Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable picture of colonial India, 10 Sep 2008
I have to admit, I picked up East of the Sun from Amazon UK on a sort of blind buy. It was recommended to me because I purchased The Forgotten Garden. Well, one thing turned into another late one night... and all of a sudden I found myself clicking "proceed to checkout." You know how it is.
I actually rather glad I made this impulse purchase. Set in 1928 and 1929, East of the Sun is the story of three women who go to India: Rose, a young woman going to get married; her best friend Tor, going to be her bridesmaid and hopeful that she'll find a husband herself; and Viva, a young woman accompanying them on their voyage in order to reclaim a trunk that once belonged to her parents. Also in her care is Guy Glover, an unstable sixteen-year-old, who's just been kicked out of boarding school and who quickly becomes a risk to Viva and her charges.
Once the women get to India, nothing is what they expected it to be. Rose's marriage is hardly a bed of roses; and, although the number of English men in India overwhelms the number of women, Tor can't quite get her act together in order to find a husband. As for Viva, her plans to pick up her trunk and leave India derail pretty quickly as Guy Glover's antics get out of hand.
The novel is not so much about India as it is about the British in India and the so-called "fishing fleet" of young women who went there to find husbands. The first third of the book is devoted to the voyage out to India (in first class) on the Kaiser-i-Hind, and I thought that part of the book was particularly engaging. The characters are all finely drawn, and I found myself rooting for each of them. It's a very lively and dramatic book, and I couldn't put it down. The story mostly belongs to Viva, but my favorite character above all was Tor--her personality was much more endearing than that of the other characters.' The only setback to this novel is the Guy Glover storyline, which kind of detracts from the story. In all, however, Julia Gregson does a wonderful job of capturing the last days of British colonization in India with a fine eye for detail.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Pleasant but not exceptional, 5 Oct 2008
This is the story of three women venturing to India in the 1920s, each with her own hopes and dreams, her own fears. While it is pleasant enough - ideal as a holiday read perhaps - it hardly excites or lingers in the memory. The writing is sufficiently fluid not to jar, but there is little to entice the reader back to seek deeper insight, nothing particularly thought-provoking, no phrase or paragraph so poetic that it must be read and re-read for the sheer pleasure of the language.
Nineteen-year-old Rose is travelling to India to marry Jack Chandler, an army officer she barely knew before he proposed and whose regiment sailed to India shortly after their engagement. By the time Rose approaches Bombay she can hardly remember what he was like and is nervous of meeting him again. Her best friend Tor (unusually, short for Victoria), who cannot wait to be free of her overbearing mother, is to be Rose's bridesmaid and hopes to find a husband of her own. Viva, the young woman employed as their chaperone, has her own hang-ups about India where she lived as a child before losing both her parents and her sister.
Overall, the story is interesting if somewhat bland and there are sections missing that cry out to be told. One such is Rose's wedding. The voyage to India, which dominates the early chapters, is a build-up to the forthcoming marriage, full of Rose's fears and feelings, with a couple of chapters on Jack's perceptions. But the wedding itself is passed over in the briefest description from Tor's viewpoint, without our ever knowing how the bride herself viewed the day.
Of the girls' stories, it was Viva's that came most alive and was most fully developed. Tor's story achieved a satisfying roundness, but Rose's seemed to fizzle out as if unfinished, leaving questions unanswered. There were hints but nothing more. Maybe this was deliberate, but for me it left a sense of incompleteness, as if the author had forgotten to add the finishing touches to Rose's viewpoint.
For all that the book is enjoyable, so long as you treat it as a light read and don't expect too much. Recommended for holiday or bedtime reading, or whenever you don't want to be too challenged!
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72 of 84 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beckons you in, 26 Jun 2008
This book is captivating. It is a slow unfurling read that can't be rushed. If you haven't been to India, Gregson's stimulating narrative is going to awaken your senses. If you have been, especially to the places described, a wonderful memory awaits. It's autumn 1928 and the Kaiser-i-Hind is waiting to set sail for Bombay a land promising the start of three very different lives for the three young women we follow on board.
Meet Rose, Victoria (Tor) and Viva. Rose is naïve and about to be married to man she hardly knows but is full of hope. Tor is happy to be away from her parents and her life and all she wants from her adventure is a husband of her own. Then there is Viva who isn't as old as Rose and Tor's family thinks she is yet still manages to secure a job as their chaperone. There are other significant characters along the way but these three women are the narrators, telling their story in their own way; learning about themselves and each other.
The book is fabulous, from beginning to end. Gregson introduces the reader to the three women in the beginning of the novel and the beginning of their adventure. Dialogue and narrative blend to give an enthralling story that is difficult to put down. I became quite involved in their ups and downs, willing them on with different parts of the lives, especially when they were making fools of themselves with the decisions they were making. I have a love of literature set in India and would have discovered this novel myself at some point but I was thrilled to see this as part of Richard & Judy's summer read. Having read 6 out of the 8 novels so far, I have found this one to be by far the best. One I will continually recommend.
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