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A hardcover 1978 John Murray edition of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala 's Esmond in India. Originally published in 1958, close to the period ( early 1950's) in which the novel is set.
Esmond in India is a novel of maneuver and misunderstanding. At its center is the traditional adulterous triangle of a man, Esmond Stillwood, and two women, his wife, Gulab, and the younger Shakuntala, with whom, late in the novel, he begins an affair. Yet in ironic reversal of novelistic convention, these romantic or sexual relationships are completely dwarfed in interest and importance by the subtler domestic struggles going on around them. Gulab never finds out about Shakuntala, and, though Gulab does leave Esmond and return to her family, this has nothing to do with her feelings about him, and everything to do with the long and vocal campaign conducted all through the novel by her Aunt Uma to get her, and especially her child Ravi, to come home to Indian food, Indian manners, and her Indian ties of blood. Similarly, Shakuntala’s family never find out about Esmond, or even suspect such a possibility, concerned as they are about making a prosperous marriage for her, which will above all defeat the feared and dangerous prospect of Shakuntala’s deciding to marry Gulab’s brother Narayan, a qualified doctor but one who shows no ambition toward using his qualifications to make money.
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ISBN 071953559X
