Heat and dust

by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Paperback, 1975




New York : Simon & Schuster, 1987, c1975.


Each book in the New Longman Literature series provides the complete, original text and a full range of support materials. The study material includes: the writer on writing - a section by or about the writer, exploring the process of writing; an introduction; guidance on keeping a log; a National Curriculum study programme; and a glossary.

User reviews

LibraryThing member labfs39
Winner of the Booker Prize in 1975, Heat and Dust is a short but interesting study in contrasts. It is the story of two women, both British, who find themselves living in unfamiliar India. Olivia is the new, young wife of a civil servant stationed in India in 1923, and the unnamed narrator is a young woman seeking to learn more about her grandfather's first wife, i.e. Olivia, in the present time.

The narrator arrives in Bombay and finds a room to rent in the compound of an Indian functionary. He feels embarrassed by her bohemian lack of furniture, and she writes in her journal, "It would have been easier for him if I had been like Olivia. She was everything I'm not." The idea that, although related, the two women are opposites in some fundamental way, shapes the book.

Olivia is the stereotypical sheltered British woman of a certain class who feels constrained by the strictures of "polite" society. An innocent in the ways of seduction and politics, she is soon caught up in both in the person of the local Nawab, a charismatic but impoverished Indian prince. As she is drawn more and more into his influence, like an "irresistible force of nature", Olivia realizes that she is no longer the person she was when she came to India.

She felt that now-out of pride, or to prove her innocence-she ought to be the one to hang back. She hesitated for a moment but found that she did not, after all, have enough pride (or innocence) for that. She followed him quite quickly to the car.

Olivia is the perpetual outsider. Longing to be accepted by the British ex-pats, yet feeling the pull of "the other side", Olivia floats through her days on an excess of emotion. She makes few decisions, and when she does, they seem an outcome of the moment, not of rational reflection.

I found Olivia's naiveté to be cloying after a while, as she remains ignorant of reality far longer than seems plausible. She never seems to get it, even when it is right in front of her.

The narrator, on the other hand, is proactive in her desire to become "one of them", and seeks out the exact same experiences which just seem to happen to Olivia. Uninhibited, worldly, and with a touch of youthful callousness, the narrator changes the lives of those around her. Yet, she too is not immune to the sensuality of the Other.

India always changes people, and I have been no exception. But this is not my story, it is Olivia's as far as I can follow it.

But Olivia's story is her story, and the two are mirror images reflecting back to each other the consequences of making choices and accepting them.

Heat and Dust reminded me of The Painted Veil in that both Olivia and Kitty are awakened to a more mature life through their experiences in an exotic setting. Kitty’s character and understanding develop throughout the book, and I was touched by the story’s ending. Olivia doesn’t seem to evolve in the same way. We are left assuming that she has been changed by her experiences, but unsure how. It is the presence of the narrator and her story that add the necessary complexity to make this a more thoughtful read. Although I failed to empathize fully with either Olivia or the narrator, I found myself rereading a few sections after finishing the book: always a sign to me that the author has managed to do more than simply write a good story.
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LibraryThing member MarysGirl
A quick read, romantic, literary and lyrical. The book is structured around two narratives: Olivia, a bored English colonial wife in India in 1920 who scandalizes the British community by falling in love with a local Indian prince; and her step-granddaughter who fifty years later goes to India to find the woman behind the letters she has in her possession. The book is very internal, but Jhabvala does a marvelous job of describing the British colonial life and modern India with all its beauty and warts. Recommend this one.… (more)
LibraryThing member ffortsa
A young Englishwoman decides to go to India (somewhere in the 1970s, I think), after reading the letters of her grandfather's first wife, who abandoned him for a minor Indian prince. The stories run in parallel, and we see the India of the Raj and the India after the Raj through the eyes of two young women. The similarities and differences of the women and their situations make a satisfying double exposure.… (more)
LibraryThing member lauralkeet
Winner of the Booker Prize in 1975, this novel tells the parallel stories of two young English women, living in India at different time periods. Anne visits the country in the 1970s, well after Indian independence in 1947, but long before India became the economic power it is today. Anne is there to learn more about her grandfather's first wife, Olivia, who lived there in the 1920s, during British colonial rule. Olivia ran off with the Nawab (a Muslim prince), bringing scandal down upon the family. The novel alternates between the two time periods and points of view. Anne deciphers Olivia's story from her letters, written primarily to her sister. She visits places Olivia used to live. Houses have become places of business; only the British cemeteries are left standing as a memorial to earlier times.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was born in Germany to Polish parents in 1927, attending Jewish schools and moving to England in 1939. She married an Indian man in 1951, and relocated to New Delhi. There she began her literary career. Unlike many Europeans, she took instantly to India and celebrated the country through her writing. Since the mid-1970s, Jhabvala has been better known for her screenplays, having collaborated with Merchant Ivory on such wonderful films as Room with a View, Howards End, and Remains of the Day.

