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Share of Summer ##1
The Sun in the Morning: My Early Years in India and England
The author writes of her childhood in India; her enduring love for the romance, mystery, and culture of that country; and the creative inspiration she continues to draw from the India of the Raj
454 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1990
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851 people want to read
About the author
M.M. Kaye
33 books577 followersM. M. Kaye (Mary Margaret) was born in India and spent her early childhood and much of her early-married life there. Her family ties with the country are strong: her grandfather, father, brother and husband all served the British Raj. After India's independence, her husband, Major-General Goff Hamilton of Queen Victoria's Own Corps of Guides (the famous Indian Army regiment featured in The Far Pavilions), joined the British Army and for the next nineteen years M. M. Kaye followed the drum to Kenya, Zanzibar, Egypt, Cyprus and Germany.
M. M. Kaye won worldwide fame for The Far Pavilions, which became a worldwide best-seller on publication in 1978. This was followed by Shadow of the Moon and Trade Wind. She also wrote and illustrated The Ordinary Princess, a children's book and authored a dozen detective novels, including Death in Kashmir and Death in Zanzibar. Her autobiography has been published in three volumes, collectively entitled Share of Summer: The Sun in the Morning, Golden Afternoon, and Enchanted Evening. In March 2003, M. M. Kaye was awarded the Colonel James Tod International Award by the Maharana Mewar Foundation of Udaipur, Rajasthan, for her "contribution of permanent value reflecting the spirit and values of Mewar".
M. M. Kaye won worldwide fame for The Far Pavilions, which became a worldwide best-seller on publication in 1978. This was followed by Shadow of the Moon and Trade Wind. She also wrote and illustrated The Ordinary Princess, a children's book and authored a dozen detective novels, including Death in Kashmir and Death in Zanzibar. Her autobiography has been published in three volumes, collectively entitled Share of Summer: The Sun in the Morning, Golden Afternoon, and Enchanted Evening. In March 2003, M. M. Kaye was awarded the Colonel James Tod International Award by the Maharana Mewar Foundation of Udaipur, Rajasthan, for her "contribution of permanent value reflecting the spirit and values of Mewar".
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July 8, 2017
M.M. Kaye’s memories are as beautiful as her descriptive prose in this colorful and wistfully evocative memoir of her youth in India, which to her was always home. The reader will come away with a different view of India during the time of the Raj, and before the Great War. Anything but a political book, this is simply a breathtaking look at a time and place, a woman’s memories of the country she loved.
Kaye’s first spoken language was Hindustani, and though more a collection of memories of this beloved country closer to her heart than Britain, this mostly apolitical memoir dealing with her childhood does occasionally argue for truth, and a more balanced view of this period than now exists. She points out — on rare occasions — that in an effort to pile on against the time period, regardless of facts, many falsehoods have been created. Kaye maintains that some of these falsehoods were created by E.M. Forster, whom she holds in palpable disgust. Unfortunately, as she notes, some of these falsehoods were perpetuated by others once put forth, and though easily disproved — and Kaye does so with eloquence — the damage has been done, because they have been accepted as fact. As she notes near the end of the book, historians did not learn the lesson Orwell taught.
But enough of that, because that’s not what this book is in any way about. This is a memory shared with the reader, as only a writer with Kaye’s magnificent gift for words could ever have described it. There is much here about her father, about historic events, but the best moments, and most frequent throughout, are those where she describes a place, a festival, a country that was as much a part of her as any country can be a part of a person’s soul. Part One of Kaye’s memoirs is a potpourri of remembrances, of people and places, some long gone, of India’s beauty and history. These are colorful, crystal clear recollections of childhood houses which had names, and sometimes ghosts. Her memories are so vibrant that as she returns to this time in India, she lets us live it as well. Rather than a linear memoir, these are scattered but detailed snapshots of her youth, of a time and a place which will never be again:
"No one else will ever again live the kind of life that I have lived. Or see what I saw. That world has vanished for ever — blown away by the wind which as the Chinese proverb says 'cannot read'.”
There is a great deal about her father Tacklow at the beginning, his various posts, his integrity, his fairness. He appears to be a man worthy of the way Kaye feels about him. He spoke eleven languages, and had many friends in India and other parts of the globe at which he was stationed, but fewer among his own, because he found the attitude of many other British in India annoying. He taught Kaye from infancy — she was born in Simla, at the foothills of the Himalayas — that India was their country, it belonged to Indians. Tacklow also had a special gift I’ll leave for the reader to discover. He read books to her, fueling her imagination, and he spoke to her as an adult, even as a child. During this portion Kaye contrasts the warmth of India and its people with the stifled chill of British life she experienced later.
None of the big stuff is missed here, but this is more the fun and wonder of a childhood in India during this time. There is Holi, a colorful Saturnalia lasting for days, the Diwali (Feast of Lights) in honor of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, and to commemorate Lord Krishna’s slaying of the demon, Nakara. And the fireworks and sweets and lights of Sipi Far, where brides were for sale! She also recalls Mohammedan Festivals and remembrances such as Id-El-Fitr, Shab-i-Barat, and Mohuram. I am typing from some semi-legible notes I had to make while reading this wonderful and sprawling memoir, so if any spelling is incorrect in regard to these events and festivals, I apologize.
There are nightjars and monsoons, butterfly summers, and sentimental pilgrimages made by Kaye and her sister, Bets, later. But Kaye’s Delhi is Old Delhi, City of the Moguls. She stood on the British built cantonment area beyond the shadow of The Ridge, on Flagstaff Tower, looking out over miles of open, beautiful country, and thousands of years of history, including the ruins of Seven Cities of Delhi, which only then had 280,000 souls. She tells of Curzon House in Old Delhi, which later became The Swiss Hotel. She describes the cemetery of John Nicholson, the Hero of Delhi. And she tells of a Leopard mauling and the harrowing aftermath.
The reader experiences Christmas in India along with Kaye, which was a mingling of cultures. Dàlis baskets, gifts from friends of other faiths, were reciprocated on their special festivals — there’s a lesson there for us all, to be sure. Kaye recalls the Okla Christmas camp, and the jackel scare. The reader picnics with Kaye on the grounds of Khutab Minar, which existed over a thousand years before Christ. We take night trains from Delhi to Agra, and trollies in Narora. Calcutta, Bombay, it’s all here, as it once was, like a film in Kaye’s mind that she plays back for us, so that we can see what it was like.
One of the most poignant memories is of her father returning from an aborted trip along the Ganges. Only later did Kaye discover the horrifying reason the trip was aborted: thousands of Hindu bodies had washed ashore. Many had died during the Black Frost, and though Hindu custom and tradition called for cremation, wood was scarce. Many Hindus were too poor to carry out a proper cremation, so they set the bodies adrift in the water, only to discover they had returned. Kaye describes the horrifying, tragic sight in a way you’ll always remember, with vultures and carrion crows too gorged from feasting on the dead to fly:
“One learned very young to accept the beauty and wonder of that most beautiful and wonderful of lands, and with it the ugliness and cruelty that was an integral part of it.”
