East of the Sun: Julia Gregson

Image Credit: SheSaid

They say don't judge a book by its cover - the exact antithesis of that would be Julia Gregson's "East of the Sun"! Reading this book was like meeting a person with so many astounding characteristics but ultimately no "soul"!!!

Consider this – it is 1928 and three young women are on their way to India - the ever so pretty and perfect Rose is going to India to get married to her fiancé Jack Chandler an officer in one of the Indian Cavalry whom she has very briefly met in England. Rose's best friend and bridesmaid, the "fat" Tor (Victoria) is going to India on the pretext of Rose wedding but really is escaping from her overbearing mother and to hunt for a husband; one of “the fishing fleet” – English women who came out to India after the English season was over. So, with the English season over, Tor’s chance at finding a husband and redeeming herself lies in India. Chaperoning them is Viva Holloway, an utterly independent but also utterly poor orphan girl. Her parents have always lived in India and died separately and tragically in India when she was just a child. Viva herself has always lived in various boarding schools in England and during vacations with various "unwillingly kind" aunts. Viva eagerly signs on to chaperone Rose, Tor and another weird 19 year old character Guy Glover (whose parents apparently are Tea planters in Assam) – for a price. Viva herself is on her way to find the India of her childhood AND a very superficial reason - to claim a trunk left behind by her dead mother.

There is some sort of crux or point of gravity as long as all of these characters are onboard the ship Kaiser-e-Hind which takes them to India - Bombay to be specific. Once they reach India the story meanders in all directions with no aim or purpose. Sometimes Rose is the protagonist and the story is all about how this sweet-never-complaining-girl matures to taken on responsibilities beyond her age.

Then suddenly Viva is the protagonist who is taking little baby steps tearing down the Victorian era chains and creating an Identity for herself in a land harsh and unknown... Poor Viva has also to deal with the schizophrenic Guy Glover who sometimes sees Viva as a mother and sometimes as a lover! And then there is her Mr. Right Frank who they have met on the ship to India. Frank and Guy keep flitting in and out of Viva's life in India until ... well you can guess the predictable ending.

This rather usual mix should excite and interest anyone with a decent level of inquisitiveness. The blurb on the back also promises that - "...the hope and secrets they carry can do little to prepare them for what lies ahead in India" But Alas, the "secrets" turn out to be rather mundane and the India of 1928 is rather boring too- probably because I am an Indian and I was expecting more... not finding that "more" was a disappointment. Gregson's writing is disjointed and keeps going back and forth between the three main women characters, their lives, their feelings etc. Viva is clearly meant to be central figure in the book but that is not achieved.

And then there are those out-of-the-blue new characters introduced and just as easily abandoned. But I am being too harsh, the book is not “all” bad - one positive aspect of this book is that it has these nuggets of everlasting truths generously sprinkled all over the book. Viva writing in her journal - "you see I was not made for marriage, I was born with a knapsack on my back"

" ...the old insecurities that reared up, particularly when her (Viva's) work was not going well, and which made her feel not the confident free spirited bohemian who had stepped on to the boat but more of an outsider, one of life's gooseberries."

Once on a dinner with a particularly silent Guy Glover Viva muses “This is how I imagine it must feel to be really unhappily married. An endless landscape of slowed-down meals you don’t want to have together, a place where talk is an exhausting chore, a form of mental housework”

And this is one of my personal favorites - Looking at the overly concerned extended family of Rose who have come to escort her to the ship Viva thinks this way about Rose’s (and in general extended) families – “...a whole family in action, an interconnected organism like a colony of ants helping to move her from one life to another”

Viva thinking of Rose

“how could you give yourself away so carelessly? Why had her parents allowed it? It wasn’t even like an arranged marriage in India where the families would have known each other for generations”

And another of my favourites – Viva thinks to herself –

“I do this all the time with people. I write them off before I know them; or I think that friendliness, a certain kind of openness is a form of weakness”

And one quote about India (I promise this is the last one)

“...the heat for one thing. You have never ever felt anything like it in England, it’s like being clubbed over the head sometimes, the flies, the appalling poverty; but if you love it as I do, it gets to you, it bores its way into your soul”

These and the generous Hindi (major Indian Language) interspersed throughout does make for an interesting read. The other positive thing about this book is the Gregson’s rich and true-to-life descriptions of the sights, smells and texture of the real India, be it the heat, dust, garishly colored festival celebrations or the mass of surging humanity is the very real India.

Another aspect I am personally unhappy about in this book is the representation of Indians – either they are mistresses or slum children or house servants – whatever happened to the Gandhi’s, the Tagores, the Raja Rao’s of that era? At the end of it, I did not know what was the purpose of this book? There is so much confusion - the schizophrenia of Guy Glover – was schizophrenia even known during 1920s?

The Blackwater fever that Frank wants to research - which is sort of abandoned towards the end. The book that Viva wants to write – and it seems to me that for the heck of it she ends up writing the stories of all the slum children in the “home” where she briefly works. Jack Chandler's affair with a “Rajput” Indian woman before his marriage with Rose! A “Rajput” woman having an affair? - Rajput women are known for keeping their honor and even practicing “Sati” – immolating yourself in your husband’s pyre so you remain true and pure until death!

Tor marrying the most unlikely character just on the brink of being sent home. AND to the most unlikely among available "eligible bachelors" in India – all these leave a bad taste and an unshakable feeling that certain things in this novel just don’t ring true... I can’t quite place it but I can only feel it. Also all the jumping around from theme to theme, character to character even place to place leaves one bewildered and confused.

Verdict: Readable but not enjoyable

Rating: 2.5

Worded by Thoughts but re-posted by Birdy due to technical snags.