores
contradictions in attitudes and lifestyles and the interplay
between culture and individuality. But it is also a Dickensian
drama, charting the highs and lows of everyday life against the
enchanting backdrop of a bustling Indian city.
Angel is dark and plain, introverted and submissive, a spontaneous
composer of childish verses, wholly consumed by the wild, seductive
spell of her cousin Lara - a beautiful, irresponsible creature who
expresses herself in free-form dance. What begins as a tender and
intimate attachment between two young girls deepens in adulthood
into something complex and perilous, as Lara's life spins in
increasingly erratic circles while Angel's passionate devotion to
her remains undiminished. It is a feverish and impenetrable
relationship, of reckless master and willing slave, one forged to
shield both Angel and Lara from the harshness of their
surroundings, as well as from the far greater terrors of the self.
It is a relationship that will end in terror for the young women,
and for their families. Set against the vivid, dream-like landscape
of of Manhattan in the recent past, Poet and Dancer is an
altogether unforgettable novel, written with the subtlety, wry
humour and beauty that are the hallmarks of one of the twentieth
century's most brilliant novelists and storytellers.
The beautiful, spoiled and bored Olivia, married to a civil
servant, outrages society in the tiny, suffocating town of Satipur
by eloping with an Indian prince. Fifty years later, her
step-granddaughter goes back to the heat, the dust and the squalor
of the bazaars to solve the enigma of Olivia's scandal. 'A superb
book. A complex story line, handled with dazzling assurance
...moving and profound. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has not only written a
love story, she has also exposed the soul and nerve ends of a
fascinating and compelling country. This is a book of cool,
controlled brilliance. It is a jewel to be treasured' THE TIMES
Chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the best books
of 1986, this volume of stories, selected by the author from her
own early work, represents the essence of her Indian experience.
Bearing Jhabvala's hallmark of balance, subtlety, wry humor, and
beauty, these stories present characters that prove to be as
vulnerable to the contradictions and oppressions of the human heart
as to those of India itself.
'A magnificent selection of the Booker winner's short stories'
Sunday Times With an introduction by Anita Desai. Over the course
of her glittering literary career, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala wrote some
of the most wonderful novels of the twentieth century and
screenplays to some of the most beloved films - but she was also a
master of the short story form. This stunning new collection brings
together the jewels in the crown of her writing: it is a showcase
of astonishing storytelling power.
Like Jhumpa Lahriri, Monica Ali and Arundhati Roy, Ruth Prawer
Jhabvala has long captured the Western-Indian experience. In this
expansive story collection, Jhabvala continues her lifelong
meditation on East and West. Set in India, England, and New York
City, A Lovesong for India reveals what unites us across oceans,
cultures, and lifetimes. Remarkable and unwavering, this collection
is the hallmark of Jhabvala's celebrated career and a testament to
her "balance, subtlety, wry humor, and beauty" -The New York Times
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.
In Travelers , Jhabvala examines the unlikely convergence of four
wanderers: Asha, an imperious Indian widow, Raymond, a curious
Englishman, Lee, an American looking for her spiritual core, and
Gopi, an impressionable young student. With a mixture of
impassioned dialogue and subtle narrative, Jhabvala examines the
psychological and cultural forces that wend their paths into
inextricable knots of love and conflict.
Hailed as one of the best books of 1998 by the Los Angeles Times,
this group of twelve short stories was written over the past twenty
years. From the steamy streets of New Delhi to New Yorks tony Upper
East Side, Jhabvalas characters grapple with the universal
quandaries of the human experiencejealousy, passion, temptation,
and deceptiontruths of life and love that follow no matter where we
wander. This collection features new short fiction from Ruth Prawer
Jhabvala, Booker Prizewinning author of Heat and Dust and Academy
Awardwinning screenwriter of Howards End and A Room With a View .
Written over the past twenty years, these engrossing stories are
domestic tapestries, threaded with the emotional lives and complex
psychologies of intense lovers, quarreling married couples, weary
elders, and their restless adult children. Whether languishing
inside their shuttered New Delhi homes or hosting dinner parties in
the overfurnished apartments of their Manhattan high-rises,
Jhabvalas characters grapple with the universal quandaries of the
human experience--jealousy, passion, temptation, deception--and
truths of life and love that follow no matter where we wander.
Written over twenty years and featuring settings that range from
the crowded bazaars of India to New Yorks Upper East Side, this
magnificent collection brings together fourteen new stories by a
writer of unparalleled grace, insight, and emotional power. Ruth
Prawer Jhabvala, well-known for her Merchant-Ivory screenplays and
her Booker Prize-winning novel Heat and Dust, claims unique
territory in her short fiction, occupying the cusp between two
worlds, India and the West. She expertly mingles the two in subject
matter, perspective, and style to offer stories of universal
appeal.Whether languishing inside their shuttered New Delhi homes
or hosting dinner parties in their baroque Manhattan apartments,
Jhabvalas characters are men and women of sensual passions and
worldly ambition. They confront loneliness and neglect, struggle
for independence in a world of manners and manipulations, and
adjust to both welcome and unwelcome guests who stay too long and
change their hosts lives in devastating ways. Hers are stories of
elegance and exquisite delicacy, weaving complex domestic
tapestries that range over entire lives. A proper Indian gentleman
tries to help his wayward younger brother. A grand hostess on the
eve of Indias independence uses her power for personal and
political ends. A frail New York socialite tries to understand her
daughters alternative life. And a circle of emotionally empty,
upperclass New Yorkers adopts an old Indian woman as their
spiritual guide.To read these stories is to succumb to the power of
a true master--a writer who spans two worlds and who uses this
singular perspective to illuminate hidden truths. The sensuousness
of India, the neuroses of New York--both are portrayed vividly in
these powerful narratives and marvelous entertainments.
The observant and insightful novel reveals, in rich and poignant
detail, the interior lives of three generations of people in their
quest for love and beauty.. This observant and insightful novel
explores the interior lives of three generations of people on a
quest for love and beauty.Louise, not content with her husbands
gentle affection, strives to reclaim her youth in titillating
spiritual and social adventures. Her daughter Marietta searches for
beauty in lofty ideas and in her obsession for her son, Mark, who
believes love is to be found in the pursuit of money and young,
vacuous lovers. And Leo, their eccentric, self-styled guru,
satisfies himself with power--commanding the bodies and souls of
his followers.Demonstrating Jhabvalas deft twists of irony and
humor, In Search of Love and Beauty brings several lifespans, full
of hopes and ideals, within our grasp.
"All the figures in this book...are irresistible comic manifestations."—The New Yorker
This witty and perceptive novel is about Prem, a young teacher in New Delhi who has just become a householder and is finding his responsibilities perplexing.
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