Summary Heat & Dust
... her by the Nawab's powerful mother, the Begum. Afterwards, she leaves Douglas for the Nawab, who buys a house for her in the mountains. Olivia's story is intercut with the diary of Douglas's granddaughter, who, looking for the India of Olivia, discovers the real country, its squalor, its disorder, the heat and dust of the title. Another false image of India is embodied by Chidananda ('Chid'), a young midlander Tumed Sadhu, who comes in search of spiritual fulfilment, but finds only disease, and has to be flown home. The young woman sleeps with both Chid and her landlord, Inder Lai, and becomes pregnant, but rather than submitting to the ministrations of a local midwife, she decides to have the child. The novel ends with her going to the hill town where Olivia spent the rest of her life: 'There is no record of what [Olivia] became later ... More and more I want to find out; but I suppose the only way I can is to do the same she did that is, stay on.' "'"Heat and Dust"'" won the Booker Prize and was subsequently transformed into a successful but simplified film (1983) by the author with her frequent collaborators, Ismail Merchant and James Ivory. CHARACTERS OLIVIA RIVERS, a young Englishwoman recently married, living in Satipur in 1923. Bored with the company of other English officials and their wives and neglected by Douglas, her hardworking husband, Olivia is also uncomfortable with the foreignness of India itself. Over a period of several months, she becomes romantically involved with the Nawab, the local native Indian ruler. When she becomes pregnant, she has an abortion because she is not sure whether her husband or the Nawab is the father of the child. After leaving her husband, she remains in India as the mistress of the Nawab, dying in the late 1950's without ever returning to England. ANNE, an Englishwoman in her late twenties who narrates Olivia's story. The granddaughter of Douglas Rivers and his second wife, Tessie, Anne goes to India in the 1970's to discover the story of her grandfather's first wife. Through her diary, Anne also relates her own life in India. Like Olivia, Anne becomes pregnant, but after initially choosing an abortion, she decides instead to have the child. She follows Olivia's life to the house in the Himalayas bought for her by the Nawab. At the close, Anne, nearing the time for her own delivery, has decided to join an ashram even higher in the mountains. DOUGLAS RIVERS, a young, dedicated English official serving in India as his ancestors had done before him. Upright and controlled, taking a paternal attitude toward the Indians, Douglas is the pillar around which Olivia's changing feelings revolves. After Olivia's desertion, Douglas obtains a divorce and marries Tessie, a sister of Beth Crawford. After Indian independence, he retires to England, where he dies. THE NAWAB, a local Indian prince and ruler of Khatm. About thirty-five years old, the Nawab is married, but his wife suffers from mental illness. Although outwardly generous, the Nawab is self centered, and he generally gets whatever he desires. He becomes for Olivia the romantic, all consuming figure that her nature needs. He lavishes attention on her and enjoys her company in the knowledge that it embarrasses the British. Later, he loses both political and economic power, and he dies in his mother's arms in New York in the early 1950's. THE BEGUM, mother of the Nawab, an elusive but powerful influence on her son. Her presence in the palace at Khatm is always implicit, and it is to her that Olivia turns when she decides to get an abortion. The Begum seems to be the most influential woman in the Nawab's life. HARRY, an Englishman who had met the Nawab in London and had accompanied him back to India. He is a houseguest of the Nawab and is fond of him and grateful for his indulgences, making it difficult to leave. He is ill and does not like the food and climate of India. Weak and vacillating, Harry often expresses a desire to escape the seductiveness of the Nawab and his palace and return to his mother in England, but he is able to do so only after Olivia commits herself to the Nawab. BETH CRAWFORD, the wife of the chief British official o...