If you’ve ever wondered about the beauty in Kaye’s novels, her historical fiction, or her vibrant mysteries, you will discover some of the people and the places from which they sprung in this memoir. The Far Pavilions, Shadow of the Moon, it’s all here, and Kaye tells you where. But there is so much more in this beautiful memoir that it would be impossible to cover it all. Some of the descriptive quotes were so breathtaking I chose not to use them, as it might lessen their impact when you come across them.
Then the Great War ends. There is at first, elation, and then deflation, as Kaye discovers she’ll have to return “home” to a place that she no longer considers home at all, for India runs through her veins. Her time back on British soil, and her restlessness as she waits to return as a young woman, is palpable. There is a Knighthood for Tacklow, and the poignant death of her mother. And a final thought as Kaye quotes from Eleven Leopards by Norah Burke. It will rankle some, but as all balance seems to have been lost about this time period, however deeply flawed it may have been, it is a reminder of the deep love some British had for the country and its people, and that there are always two sides to every story. One can never read these beautiful reminiscences and doubt that Kaye loved India, and considered it home, both beneath her feet, and in her heart…
Kaye’s first spoken language was Hindustani, and though more a collection of memories of this beloved country closer to her heart than Britain, this mostly apolitical memoir dealing with her childhood does occasionally argue for truth, and a more balanced view of this period than now exists. She points out — on rare occasions — that in an effort to pile on against the time period, regardless of facts, many falsehoods have been created. Kaye maintains that some of these falsehoods were created by E.M. Forster, whom she holds in palpable disgust. Unfortunately, as she notes, some of these falsehoods were perpetuated by others once put forth, and though easily disproved — and Kaye does so with eloquence — the damage has been done, because they have been accepted as fact. As she notes near the end of the book, historians did not learn the lesson Orwell taught.
But enough of that, because that’s not what this book is in any way about. This is a memory shared with the reader, as only a writer with Kaye’s magnificent gift for words could ever have described it. There is much here about her father, about historic events, but the best moments, and most frequent throughout, are those where she describes a place, a festival, a country that was as much a part of her as any country can be a part of a person’s soul. Part One of Kaye’s memoirs is a potpourri of remembrances, of people and places, some long gone, of India’s beauty and history. These are colorful, crystal clear recollections of childhood houses which had names, and sometimes ghosts. Her memories are so vibrant that as she returns to this time in India, she lets us live it as well. Rather than a linear memoir, these are scattered but detailed snapshots of her youth, of a time and a place which will never be again:
"No one else will ever again live the kind of life that I have lived. Or see what I saw. That world has vanished for ever — blown away by the wind which as the Chinese proverb says 'cannot read'.”
There is a great deal about her father Tacklow at the beginning, his various posts, his integrity, his fairness. He appears to be a man worthy of the way Kaye feels about him. He spoke eleven languages, and had many friends in India and other parts of the globe at which he was stationed, but fewer among his own, because he found the attitude of many other British in India annoying. He taught Kaye from infancy — she was born in Simla, at the foothills of the Himalayas — that India was their country, it belonged to Indians. Tacklow also had a special gift I’ll leave for the reader to discover. He read books to her, fueling her imagination, and he spoke to her as an adult, even as a child. During this portion Kaye contrasts the warmth of India and its people with the stifled chill of British life she experienced later.
None of the big stuff is missed here, but this is more the fun and wonder of a childhood in India during this time. There is Holi, a colorful Saturnalia lasting for days, the Diwali (Feast of Lights) in honor of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, and to commemorate Lord Krishna’s slaying of the demon, Nakara. And the fireworks and sweets and lights of Sipi Far, where brides were for sale! She also recalls Mohammedan Festivals and remembrances such as Id-El-Fitr, Shab-i-Barat, and Mohuram. I am typing from some semi-legible notes I had to make while reading this wonderful and sprawling memoir, so if any spelling is incorrect in regard to these events and festivals, I apologize.
There are nightjars and monsoons, butterfly summers, and sentimental pilgrimages made by Kaye and her sister, Bets, later. But Kaye’s Delhi is Old Delhi, City of the Moguls. She stood on the British built cantonment area beyond the shadow of The Ridge, on Flagstaff Tower, looking out over miles of open, beautiful country, and thousands of years of history, including the ruins of Seven Cities of Delhi, which only then had 280,000 souls. She tells of Curzon House in Old Delhi, which later became The Swiss Hotel. She describes the cemetery of John Nicholson, the Hero of Delhi. And she tells of a Leopard mauling and the harrowing aftermath.
The reader experiences Christmas in India along with Kaye, which was a mingling of cultures. Dàlis baskets, gifts from friends of other faiths, were reciprocated on their special festivals — there’s a lesson there for us all, to be sure. Kaye recalls the Okla Christmas camp, and the jackel scare. The reader picnics with Kaye on the grounds of Khutab Minar, which existed over a thousand years before Christ. We take night trains from Delhi to Agra, and trollies in Narora. Calcutta, Bombay, it’s all here, as it once was, like a film in Kaye’s mind that she plays back for us, so that we can see what it was like.
One of the most poignant memories is of her father returning from an aborted trip along the Ganges. Only later did Kaye discover the horrifying reason the trip was aborted: thousands of Hindu bodies had washed ashore. Many had died during the Black Frost, and though Hindu custom and tradition called for cremation, wood was scarce. Many Hindus were too poor to carry out a proper cremation, so they set the bodies adrift in the water, only to discover they had returned. Kaye describes the horrifying, tragic sight in a way you’ll always remember, with vultures and carrion crows too gorged from feasting on the dead to fly:
“One learned very young to accept the beauty and wonder of that most beautiful and wonderful of lands, and with it the ugliness and cruelty that was an integral part of it.”
If you’ve ever wondered about the beauty in Kaye’s novels, her historical fiction, or her vibrant mysteries, you will discover some of the people and the places from which they sprung in this memoir. The Far Pavilions, Shadow of the Moon, it’s all here, and Kaye tells you where. But there is so much more in this beautiful memoir that it would be impossible to cover it all. Some of the descriptive quotes were so breathtaking I chose not to use them, as it might lessen their impact when you come across them.
Then the Great War ends. There is at first, elation, and then deflation, as Kaye discovers she’ll have to return “home” to a place that she no longer considers home at all, for India runs through her veins. Her time back on British soil, and her restlessness as she waits to return as a young woman, is palpable. There is a Knighthood for Tacklow, and the poignant death of her mother. And a final thought as Kaye quotes from Eleven Leopards by Norah Burke. It will rankle some, but as all balance seems to have been lost about this time period, however deeply flawed it may have been, it is a reminder of the deep love some British had for the country and its people, and that there are always two sides to every story. One can never read these beautiful reminiscences and doubt that Kaye loved India, and considered it home, both beneath her feet, and in her heart…
June 3, 2019
There are three factors that make this a really wonderful memoir.
