The Hill of Devi

by E.M. Forster

Book Overview

The author's experiences as private secretary to a brilliant young Maharajah. Forster creates a complex portrait of a true ruler. Photographs. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0000CMHET
• Release Date: January 1965
• Publisher: Penguin
• Length: 175 Pages
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.

Customer Reviews

the experience from which Passage to India was drawn

Forster spent a couple of years working as a secretary for an indigenous royal within the British Raj, a situation quite different from that of most Britishers working out in the Empire at that time and resulting in an experience, outward and inward, quite different from the ferociously enforced norm. Of course the man was quite different from the ferociously enforced norm to start with. This is Forster's account of that experience, and, aside from his own story, it includes a lot of interesting details of the "India" of that time, some of which still hold true (e.g. an innate tendency toward political intrigue, and generally the overwhelming social structure), and some of which are now receding into history (e.g. enormous morning flights of fruit bats returning to their roosts in the jungle, and generally the overwhelming presence of nature). Anyone who whose enjoyment of "Passage" went beyond plot and characterization will find quite a bit of edification in the cultural information supplied here. Of course, not being a novel, it lacks the full narrative impulse that people enjoy in "Passage", if they enjoyed it.