| | This is the 5th of 12 for the Book Awards Reading Challenge. In 1925 E.M. Forster won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and Prix Femina Vie Heureuse, both for the novel A Passage to India. As a fan of books about expatriates in trouble, I was satisfied with this story. Forster convincingly describes how English occupiers and their Muslim, Hindu, and Eurasian subjects were always picking on each other, unwittingly or willfully. Any student of colonialism will see how interactions among the English themselves were inevitably governed by inflexible official conventions and proprieties. No area of life was personal or private. The co-main character Fielding, a school teacher (of course), runs terrible social risks resigning from the club and expressing sympathy for the locals. The other main character is Dr Aziz, well-meaning and flighty but always treated with suspicion by his British superiors. Because the book also has psychological, mystical, spiritual and philosophical levels, critics consider it a landmark of modernism and lit teachers a text of rich interpretation and class discussion.
The Book Awards Reading Challenge is to read 10 award winners from August 1, 2008 through June 1, 2009. Must have at least five different awards in the ten titles. This will be challenge to do in 5 months. Here's my scorecard so far.
William Boyd, A Good Man in Africa (Costa/Whitbread , 1981). Review here.
John Banville, The Untouchable (Lannan Literary Award, 1997). Review here.
Loren D. Estleman, Journey of the Dead (Spur, 1999) Review here.
Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons (Pulitzer, 1919). Review here.
Thea Astley, Hunting the Wild Pineapple ( Australian Literature Studies Award, 1980). Review here.
David Malouf, The Great World (Commonwealth, 1991). Review here.
Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies (PEN/Hemingway Award, 1999). Review here.
E. M. Forster, A Passage to India (James Tait Black Memorial, 1924). Review here.
Robyn Davidson, Tracks (Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, 1980). Review here.
Brian Moore, The Colour of Blood (Sunday Express Book of the Year 1987) Review here.
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| | Posted 3/11/2009 5:48 AM - 39 Views - 4 eProps - 2 comments
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