𓇼Kaye has an impressive (she says photographic) memory. If she can't remember something (or remembers imprecisely) she says so.
𓇼 A fascinating early life.
𓇼 She waited until she was very old before writing. This enabled Kaye to say what she really thought. & Kaye certainly takes full advantage of this freedom!
In this book's forward, one of Kaye's daughters was travelling in the far east but said she was about ten years too late.
"To which I replied sadly that she had not been ten years too late, but thirty at the very least.
I, however, had not been too late. It has been my great good fortune to see India when that once fabulously beautiful land was as lovely, and to a great extent as peaceful and unspoiled, as Eden before the Fall. To live for two years in Peking in an old Chinese house, once the property of a Manch Prince, at a time when the citizens of that country still wore their national costumes instead of dressing up - or down! - in dull Russian-style "uniforms. To have visited Japan before war, the Bomb and the American occupation altered it beyond recognition, when the sight of a Japanese woman in European dress was unusual enough to make you turn and stare..."
Kaye was born in India, the second of three children. Her adored father (who she nicknamed Tacklow)served in the Indian army, a linguist and code cracker. Her childhood was happy but certainly not a total fairy tale. Her elder brother was sent "home" to England to be educated, Kaye had one sadistic governess who tortured her with doses of castor oil. But Mollie & her younger sister Bets overall loved it all & were heartbroken when they in turn were sent home to England to be educated. Mollie seems to have benefitted very little from the mediocre education she received and it was indeed fortunate that she had enough artistic ability to dream of a career as an illustrator.
I had a lot of trouble putting this memoir aside for anything! Who Kaye loved she really loved - Bets, childhood friend Bargie- but she is unsparing to those she disliked, for example her paternal grandparents. I have never read so honest a memoir and will definitely be looking for Past 2 -Golden Afternoon
Although Kaye herself hated this particular costume (even though she normally liked fancy dress) she looks so darn adorable. So, here she is!
https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...
𓇼Kaye has an impressive (she says photographic) memory. If she can't remember something (or remembers imprecisely) she says so.
𓇼 A fascinating early life.
𓇼 She waited until she was very old before writing. This enabled Kaye to say what she really thought. & Kaye certainly takes full advantage of this freedom!
In this book's forward, one of Kaye's daughters was travelling in the far east but said she was about ten years too late.
"To which I replied sadly that she had not been ten years too late, but thirty at the very least.
I, however, had not been too late. It has been my great good fortune to see India when that once fabulously beautiful land was as lovely, and to a great extent as peaceful and unspoiled, as Eden before the Fall. To live for two years in Peking in an old Chinese house, once the property of a Manch Prince, at a time when the citizens of that country still wore their national costumes instead of dressing up - or down! - in dull Russian-style "uniforms. To have visited Japan before war, the Bomb and the American occupation altered it beyond recognition, when the sight of a Japanese woman in European dress was unusual enough to make you turn and stare..."
Kaye was born in India, the second of three children. Her adored father (who she nicknamed Tacklow)served in the Indian army, a linguist and code cracker. Her childhood was happy but certainly not a total fairy tale. Her elder brother was sent "home" to England to be educated, Kaye had one sadistic governess who tortured her with doses of castor oil. But Mollie & her younger sister Bets overall loved it all & were heartbroken when they in turn were sent home to England to be educated. Mollie seems to have benefitted very little from the mediocre education she received and it was indeed fortunate that she had enough artistic ability to dream of a career as an illustrator.
I had a lot of trouble putting this memoir aside for anything! Who Kaye loved she really loved - Bets, childhood friend Bargie- but she is unsparing to those she disliked, for example her paternal grandparents. I have never read so honest a memoir and will definitely be looking for Past 2 -Golden Afternoon
Although Kaye herself hated this particular costume (even though she normally liked fancy dress) she looks so darn adorable. So, here she is!
https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...
March 6, 2014
Wow. I really milked this one out. Three months, that's insane! But it wasn't because I didn't like it, more that I savored it in small bedtime size portions.
If you're at all remotely interested in the Raj or India in general at the turn of the century, you must read this. M.M.Kaye lived a fascinating life and was able to see and experience things before the "march of progress " changed everything; and thankfully she possessed a photographic memory and could then share her lifetime of adventures with us.
A few things that really stood out from this book:
Her father. He really sounded like a character! Astoundingly, he spoke 11 languages and 18 dialects! Incredible!
Her childhood. How many children have played in abandoned palaces, watched Tibetan villagers come across the Himalayan pass peddling their goods, or swiped tea trays on board ship during a horrendous storm (in which several other ships sank) to go 'sledding ' down the deck when the ship tipped? True life is far stranger than fiction!
It wasn't all fun and laughs though. Children of the Raj knew that eventually they'd go "home " to England for schooling. (Even though the only home they knew was India and their parents would stay behind). However, WW1 was a grace for the author as it delayed the inevitable for a few years; but her brother was sent to England at age 6 (just before the war) and it was 6 years before either parent saw him again. Heartbreakingly, he did not recognize or remember any of them.
I loved this book so why 4 stars and not 5? Well, the bits in England did drag a bit. The author didn't quite know what to leave out so told us everything down to which song was playing when, and what picture show they went to. Probably very interesting to pop culture fans, just not me.
CONTENT:
SEX: None
VIOLENCE : None per se but a few unpleasant (yet fascinating) details about the Spanish Flu that hit India particularly hard. Apparently so many died the population couldn't afford the wood for cremation so started dumping the bodies in the rivers where they collected like decomposing dams until even the crocodile were to satiated to move.
PROFANITY :Mild to none
PARANORMAL ELEMENTS : Two passages about haunted houses. One in India (pretty frightening) and one in England. I chose to remove these from my book.
MY RATING : PG
If you're at all remotely interested in the Raj or India in general at the turn of the century, you must read this. M.M.Kaye lived a fascinating life and was able to see and experience things before the "march of progress " changed everything; and thankfully she possessed a photographic memory and could then share her lifetime of adventures with us.
A few things that really stood out from this book:
Her father. He really sounded like a character! Astoundingly, he spoke 11 languages and 18 dialects! Incredible!
Her childhood. How many children have played in abandoned palaces, watched Tibetan villagers come across the Himalayan pass peddling their goods, or swiped tea trays on board ship during a horrendous storm (in which several other ships sank) to go 'sledding ' down the deck when the ship tipped? True life is far stranger than fiction!
It wasn't all fun and laughs though. Children of the Raj knew that eventually they'd go "home " to England for schooling. (Even though the only home they knew was India and their parents would stay behind). However, WW1 was a grace for the author as it delayed the inevitable for a few years; but her brother was sent to England at age 6 (just before the war) and it was 6 years before either parent saw him again. Heartbreakingly, he did not recognize or remember any of them.
I loved this book so why 4 stars and not 5? Well, the bits in England did drag a bit. The author didn't quite know what to leave out so told us everything down to which song was playing when, and what picture show they went to. Probably very interesting to pop culture fans, just not me.
