A Stronger Climate by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: book review

A Stronger Climate by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1968) is set in India in the 1950s and 1960s.

It is a collection of nine short stories in two sections: 1) The Seekers, and 2) The Sufferers.

The stories are based around Europeans, specifically the British, in India and the relationships they foster – both visitors and those who have established a life in the country. The premise is that the climate in India – with its colours and spices and aromas and heat – is more vivid and stronger than their home country. It is a place where Europeans are either respectful or not, fascinated by the culture or not, and assimilating or not.

What are Europeans looking for in India? What do they find? Do their dreams meet their expectations? How does it end in each of the stories – in happiness; in bad manners; in peace; in suffering; in passion; bewitched; in a clash of cultures; in love with life or in love despite the talk about mixed race marriages?

From the author’s attention to detail, her wit and humour, and the power of her words, she has conjured up the reality of the times. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is a consummate storyteller.

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009). She lives in Paris.

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