Heat and Dust paints a vivid picture of India; the title alone evokes a common first impression of the country. I made a brief visit there on business two years ago, and of course I was struck by the heat and dust. I also found it difficult to witness the extreme contrasts of wealth and poverty. Jhabvala doesn't shrink from these images, either. There is a scene in the novel that concerns a beggar woman dying in the street. No one will help her for fear of contracting her disease. The hospitals are too full to accommodate cases where there is no hope. Anne and another woman can only help her find a peaceful place to spend her final hours.

As the novel progresses we learn more about Olivia, a naive young woman who is bored and lonely. She is drawn into the excitement of the Nawab's palace, and one can almost understand why she would leave her rather dull husband. The novel is less clear about the character of Anne. Like Olivia she develops a romantic relationship with an Indian man, but she is far more independent and self-sufficient (perhaps reflective of the time period). The novel ends rather abruptly and inconclusively. I liked this book, but honestly was not "wowed" in the way I expect of prizewinning novels.
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LibraryThing member gypsysmom
I listened to this book which was narrated by the actress Julie Christie. Christie also played the main character in the movie made from the book. I thought she did an excellent job as the narrator.

The book is about an English woman, Anne, who goes to India to discover more about her grandfather's first wife, Olivia. Her grandfather and Olivia lived in Satipur in the 1920s shortly after their marriage. Olivia fell under the charm of the local Indian ruler, the Nawab. With not much to fill her days Olivia spends her time with the Nawab and an English man attached to the Nawab's household, Harry. When the hot season comes and the other English women go to the hill stations Olivia stays behind.

We learn all this in a series of flashbacks from letters that Olivia wrote at the time. In the present time Anne also falls under the charm of India and an Indian man. The narrator seems to be fated to duplicate Olivia's life but perhaps her life will be more successful than Olivia's.

The women's stories are the main thrust of the book but the background of India under imperial Britain and then under home rule is fascinating. Only 50 years have passed between the parallel stories but what a difference in a country. I thought this was at least as interesting as what Olivia and Anne experienced.
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LibraryThing member bodachliath
An eloquent and beautifully poised novella comparing and contrasting the experiences of two English women in India. The unnamed narrator travels to India to investigate and tell the story of her father's first wife, a bored housewife who has an affair with a local prince. Their two stories are alternated and have many parallels, as well as contrasts between colonial and independent India. It is easy to see why this book won the Booker prize.… (more)
LibraryThing member LovingLit
The lives of two women are laid out in this novel. Olivia, and her step-grand daughter. The former who lived in India in the 1920s and the latter who followed her there to try and piece together her legacy. It is a short legacy, the book being only 180 pages long, and so not much depth is found in either woman's story.

In that one period of time, 1923, the scene is set very nicely. We get a detailed snapshot of an ex-pat's life in India. So for that I appreciated it. They parallel story of Olivia's descendant is clever and equally restrained. So all in all, nice, but not enough to sink my teeth into.
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LibraryThing member jayne_charles
The first chapter of this novel left me confused with its casual reference to a whole sequence of people we had yet to meet. I hurried on, hoping to encounter something I could understand. Later, when I had read a few chapters I revisited that first bit and of course it made perfect sense.

Together with the synopsis on the back cover, that first chapter pretty much sums up the dramatic part of this story. All that is left is the journey the characters go on to get there. One strand of the plot follows Olivia, the bored wife of a local official in Colonial India, who runs off with an Indian prince. The second one follows her “step grand-daughter” (which felt like an odd term but I can’t think of a better one) who moves to India fifty years later. Of course, the more modern strand of the story takes place in the 1970s and is as much a slice of historical India to us now as the 1920s strand was then.