CONTENT:
SEX: None
VIOLENCE : None per se but a few unpleasant (yet fascinating) details about the Spanish Flu that hit India particularly hard. Apparently so many died the population couldn't afford the wood for cremation so started dumping the bodies in the rivers where they collected like decomposing dams until even the crocodile were to satiated to move.
PROFANITY :Mild to none
PARANORMAL ELEMENTS : Two passages about haunted houses. One in India (pretty frightening) and one in England. I chose to remove these from my book.
MY RATING : PG
December 20, 2017
Bestselling novelist Kaye (The Far Pavilions) was the daughter of a kindly, ciphering expert father and a party-loving, vivacious young mother who were posted to the Raj, where she was born in 1908. The family sojourned alternately in Simla and Delhi, and Kaye gives vivid descriptions of the beautiful hill country where the family rented a series of houses. At age six her older brother was left behind in England with relatives to start the necessary schooling; it would be seven years before his mother next saw him. There were no such requirements for girls, and Kaye and her younger sister Bets's education consisted mostly of history and poetry readings from their beloved father, and running around Simla with their Anglo and Indian chums, supervised either by an ayah, or not at all. When the Great War ended, there was no reason for mother and daughters to remain in India, and as soon as a ship's berth was available they sailed for England. The realization that this meant boarding school and lots of gray skies and rain was a grim one. Kaye never cottoned to classroom learning and confesses that even as an adult she could never do "sums." The only thing she was good at was drawing. The memoir ends in the 1920s, when she is around 18 or 19, having turned down a chance to go to the Slade school because she has no interest in being a serious artist. Her assumption is that she will marry and live on her husband's money.
One memorable scene of India is the sisters' sadistic British nanny, who would force large amounts of castor oil on Kaye, setting her bowels in motion while out on the town; she tries to run home to the loo but ends up shitting herself before arriving there. The nanny is sent packing, but the diet of castor oil caused gastrointestinal problems for the rest of her life. Another scene is the girls' many trips to the Taj Mahal, where they would have the run of the entire mausoleum and grounds because it hadn't yet become a huge tourist destination.
Kaye specifies that this will not be a political memoir, and she hews to that except for the passages where she extols colonialism, more than a little tone-deafly. While insisting that her parents had not a racist bone in their bodies, which could very well be true, she seems not to understand that a deep love for a country and its people, at the individual and personal level, never precludes systemic racism and de facto servitude. She ridicules Forster's A Passage to India as "a virulent attack on his own race" which came to be "regarded as Holy Writ by the trendy." If only people would look at old photographs or talk to "left-overs from the Raj" they would realize how mistaken the anti-colonial stance is. Her biggest complaint about the British empire is what it does to British families, separating mothers from children and fathers from all of them.
December 2, 2021
‘the leopard …buried its teeth and the claws of both forepaws in Sir Charles’s arm and, clinging there, attempted to rip open his stomach with its hind claws.’ (p235)
Molly Kaye, known as M M Kaye, author of the fabulously successful epic romantic drama of the Raj, The Far Pavilions, was born in Simla and spent her early childhood there and in Delhi.
At the end of World War One she was a ten year old little girl leaving India for England, knowing she will be away for an unknown but almost certainly lengthy period during which she will not see her father, who would remain in India. I normally resist the temptation to include huge quotes, or even big ones in my reviews, but here I make an exception, for I know no better evocation of a country that you love when you are about to leave it. This is how Molly wanted to remember the land of her childhood (Bets is her younger sister):
The other great part of the story is Molly’s relationship with her father, known as Tacklow: the book is dedicated to him. A patient teacher and a loving and affectionate parent who is not just immersed in his work but immersed in the country, learning local languages, Mughul history and travelling extensively. Including visits to the Taj Mahal, which was very different in those days – not yet a major tourist attraction, an expansive spacious precinct where the children were able to enjoy private spaces at their leisure. This is where I envied Molly Kaye most, for growing up in India at a time when paradoxically it was much less crowded than it is now. My family visited the Taj Mahal in 2016 which was wonderful, but with hundreds of other people if not thousands, plus monkeys. It was place to marvel at, but we were walking around, not relaxing all day in quiet surrounds.
Molly had a creative and informal education at home with tutors and of course Tacklow. By contrast when her brother Bill was old enough he was sent off to school in England and didn’t see his father for six years. For Molly being in Simla and then Delhi meant festivals and parties. It meant being scared out of her wits by a troop of langurs suddenly appearing just metres in front of them as they walked through the forest during a break in the monsoon. The bamboo in the remembrance box adverted to the special space the girls found, running around on their own – in Simla as well as Delhi, that hid the entrance to their private place atop the ruined gate.
The contrast with England could not be more dramatic and makes the final third of the book rather anti-climactic. Molly found England cold, wet and grey, school was formal and rigid and colonials were treated with rather less respect than would have been fair. So the beauty of the book is that Molly paints a vivid picture of an India long gone and a childhood rich in experience in an environment full of love and character. Despite her protests her memory is good and her powers of description formidable. Her views are sometime quaint but overall quite even-handed.
Tacklow embraced the country its people and the role of the British in India, realistically acknowledging they were there temporally. Sir Cecil Kaye, ultimately became Director of Central Intelligence, a role which included looking after visiting dignitaries. From October 1922 to March 1922 the then Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII, later the Duke of Windsor) toured India, a full five months, as part of an effort to thank Indians for their contribution to the war and to shore up relations with subjects in the colonies, but there was a great deal of anti-British feeling and Gandhi had recently called for a boycott of the visit. There was real possibility of violence towards the Royal visitor who didn’t help. ‘Tacklow told me what a headache the Prince’s visit had been for everyone, and how difficult he made it for anyone whose misfortune it was to be charged with protecting him from assassination.’ Molly asked her father what the Prince was really like: ‘Tacklow said he was a ‘retarded adolescent’…like a spoilt but very attractive and extremely likeable school boy of fifteen or so, who having reached that age had decided, some older Peter Pan, to stay there for good, atrophied in youth.’ (pp384-5)
Molly Kaye herself recognised the shortcomings of colonial rule but says plenty about the good people who were trying to do their best as they saw it for the country.
The leopard attacked Sir Charles Cleveland from behind after a subtle change of wind. Sir Charles, a big strong man, swung his arm from side to side with to keep the animal from disembowelling him, until Kashmera the shikari (professional hunter) picked up a rifle and shot the leopard. After that, the badly wounded man, his wounds filled with permanganate crystals, was carried, palanquinned and carted to a small hospital which the party reached only the next morning. They were told amputation of the arm, now septic, was the only course of action. Though delirious Sir Charles said no you don’t, so he was stitched up and sent to a hospital in Delhi where the doctors said it’s far too late, resign yourself to death. However, Sir Charles fought the poison in his system, which retreated and he was well again. However, it did not happen over days as he would have people believe but in fact took years before the poison finally left his body. (pp234-40)
Molly Kaye, known as M M Kaye, author of the fabulously successful epic romantic drama of the Raj, The Far Pavilions, was born in Simla and spent her early childhood there and in Delhi.
