How global pandemics shaped ‘A Passage to India’, EM Forster’s final novel

EM Forster’s final novel and masterpiece, A Passage to India, celebrated its centenary in 2024. It tells the story of Adela Quested, who arrives in the city of Chandrapore with Mrs Moore, the mother of her fiancé, hoping to see “the real India”.

On an excursion to the infamous Marabar caves with the Indian doctor Aziz and the English schoolteacher Cyril Fielding, the women hear an echo that sets in motion the events that unfold across the rest of the book.

The echo causes an existential crisis for Moore. Quested, meanwhile, believes she has been assaulted in one of the caves by Aziz. A court case ensues that sends both the British and Indian public into a frenzy. While giving evidence, Quested realises that Aziz is innocent and that her experience in the caves was possibly the result of hysteria or a hallucination.

The novel refuses to answer the question of what, if anything, happened in the caves. At the heart of the book is a vacant centre, a black hole around which everything turns. It is this uncertainty which has allowed readers to arrive at so many different interpretations of the novel across the decades. So, how can we read the novel today, over 100 years after…

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