Sometimes the feeling of a novel resonates so strongly with my current emotional state that it’s eerie. It’s that magical moment where consciousness becomes fused so tight with the narrative and the particular story becomes my own – particular and universal. True. I had this sensation as I got into the thick of this novel’s story. It seems an unlikely place and person to feel so connected to: Galgut’s fictional imagining of writer EM Forster. The novel mostly takes place between the publication of “Howard’s End” in 1910 and the publication of “A Passage to India” in 1924. Forster (or Morgan as he is commonly called) travels to India primarily to visit a man he's fallen in love with named Syed Ross Masood. He experiences first hand the strained racial relations and the way imperialism was transforming at that time. Having met in England when Morgan was tutoring him the pair became close friends, but never lovers as Masood denied Morgan's advances. When Morgan returns to England he continues to live with his mother who is both his closest companion and worst enemy. During the war Morgan takes up a position in Egypt and there meets the second great love of his life Mohammed. Galgut carefully reconstructs the tentative relationships Morgan builds with other people, elucidating the suppressed sexuality of Morgan and the complexity of racial politics. The story is overall a speculation on the events and emotions which fed into the difficult creation of “A Passage to India” as well as the novel “Maurice” which wasn't published until after the author's death.

Read my full review of Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut on LonesomeReader