At the end of World War One she was a ten year old little girl leaving India for England, knowing she will be away for an unknown but almost certainly lengthy period during which she will not see her father, who would remain in India. I normally resist the temptation to include huge quotes, or even big ones in my reviews, but here I make an exception, for I know no better evocation of a country that you love when you are about to leave it. This is how Molly wanted to remember the land of her childhood (Bets is her younger sister):
While mother saw to the collecting, sorting and packing of the many things we would have to take with us, Bets and I set about making our own collection of necessities, which were in no way similar. From every one of our special places in and around Delhi we took a souvenir; an amulet that we could look at and touch whenever we fleet homesick for India. A leaf from the avenue of eucalyptus trees in the Kudsia Bagh. Another from the bamboos that had once hidden the stairway to our hideaway on the roof of the ruined gateway. A flake of sandstone and a scrap of marble from the surrounding parapet. Other leaves from the squirrel trees, the peepul behind Curzon House, the lemon, sweet lime and orange trees in the Roshanara Gardens, and neem leaves and rose petals from the cemetery where Nicholson lies buried. We took a sliver of stone from the Kashmir Gate and a piece of bark from a tree in which we used to sit for hours in the back garden of Curzon House; a fallen feather shed by a parrot, a peacock, a jay, a sat-bhai and a dove. A pinch of silver sand from the Jumna, and another, together with the dried and crumpled egg-shell of a river turtle, from Okhla. Red gravel from the Curzon House drive, a pebble from the Ridge, and any number of flowers and grasses, carefully dried- wild ones, picked out on the plains among the ruins of the seven cities. The little dusty yellow balls that are the blossoms of the kikar tree, purple and red bougainvillaea, orange trumpet flowers, petals from roses, canna lilies, jasmine and Lady of the Night, a stick of incense and a tiny bottle of ‘itr (essence of roses), a little packet of dust gathered from the Maidan that lies between the Red Fort and the Jumna Masjid, and a twig from the tree that used to grow through the Cloth Shop near the Clock Tower in the Chandi Chowk, together with many other bits and pieces, some of which, such as a fragment of sandalwood and a lucky blue bead, were given to us by friends in the city or in one or other of Delhi’s public gardens …* Kashmera’s contribution was a little string of scarlet and black jungle seeds, while another friend, Devika… donated a miniature paan box no bigger than a four–anna piece, made of beaten silver and beautifully decorated …these and scores of similar souvenirs were carefully stowed away in a glossy cardboard box that had once held a dozen tablets of Erasmic Soap…and neither Bets nor I would have parted with that assorted collection of dust and pebbles, feathers and dried flowers … That Erasmic Soap box and its precious contents left India with us, and during the lean years that followed it became a kind of talisman…whenever we became homesick or lost or forgotten, we had only to open it and the past was there in our hands. (pp297-8) (* Kashmera reappears below, in the leopard story)The Sun in the Morning is Molly Kaye’s love affair with India, a time of sunshine, flowers, animals, a great sense of freedom; to roam unescorted as her long list attests, have adventures, and let her imagination grow. She knew she enjoyed the privilege of being part of the ruling class in a colourful and vibrant yet foreign land, but for now it was the only place she knew.
The other great part of the story is Molly’s relationship with her father, known as Tacklow: the book is dedicated to him. A patient teacher and a loving and affectionate parent who is not just immersed in his work but immersed in the country, learning local languages, Mughul history and travelling extensively. Including visits to the Taj Mahal, which was very different in those days – not yet a major tourist attraction, an expansive spacious precinct where the children were able to enjoy private spaces at their leisure. This is where I envied Molly Kaye most, for growing up in India at a time when paradoxically it was much less crowded than it is now. My family visited the Taj Mahal in 2016 which was wonderful, but with hundreds of other people if not thousands, plus monkeys. It was place to marvel at, but we were walking around, not relaxing all day in quiet surrounds.
Molly had a creative and informal education at home with tutors and of course Tacklow. By contrast when her brother Bill was old enough he was sent off to school in England and didn’t see his father for six years. For Molly being in Simla and then Delhi meant festivals and parties. It meant being scared out of her wits by a troop of langurs suddenly appearing just metres in front of them as they walked through the forest during a break in the monsoon. The bamboo in the remembrance box adverted to the special space the girls found, running around on their own – in Simla as well as Delhi, that hid the entrance to their private place atop the ruined gate.
The contrast with England could not be more dramatic and makes the final third of the book rather anti-climactic. Molly found England cold, wet and grey, school was formal and rigid and colonials were treated with rather less respect than would have been fair. So the beauty of the book is that Molly paints a vivid picture of an India long gone and a childhood rich in experience in an environment full of love and character. Despite her protests her memory is good and her powers of description formidable. Her views are sometime quaint but overall quite even-handed.
Tacklow embraced the country its people and the role of the British in India, realistically acknowledging they were there temporally. Sir Cecil Kaye, ultimately became Director of Central Intelligence, a role which included looking after visiting dignitaries. From October 1922 to March 1922 the then Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII, later the Duke of Windsor) toured India, a full five months, as part of an effort to thank Indians for their contribution to the war and to shore up relations with subjects in the colonies, but there was a great deal of anti-British feeling and Gandhi had recently called for a boycott of the visit. There was real possibility of violence towards the Royal visitor who didn’t help. ‘Tacklow told me what a headache the Prince’s visit had been for everyone, and how difficult he made it for anyone whose misfortune it was to be charged with protecting him from assassination.’ Molly asked her father what the Prince was really like: ‘Tacklow said he was a ‘retarded adolescent’…like a spoilt but very attractive and extremely likeable school boy of fifteen or so, who having reached that age had decided, some older Peter Pan, to stay there for good, atrophied in youth.’ (pp384-5)
Molly Kaye herself recognised the shortcomings of colonial rule but says plenty about the good people who were trying to do their best as they saw it for the country.
The leopard attacked Sir Charles Cleveland from behind after a subtle change of wind. Sir Charles, a big strong man, swung his arm from side to side with to keep the animal from disembowelling him, until Kashmera the shikari (professional hunter) picked up a rifle and shot the leopard. After that, the badly wounded man, his wounds filled with permanganate crystals, was carried, palanquinned and carted to a small hospital which the party reached only the next morning. They were told amputation of the arm, now septic, was the only course of action. Though delirious Sir Charles said no you don’t, so he was stitched up and sent to a hospital in Delhi where the doctors said it’s far too late, resign yourself to death. However, Sir Charles fought the poison in his system, which retreated and he was well again. However, it did not happen over days as he would have people believe but in fact took years before the poison finally left his body. (pp234-40)
July 11, 2019
I really enjoyed this! Since I am sleeping like a human being these days (thank God for tender mercies), I am reading more memoirs and non fiction and getting more out of it. I remember my best friend in highschool devouring Kaye's novels, and I may actually have read one myself in those days since she enjoyed them so. Though slightly over described, Kaye does evoke the sights and sounds and smells of India in a way that makes it very real for those who've never been there. Her prose is nearly hypnotic, and I found this book an excellent night time read to snuggle down into and relax. She can be rather acid about some modern "trends" (a word she obviously despises) but I can't say I disagree with some of her criticisms of modern ways. Her adoration of her father is on every page, as is her love of the India of her childhood. Not much is said of how things changed over her long life, but that in itself is a commentary.
