To Whom She Will by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1955)

 This is her first novel. I have no experience yet of what she achieved later in her career, nothing with which to compare this, intra, only my knowledge of what the literary world was like in the mid 50s, extra. Alongside that, this looks fairly brilliant. It is a familiar-looking tale of naïve New Delhi youngsters caught up romantically in the idea of their love. Their families, true to caste and Indian convention, attempt to control the situation, which is one where he is regarded as too low for her, and she is regarded as not right for him, given that she is independent of spirit and wanting to whisk him off to England to marry. But it quickly becomes evident that neither of them have got down to brass tacks yet: Amrita is absorbed in her small rebellion, which flavours her attitude, and Hari is captivated by the idea of love, to the point of tears and the shadow side of deep emotions, but is more profoundly, but unawarely, connected to the idea of pleasing people and being comfortable. Their delusions remain unchallenged through most of the length of this book, coming into play gradually as the narrative develops. Mothers, sisters, aunts, and occasionally their menfolk, provide an exclamatory chorus of splendid stripe, tics clashing and assumptions raging, many of them to do with class and jealousy. For me it is here where Jhabvala's skill comes into full focus. Her slow unfolding, flavoured with generous doses of satire, and compensating tension, is magnificently controlled. She also dedicates herself to setting out what would have been seen then to be the intimate colours of Indian life, small detail which lends tang. The fact that she has applied these Austenish satiric flavours to an Indian subject with so much precise elan is what gives this a sense of delight. It's assured, and its confidence satisfies. But of course there's an elephant in this room: Jhabvala was of that surname by marriage. She was born in Germany to Jewish parents and (needfully) emigrated to Britain in 1939. So I am imagining that she would be touted in some circles as inauthentic, and very possibly a cultural appropriator. She must have seen a lot through living there and being married to an Indian, which experience, so closely lived, must give some sort of imprimatur. But that experience was not very old when this book was published. I can only say that the wry humour in this, which is both forgiving (broad warmth) and coldly telling (no quarter to errant conceits) is gratifyingly suave and cool-headed.