I liked the elegant simplicity of the writing, the concentration on what was important and the ignoring of what was not. For a short novel, it was well populated but all the characters were interesting and served their purpose. There were many parallels between the 1920s and 1970s sections of the story and a second reading would no doubt reveal more. I wish the author had named the grand-daughter though. It always annoys me when people are left unnamed, even in a novel as good as this one.
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LibraryThing member Mercury57




The novel has none of the tension found in Scott's novel nor does it have the subtleties of A Passage to India. It doesn't so much end as simply peters out inconclusively leaving me feeling decidedly underwhelmed. It's not what I look for in a prize-winning novel.
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LibraryThing member Yestare
I bought this because it is one of my favorite movies. Good book too.
LibraryThing member thejohnsmith
Heat and Dust tells the story of two English women in India; Olivia, a colonialist in the 1920’s, and, half a decade or so later, the granddaughter of Olivia’s former husband. Its a story with plenty of interesting characters amidst intertwining plots making it engaging and easy reading.
LibraryThing member dougwood57
Heat and Dust concerns itself largely with the love affair of Olivia, the wife of a minor English imperial official Douglas Rivers with the local prince, the Nawab, as related by the granddaughter of Rivers and his second wife when she travels to India 50 years later. The granddaughter's experiences are quite similar to Olivia's, in fact one wonders whether she is conscously mimicking Olivia.

India's impact on these English is strong and not necessarily beneficial. The extremes of weather, exotic food, languages, religions, indeed the heat and the dust overwhelm. A particularly interesting character is 'Chidi', a young Englishman temporarily turned Hindu mystic.

Jhabvala is an enormously accomplished author and screenwriter with an intriguing background. Born to Polish parents in Germany, moved with them to ondon to escape Hitler, and married an Indian architect and lived in India from 1951 to 1975 and now resides part-time in NYC. Jhabvala won the Booker Prize (best book by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland in the English language)

Told in a gentle, open and endearing style.
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LibraryThing member Cecilturtle
This is a short but intricate nove where lives carefully and slowly interweave. A woman becomes curious about her grandfather's first wife and goes out to India to seek out her story. We hear both the past and the present, the British and the Indian perspectives, the new and the old morals. At the heart of this is the mysterious India teeming with emotions and desires in a hot, dusty land that excites all who live there.

It's beautifully written - the pace is slow but the story unfolds in a way that's impossible to put it down. What is most remarkable, however, is how the lives of the main two characters, separated by time, generation and family, start to meld in different ways but to the same inescapable destiny that they would not have foreseen but that they embrace fully and happily.
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LibraryThing member idiotgirl
I like the way the two strands of the story were woven together. One the story of the British grandmother who ran away from her husband and married an Indian prince. The second story of the grandmother trying to piece together this story. Both are stories about the power of India. Both women are drawn into the culture in ways that estrange them from their own English stories. Neither can really go back.

The book was read in a lovely way by Julie Christie. I would recommend the book just for the reading.
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LibraryThing member janerawoof
Unnamed narrator, in the 1970s is searching for information about her grandfather's first wife, Olivia Rivers, in 1920s India. The book takes us back and forth from the 1970s through the narrator's diary entries back to the 1920s in Raj India and Olivia's story. The book contrasted Raj and the India of the present. The strongest element of the story was the evocation of India, especially through its descriptions of the climate--mostly "heat and dust." This also served as a metaphor for the heating up and consummation of the affair between Olivia and the Nawab , a minor prince. I disliked all of the characters: Olivia was a whiner and the present-day woman was just...there. But both were mesmerized by India and chose different outcomes as solution to the same dilemma. I liked the author's simple, spare style, clipped and terse dialogue and evocation of the country.… (more)
LibraryThing member Nirmala.Chandrasiri
In Heat and Dust, we have Olivia, the beautiful society wife of Douglas, the “upright and just” civil servant who “worked like a Trojan” in pre-independence India. Left to her own devices in a house full of servants all day long, Olivia is bored out her mind, but one fine day they get invited to a dinner party the Nawab’s palace at Khatm.

"His eyes often rested on her, and she let him study her while pretending not to notice. She liked it – as she had liked the way he had looked at her when she had first come in. His eyes had lit up – he checked himself immediately, but she had seen it and realised that here at last was one person in India to be interested in her the way she was used to."

After the first few pages, it is clear to us Olivia’s story will be intertwined with Nawab’s.

Fast forward fifty years, we have Olivia’s step-granddaughter, the narrator of the story whose name we never learn, visiting post-independence India to find out more about her ‘scandalous’ ancestor.