She began to ramble a bit in the final quarter, skipping back and forth in time, but that I think was her editor's fault. The first part of the book was plagued with misused punctuation, particularly commas and semicolons, as well as sentence fragments beginning And and But--something that surprised me in an elderly writer with many novels under her belt. In spite of what she describes as a very sketchy education, she was a voracious reader from a very young age at a time when writers could handle the English language; surely she wouldn't have committed quite so many basic errors? Or did her proofreaders let her down?
An excellent read. I look forward to continuing her life story.
She began to ramble a bit in the final quarter, skipping back and forth in time, but that I think was her editor's fault. The first part of the book was plagued with misused punctuation, particularly commas and semicolons, as well as sentence fragments beginning And and But--something that surprised me in an elderly writer with many novels under her belt. In spite of what she describes as a very sketchy education, she was a voracious reader from a very young age at a time when writers could handle the English language; surely she wouldn't have committed quite so many basic errors? Or did her proofreaders let her down?
An excellent read. I look forward to continuing her life story.
July 23, 2022
My father was born in India and sent ‘home’ aged 7 to lodge with an aunt and to study at Dollar Academy in Scotland in 1914, not seeing his parents again until after the end of the First World War. He never made it back to India, though I think he would have liked that. He died before the publication of this book, but I’m sure he would have loved it.
March 31, 2025
Very detailed autobiography of the Raj era in India. MM Kaye lived a fascinating life, and as someone who has lived in many countries, there were interesting parallels with my life. I am now obsessed with finding out everything I can about Raj era India.
October 14, 2018
Oh how I would have loved to be M.M. Kaye's companion during her childhhod years. Her love for India pours from every page and even lasted through the "dull years" in England, which was never home to her. If you liked The Far Pavilions, you will also fall in in love with this book. You can smell, see and feel the India of the Raj through the eyes and the clever writing hand of a woman who truely loved that country.
April 21, 2009
Wonderful. I love the way she tells stories. My favorite parts were the places she pointed out the fascinating, real-life stories from her father's life which she used in her fiction books.
September 20, 2016
There are books I read where I look back and have a hard time remembering who wrote it...what was that author's name? And then there are other books where I may not remember the story but feel like it introduced me to an amazing person, someone I wish I could meet. This book left me loving Mary Margaret Kaye. The details may be fuzzy in the future, but I will never forget this lovely lady and her storytelling genius. I initially was introduced to her writing in The Ordinary Princess, which spurred me to look for more. And this autobiography in which she paints with vivid colors her childhood in India certainly did not disappoint.
Mary Margaret writes superbly, with an eye for the important and poignant detail and a gentle, self-deprecating humor. She describes beauty with poetic grace and then captures the humor of the humblest of life's moments. She left me loving what she loves and hating what she hates (really there isn't much that M.M. Kaye hates, though). I think her goal in writing The Sun in the Morning was to beguile the reader into a full-fledged love of India and she certainly succeeded with me. I hate flying in airplanes, but I'd almost be willing to get on one to go see the Taj Mahal, simply based on her description of it.
This is a book that unfolds slowly and it took a bit for me to get "into" it, but once settled into the story, I loved every page and was sad to see it end. I really want to know what happened with the rest of M.M. Kaye's life...so on to her next autobiographical volumes!
Mary Margaret writes superbly, with an eye for the important and poignant detail and a gentle, self-deprecating humor. She describes beauty with poetic grace and then captures the humor of the humblest of life's moments. She left me loving what she loves and hating what she hates (really there isn't much that M.M. Kaye hates, though). I think her goal in writing The Sun in the Morning was to beguile the reader into a full-fledged love of India and she certainly succeeded with me. I hate flying in airplanes, but I'd almost be willing to get on one to go see the Taj Mahal, simply based on her description of it.
This is a book that unfolds slowly and it took a bit for me to get "into" it, but once settled into the story, I loved every page and was sad to see it end. I really want to know what happened with the rest of M.M. Kaye's life...so on to her next autobiographical volumes!
May 21, 2017
I have loved MM Kaye's writing since I was in my twenties. At that time, I read her Indian novels and her mysteries, which I would say were my favorites. I admire her spirit. Many military wives, or other people who find themselves in a foreign place at a loose end, don't engage with their places of residency. Our Mollie Kaye was not one of those. She learned about the countries where her husband and father were stationed, and she chose to spend her hours writing books that took place in those locations.
At my local used bookstore, I saw the first installment of her autobiography, The Sun in the Morning, and after a hurried purchase, I was busily putting aside the things I needed to do each day so I could get back to her tales of her childhood in India. She tells such detail of her experiences there, that I felt I knew India myself. Not the India of today, but the one of Kaye's day. The Delhi that was composed of under 110,000 residents, that was under the rule of the British Raj, and the one that stole her heart and became the place she called home--that was the one I wanted to read about.
I have ordered the second installment of Kaye's autobiography in hopes of reading of her return to her beloved India. Anyone who is hoping to enjoy the writings of a talented storyteller would enjoy this volume as well as any of her novels. Her mysteries are reminiscent of Christie's, who made the most of her travels as a British military wife as well.
At my local used bookstore, I saw the first installment of her autobiography, The Sun in the Morning, and after a hurried purchase, I was busily putting aside the things I needed to do each day so I could get back to her tales of her childhood in India. She tells such detail of her experiences there, that I felt I knew India myself. Not the India of today, but the one of Kaye's day. The Delhi that was composed of under 110,000 residents, that was under the rule of the British Raj, and the one that stole her heart and became the place she called home--that was the one I wanted to read about.
I have ordered the second installment of Kaye's autobiography in hopes of reading of her return to her beloved India. Anyone who is hoping to enjoy the writings of a talented storyteller would enjoy this volume as well as any of her novels. Her mysteries are reminiscent of Christie's, who made the most of her travels as a British military wife as well.
June 11, 2011
Oh to have lived this woman's fascinating, globe-trotting life.
February 7, 2025
4.5 Honestly I think this is one of my favorite autobiographies I've ever read. Kaye claims to have a photographic memory and from all the stories and recollections it certainly seems like it! She, like Kipling deeply loved and KNEW India, which is probably why she quotes him so much. She is also hilarious and many times made me laugh out loud.
