Arctic Summer: Author of the 2021 Booker Prize-winning novel THE PROMISE
By Damon Galgut
4/5
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About this ebook
FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE PROMISE
Shortlisted for the 2015 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
Shortlisted for the 2015 Sunday Times Barry Ronge Fiction Prize
Shortlisted for the 2015 University of Johannesburg English Literary Award
Nominated for the 2014 Folio Prize
In 1912, the SS Birmingham approaches India. On board is Morgan Forster, novelist and man of letters, who is embarking on a journey of discovery. As Morgan stands on deck, the promise of a strange new future begins to take shape before his eyes. The seeds of a story start to gather at the corner of his mind: a sense of impending menace, lust in close confines, under a hot, empty sky. It will be another twelve years, and a second time spent in India, before A Passage to India, E. M. Forster's great work of literature, is published. During these years, Morgan will come to a profound understanding of himself as a man, and of the infinite subtleties and complexity of human nature, bringing these great insights to bear in his remarkable novel.
At once a fictional exploration of the life and times of one of Britain's finest novelists, his struggle to find a way of living and being, and a stunningly vivid evocation of the mysterious alchemy of the creative process, Arctic Summer is a literary masterpiece, by one of the finest writers of his generation.
Damon Galgut
DAMON GALGUT was born in Pretoria in 1963. He wrote his first novel, A Sinless Season, when he was seventeen. His other books include Small Circle of Beings, The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs, The Quarry and The Good Doctor. The Good Doctor was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the International IMPAC Dublin Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. Damon Galgut lives in Cape Town.
Read more from Damon Galgut
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Reviews for Arctic Summer
54 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the end, everything comes down to love in all its infinite variety. The tortured and somewhat pathetic English Man, famous author EM Forster, is the subject. Forster struggled throughout his life to come to terms with who he was, and the story twists and turns around his often failed efforts to connect with another man. Don't miss this book: its a detailed and poignant analysis of one of the great figures of early 20th century literature, written in accessible way which carries the reader on through more than 300 pages. I almost couldn't put it down. Why didn't this book win the Man Booker?
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A fascinating portrait of E.M. Forster and his long struggle to produce "A passage to India". Galgut's prose is always well-judged and readable, and it left me wanting to read Forster.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I enjoyed this book but I can see how some might find it a little dry. It's a fictionalized account of how and why EM Forster wrote "A Passage to India," focusing on his friendship with two men, Mohammed and Masood. It's very heavy on exposition and description; it's like a fictionalized biography. Galgut tells us how these friendships and the time he spent in India prior to 1945 formed the basis of the novel, and how his sexuality influenced all of this as well. It's engaging but it won't be for every reader; Galgut's Forster is self-centered and misogynistic but those who like detailed character-driven stories will enjoy it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Writing a novel about the life of a man who hasn't really lived, as Forster thinks about himself,is a challenge. Galgut did not fully succeed. Especially in the first part the description of Forster's life remains superficial,cliché. It does get better as Forster travels abroad and succeeds in overcoming his inhibitions. The best part of the book is about the impossibility to construct a bridge between the English and Indian culture, as Forster comes to realise while he is in India and is also exemplified in his relation to Masood, a great love of his.