SOURCE: "Holy Women and Unholy Men: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Confronts the Non-rational," in Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, Vol. 17, No. 3, July, 1986, pp. 85-101.

In the following essay, Summerfield discusses critics' frequent comparisons of Jhabvala to Jane Austen and Anton Chekhov, concentrating on her frequent depictions of swamis and their relationships to their female followers.

Any woman who writes witty novels in English about courtship and family life faces the occupational hazard of being compared to Jane Austen. Despite the exotic character (to Western readers) of her Indian settings, this has frequently been the privilege and the fate of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. It does not often happen, however, that the novelist who is compared to Jane Austen for wit is also compared to Anton Chekhov for humour tinged with melancholy. The fact that Jhabvala is the subject of both comparisons suggests that the atmosphere of her books...