August 31, 2018
Gifted to absolute detail in her memories, this is a book of delightful anecdotes from M.M. Kaye's childhood and formative years which were spent in India in the very early part of the 20th century in India. Although Great Britain was always referred to her as home, young M.M. was born in India, spoke several native languages before she spoke English and was able to converse with just about everybody she encountered in her long walks everyday. In fact, subjects her parents felt were not suitable for young girls ears and were swirled in cones of silence were extremely well known to her because she was able to find out everything from the gossip of the people who worked for her parents or by the many vendors in town. She grew up primarily in and about Simla, a town located high in the mountains and used as a retreat for those that could afford to move away from the summer heat of the plains. It even today looks to the snows of the towering Himalayas. M.M.'s father was stationed there permanently with the Indian Army working as a cryptographer during the first world war so it was there that M.M. and her little sister spent their formative years in a number of different houses that had tin roofs, a plethora of flowers and wild life, and that all shared the same sort of "back garden" - a sheer drop straight downwards down the high cliffs. Sometimes there was about a foot out back, sometimes the drop started at the edge of the houses.
Leopards and monkeys and parrots are among some of the animals she writes about but especially lovely are the things and places she takes the reader to. the devastation at losing a favourite teddy, constantly exploring and finding places no adults would ever go. M.M. explores the entire Taj Mahal repeatedly at a time when no one went to the Taj. It was in a place her parents like to visit regularly for brief family getaways. Any one could go to visit at any time but it wasn't the tourist mecca that it is today.
She is separated from her older brother Bill because when boys reached the age of six, it was the fashion to send the sons back to England to be educated. Not much into his first boarding school experience, the First World War broke out and he was unable to see his parents or sisters for six more years. When M.M. next meets her brother, they are of course, strangers to one another. To her mother he was no longer the little boy she left behind, he was a 12 year old boy seasoned to boarding school life. Girls could stay with their families longer as it wasn't as imperative during that time that a girl have the same education as a boy. Therefore, it wasn't until she was ten, her sister eight, that the decision was finally made to send the girls to school "at home" too.
That's all I'll say about the first of her three memoirs but do note, it's her descriptions that really brings the words and the book to life. The authors ability to excise and write down detailed memories from her childhood exercises all of the readers senses and places the reader right along side of M.M. when she witnesses the troop of silver backed monkeys who emerged from the mist of the jungle to silently cross in front of her and disappear on the other side of the path she was standing on (the nanny had run backwards shrieking leaving her two young charges aged approximately four and two to defend themselves in the event of an attack); when she helps an old man to feed the wild red headed parrots in a city park; and when she says a jolly hello to the tinkerers from Tibet who travelled across the peaks of the Himalayas to beyond on their mule drawn carts with bells attached and filled with handmade trinkets and wares for sale. She writes with a thick colour palette at her disposal for her descriptions are vivid, tickling the senses of the reader and to really help to breathe to life her memories, and to make the people she meets very three dimensional and real. Almost as if we are there...
If you have an interest in stories of people growing up in places completely different than what you know, then this is a vivid and hearty history and a great place to start. Do not let the size of the book deter you. For it is utterly fascinating and is a memoir about a place in a time that only lives in history books now.
If you are a fan of some of her fiction works, notably "The Far Pavilions" and "Shadow of the Moon", then this memoir is definitely for you. The reader will discover some of the vivid history in those novels actually comes from the official British versions of the events. The British government requested that her great uncle write the official version of the events surrounding the 1857 mutiny plus she also heard an alternate version of events from the local Indian Indians who also had first-hand eye witness accounts to tell but from an alternate point of view...
Leopards and monkeys and parrots are among some of the animals she writes about but especially lovely are the things and places she takes the reader to. the devastation at losing a favourite teddy, constantly exploring and finding places no adults would ever go. M.M. explores the entire Taj Mahal repeatedly at a time when no one went to the Taj. It was in a place her parents like to visit regularly for brief family getaways. Any one could go to visit at any time but it wasn't the tourist mecca that it is today.
She is separated from her older brother Bill because when boys reached the age of six, it was the fashion to send the sons back to England to be educated. Not much into his first boarding school experience, the First World War broke out and he was unable to see his parents or sisters for six more years. When M.M. next meets her brother, they are of course, strangers to one another. To her mother he was no longer the little boy she left behind, he was a 12 year old boy seasoned to boarding school life. Girls could stay with their families longer as it wasn't as imperative during that time that a girl have the same education as a boy. Therefore, it wasn't until she was ten, her sister eight, that the decision was finally made to send the girls to school "at home" too.
That's all I'll say about the first of her three memoirs but do note, it's her descriptions that really brings the words and the book to life. The authors ability to excise and write down detailed memories from her childhood exercises all of the readers senses and places the reader right along side of M.M. when she witnesses the troop of silver backed monkeys who emerged from the mist of the jungle to silently cross in front of her and disappear on the other side of the path she was standing on (the nanny had run backwards shrieking leaving her two young charges aged approximately four and two to defend themselves in the event of an attack); when she helps an old man to feed the wild red headed parrots in a city park; and when she says a jolly hello to the tinkerers from Tibet who travelled across the peaks of the Himalayas to beyond on their mule drawn carts with bells attached and filled with handmade trinkets and wares for sale. She writes with a thick colour palette at her disposal for her descriptions are vivid, tickling the senses of the reader and to really help to breathe to life her memories, and to make the people she meets very three dimensional and real. Almost as if we are there...
If you have an interest in stories of people growing up in places completely different than what you know, then this is a vivid and hearty history and a great place to start. Do not let the size of the book deter you. For it is utterly fascinating and is a memoir about a place in a time that only lives in history books now.
If you are a fan of some of her fiction works, notably "The Far Pavilions" and "Shadow of the Moon", then this memoir is definitely for you. The reader will discover some of the vivid history in those novels actually comes from the official British versions of the events. The British government requested that her great uncle write the official version of the events surrounding the 1857 mutiny plus she also heard an alternate version of events from the local Indian Indians who also had first-hand eye witness accounts to tell but from an alternate point of view...
April 2, 2012
I have enjoyed M.M. Kaye's fiction, so I was very interested in hearing about her life growing up in British India at the turn of the 20th century. This first volume of her autobiography did not disappoint. Her lifestyle and pursuits were fascinating, and it was also interesting to see how she adjusted to living in England when she was sent there for her schooling at around age 11. For me, Kaye's experiences raised a few questions about how much freedom parents should give their children. It made me appreciate the merits of giving children plenty of free time and free range to explore the world around them. At the same time, though, it was eye opening to see how little time Kaye's mother actually spent with her. Some balance seems ideal. I was inspired to read to my children even more than I already do; to tell them far more stories about the world, history, and their family; to allow them more room to explore and imagine (especially outdoors); to take them on memorable outings, which don't necessarily have to be elaborate or cost a fortune. Most of all, it reminded me in a very literal way that positive, focused time spent with children is what matters most in parenting. I got a healthy dose of Kipling worship (Kaye is a Rudyard Kipling fanatic) in reading this, and I enjoyed learning more about India. I'd love to visit someday!
January 14, 2011
The Sun in the Morning is the autobiography of author M.M. Kaye's childhood in India during the waning days of the British Raj.