I don’t believe the story of Heat and Dust will stay with me for long. After all the plot is not much to rave of. However, I found Ruth Jhabvala’s writing to be dazzling. Her depictions of India read like a love letter, and through the eyes of two foreign women belonging to two generations who come to fall in love with India, despite their reservations, she paints us, her India.

"‘Yes it [Himalayas] is climbing up into heaven. There is cool air and breezes, clouds, birds, and trees. Then there is only snow, everything is white and sun also is shining white."

She reminds us there is more to India than people living in small huts squatting by the side of roads, that there’s something serene and simple amidst its bustling cities. But not even Elizabeth Gilbert who went to India on a spiritual journey to find herself in Eat, Pray, Love captures its incredible dimensions the way Ruth Jhabvala does.

"I have not yet traveled on a bus in India that has not been packed to bursting-point, with people inside and luggage on top; and they are always so old that they shake up every bone in the human body and every screw in their own. If the buses are always the same, so is the landscape through which they travel. Once a town is left behind, there is nothing till the next one expect flat land, broiling sky, distances and dust."

Ruth Jhabvala, the only person ever to have won both the Man Booker and Academy awards, was married to an Indian architect and lived in Delhi for over a twenty years. Event though as we read the novel we feel a hint of nostalgia, in her writing Ruth Jhabvala is not pretentious. She doesn’t shy away from ancient customs such as Suttee that got outlawed in 1829, where faithful widows jump into the fires that burn their dead husbands’ bodies, which most people would call barbaric, or claim Indian curries a gastronomical experience no one should miss!

"He accompanied them to the place of execution and joined them in their last prayers. He watched the noose being placed around their necks and stayed till the very last moment. At that last moment, one of them – Tikku Ram, a man of very high caste – suddenly turned to the hangman and began to ask ‘Are you a—?’ but could not finish because the hangman had slipped the hood over his face. The missing word was probably ‘chamar‘ – he was worried about the caste of the hangman who was performing this last intimate function for him. It was apparently his only worry at that moment of departure."

Instead, her observations delivered in humorous prose grow in us, making us see past the imperfections of India and fall for everything – from its vibrant hues and cacophony of sounds to the overwhelming chaos – it has to offer.
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LibraryThing member pgchuis
This was a quick read. it is written in a very unemotional way, which sometimes makes it hard to fully understand the motivations of the characters.

In 1923 Olivia is married to Douglas, a local government official in Satipur. She loves Douglas, but she is bored and they seem unable to conceive a child. She is flattered and entertained by the attentions of the Nawab, a local Muslim prince and begins to sound all her time with him. We know from the opening sentence that she runs off with him.

In the 1970s Douglas' granddaughter travels to India to discover more about Olivia, aided by letter she wrote to her sister. The granddaughter, who appears to be independently wealthy, is not named.

I found this compelling, but various things remained unexplained:


Did Olivia have the abortion intending to tell both Douglas and the Nawab that she had miscarried and planning to continue her life as before? Surely her life in the mountains turned out to be far less satisfactory than the one she had been living with Douglas... Why did the granddaughter feel it was OK to sleep with her landlord? How was it acceptable to the local community for Chid to live with her? What happened to Chid?
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LibraryThing member thatotter
This was dreadful--I can't believe it won the Booker Prize, or any prize. The characters were thin cliches, and the romanticized/mysticized portrayal of India was just embarrassing.
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Heat and Dust which won the Booker Prize in 1975 is a short and intense novel. The main story is one of a young woman from England who journeys to India to learn more about her past.
The story is about two ladies in different time spans and their adventures in India. Olivia Rivers is a young lady from London who has accompanied her husband Douglas to British colonial India. While Douglas keeps himself busy at his office , Olivia is left to tend to herself through the long Indian hours in their bungalow. However, the narrator of the story is the other lady in the novel who knows Olivia as the first wife of her grandfather Douglas. This narrator's name is never mentioned in the novel. The narrator has come to India in order to find out more about Olivia. Heat and Dust is as much Olivia's story as it is a journal of the narrator's first impressions of India. 'India always changes people, and I have been no exception' says the narrator in the beginning of the story. One of the most impressive aspects of the novel is the way the heat and dust is demonstrated -- you can almost feel it. This hot, dusty countryside of Satipur converts the pretty, and doting Olivia into the harem lady of a corrupt and wasted Nawab. The narrator, two generations after Olivia, also readily absorbs the various 'characteristic odors of India', of 'spices, urine and betel'.
Whether the reality of India is portrayed accurately the novel is effective in its narrative of love and becoming part of India.
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