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    Arctic Summer
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    Arctic Summer
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    Arctic Summer
    Ebook375 pages6 hours

    Arctic Summer

    By Damon Galgut

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The year is 1912, and the SS Birmingham is approaching India. On board is Edward Morgan Forster, a reserved man taunted by writer's block, attempting to come to terms with his art and his repressed sexuality. Damon Galgut's brilliant fictional biography lures readers into E.M. Foster's heroic journey of self-discovery, as the novelist confronts his fraught childhood, falls in unrequited love with his closest friend, and finds himself surprisingly freed to explore his "minorite" desires as secretary to a most unusual Maharajah. Slowly, the strands of a story begin to gather in his mind: a sense of impending menace, lust in close confines, under a hot, empty sky. But it will be another twelve years and a second stay in India before the publication of his finest work, A Passage to India.

    Shifting across the landscapes of India, Egypt, and England, Forster's life is informed by his relationships—from Mohammed el Adl, an Egyptian tram conductor whose companionship becomes invaluable, to the Greek literary titan, poet C.P. Cavafy. This reimagining of Forster's life is at once enlightening, humorous and deeply convincing—a clear ad sympathetic psychological probing of one of Britain's finest novelists. As The Financial Times notes: "The concern is Forster's inner life, and Galgut inhabits him with such sympathetic completeness, and in prose of such modest excellence that he starts to breathe on the page." Readers will share in his struggle with repression and self-acceptance, and witness the gradual unfolding of a literary masterpiece. Arctic Summer is a powerfully candid portait of an author, created by one of the finet writers of his generation.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEuropa Editions
    Release dateSep 2, 2014
    ISBN9781609452360
    Unavailable
    Arctic Summer
    Author

    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.

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    Reviews for Arctic Summer

    4/5

    48 ratings4 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A 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.
    • 4/5
      In 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?
    • 4/5
      Writing 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.
    • 4/5
      I 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.