The Writing was vivid and sparkling. I could see the snow-capped Himalayas, the bright saris, birds, and butterflies, the ruined palaces and forts, the ethereal Taj Mahal; I could smell the fangipani, the jasmine, and the spices of the bazaars. Kaye paints such beautiful pictures with words. She also beautifully captured the bliss of a childhood spent freely roaming and exploring in such fascinating surroundings while knowing that everyone you see, of any color or caste, is a friend.
Some of what she wrote was sharply defensive of the Raj and colonialism in general. It seemed to me that she was never able to see the system under which she grew up with anything other than the eyes of a child who grew up in an enchanted land.
This book certainly wove a spell on me. I loved it, and now I want to read, or re-read her other work, as well as more of Kipling, especially his poetry, which she often quoted.
The only other drawback with this book was the weak ending. It basically ended in a quote. There are two more volumes of her autobiography, so the problem is likely one of poor editing.
Honestly, even though there were some slight problems, I cannot stress just how much I loved this book!
The Writing was vivid and sparkling. I could see the snow-capped Himalayas, the bright saris, birds, and butterflies, the ruined palaces and forts, the ethereal Taj Mahal; I could smell the fangipani, the jasmine, and the spices of the bazaars. Kaye paints such beautiful pictures with words. She also beautifully captured the bliss of a childhood spent freely roaming and exploring in such fascinating surroundings while knowing that everyone you see, of any color or caste, is a friend.
Some of what she wrote was sharply defensive of the Raj and colonialism in general. It seemed to me that she was never able to see the system under which she grew up with anything other than the eyes of a child who grew up in an enchanted land.
This book certainly wove a spell on me. I loved it, and now I want to read, or re-read her other work, as well as more of Kipling, especially his poetry, which she often quoted.
The only other drawback with this book was the weak ending. It basically ended in a quote. There are two more volumes of her autobiography, so the problem is likely one of poor editing.
Honestly, even though there were some slight problems, I cannot stress just how much I loved this book!
December 25, 2012
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, especially the accounts of Simla and Delhi during her childhood. She loves India and the way she writes about it has reawakened my fascination for the country (where I myself lived for a few years of the last decade). She writes unpretentiously and also with refreshing honesty about the detail of her own early life, of her experience of India and of what it was like to return to England to go to school at the age of around 11. I'm looking forward to reading the other two volumes.
August 18, 2018
Fantastic! The Sun in the Morning is wonderful and touched my heart. I enjoyed every word of M.M. Kaye’s autobiography. What details! I love India for each word and sentence she writes and am homesick for a land that she writes about. Wonderful!
September 19, 2019
Extremely self conscious. Too aware of audience to allow herself or us experience the full range of both humour and pathos, the everyday and the epic aspects of her personal history.
July 26, 2022
MM Kaye is one of my favourite storytellers about India, and this Part one of her autobiography shows clearly how a child of English parents is fully qualified to write about the country she grew up in.
This is quite a dense story, there is a lot of detail. As a born storyteller, Mollie Kaye tells her own story in intricate detail. She brings alive the reality of Anglo-Indian children growing up there, to the point that they feel far more Indian than English.
From this vantage point, Mollie Kaye is able to debunk the myths that other less-qualified authors have perpetuated in their writings, and she has a unique understanding of Indian culture, to the point where she knows that she would never be accepted into an Indian family if she came to love an Indian man. Many readers will have been imbued with the attitude that an anglo family could not accept a "foreigner" in their family, yet Ms Kaye (writing in the 70s) shows clearly that cultural anxiety is a part of all cultures.
I love Mollie's passion for her father, the hilarious stories of grappling with the foibles of English boarding schools and their principals. I also love that this autobiography is not fully chronological, with many references to the times in which she is writing and how the people are now compared to how they were when she was a child.
All around, a fascinating read.
This is quite a dense story, there is a lot of detail. As a born storyteller, Mollie Kaye tells her own story in intricate detail. She brings alive the reality of Anglo-Indian children growing up there, to the point that they feel far more Indian than English.
From this vantage point, Mollie Kaye is able to debunk the myths that other less-qualified authors have perpetuated in their writings, and she has a unique understanding of Indian culture, to the point where she knows that she would never be accepted into an Indian family if she came to love an Indian man. Many readers will have been imbued with the attitude that an anglo family could not accept a "foreigner" in their family, yet Ms Kaye (writing in the 70s) shows clearly that cultural anxiety is a part of all cultures.
I love Mollie's passion for her father, the hilarious stories of grappling with the foibles of English boarding schools and their principals. I also love that this autobiography is not fully chronological, with many references to the times in which she is writing and how the people are now compared to how they were when she was a child.
All around, a fascinating read.
February 13, 2022
I’ve always been interested in the British Empire so this book gives an insight into the life of those who went out to India and served there.Often dismissed today as exploiting a country this gives an alternative view.It’s the first part of a three book memoir covering her years as a child,there and in England,until she’s in her early 20s.It’s long so at times I wondered if I could spend my time more profitably but then she’d insert an interesting story or fact to keep me plugging away.It’s well written and shows her amazing recall of long distant events told with complete honesty.It is of value to historians, those who know her Indian novels and anyone who likes a thoroughly entertaining memoir of times long gone.
August 31, 2025
Fascinating and very vivid account of the author’s childhood in India. Her photographic memory enabled her to conjure up the sights and sounds of India from the British summer capital of Simla to Delhi in the 1910s and the life of a not particularly wealthy British family. Her love for her father shines through and the pain of parting with him and leaving her beloved India for dull, grey England permeates the latter part of the book. Some of her views on the British in India wouldn’t chime with modern sensibilities but arise from her great love of India as it was in the early years of the 20th century. An evocative read.
August 30, 2025
A wonderful book, of a life observed with great insight and understanding. A marvellous autobiography, of life in India (during British rule) and England of the day, for a young girl and her family. She was the daughter of extraordinary parents and other family members. There is so much that is modern and yet one shudders at the living conditions sometimes endured - how different is life today. Her novels in later life show her love of India, but she is so gentle and modest that it is easy to forget this is the story of a novelist in the making. Highly recommended.
February 1, 2021
This book is an autobiography of Margaret Mary Kaye covering her early years living in India and England. Her life in India was carefree and adventurous and it is quite fascinating learning of her lifestyle there and of the Indian culture of that area. A long book but quite enjoyable. I wish she had written also of her later years as it seems she lived in a large variety of places.
February 18, 2020
An inspiring and well conceived relating of the author's memories of India early in the last century. No wonder The Far Pavillions was so popular, the author had experienced so much of what she wrote about.
May 29, 2017
Absolutely splendid.
December 12, 2017
If you don't mind a slow pace, this very detailed description of M.M. Kay's childhood in India is fascinating. It is very detailed and some people might find it a bit long.
February 20, 2018
As wonderful as her fiction. I wish it was my life!
March 2, 2018
She is truly a gifted story teller.
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