H o w t o R e a d L i t e r a t u r e1 0The four phrases of the first sentence are almost metrical in their
rhythm and balance. In fact, it is possible to read them as trimeters,
or lines of verse with three stresses each:
Except for the Marabar Caves
And they are twenty miles off
The city of Chandrapore
Presents nothing extraordinaryThe same delicate equipoise crops up in the phrase ‘Edged rather
than washed’, which is perhaps a touch too fastidious. This is a writer
with a keenly discriminating eye, but also a coolly distancing one.
In traditional English style, he refuses to get excited or enthusiastic
(the city ‘presents nothing extraordinary’). The word ‘presents’ is
significant. It makes Chandrapore sound like a show put on for the
sake of a spectator, rather than a place to be lived in. ‘Presents
nothing extraordinary’ to whom? The answer is surely to the tourist.
The tone of the passage – disenchanted, slightly supercilious,
a touch overbred – is that of a rather snooty guidebook. It sails
as close as it dares to suggesting that the city is literally a heap
of garbage.
The importance of tone as an indication of attitude is made
clear in the novel itself. Mrs Moore, an Englishwoman who has
just arrived in colonial India and is unaware of British cultural
habits there, tells her imperial- minded son Ronny about her
encounter with a young Indian doctor in a temple. Ronny does
not initially realise that she is talking about a ‘native’, and when he
does so becomes instantly irritable and suspicious. ‘Why hadn’t
she indicated by the tone of her voice that she was talking about an
Indian?’ he thinks to himself.