SOURCE: "The Ambiguities of Independence," in The New Republic, Vol. 184, No. 8, February 21, 1981, pp. 39-40.

In the mixed review of Clear Light of Day below, Marsh discusses the themes of identity and autonomy.

"Only connect" was E. M. Forster's most famous piece of advice, and his most famous novel is about the near impossibility of carrying it out. In A Passage to India, the small moments of connection between friends seem all the more valuable as the riptides of history, social convention, and passion sweep them into misunderstanding and separation. In that book, especially as we read it with hindsight, the oncoming struggles of both India and Pakistan for independence hover over all the action like rarely glimpsed but restless gods who shape the lives of mortals to what may, but probably will not, turn out to be higher purposes.

Anita Desai, an Indian novelist whose father was Bengali...