What do you think?
Rate this book
Three Continents
Twins Harriet and Michael Wishwell embark on a search for self that leads to India, where they both fall in love with the charismatic son of the "Transcendental Internationalism" leader, with catastrophic results
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
About the author
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
58 books190 followersRuth Prawer Jhabvala was a British and American novelist and screenwriter. She is best known for her collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions, made up of film director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant.
In 1951, she married Indian architect Cyrus Jhabvala and moved to New Delhi. She began then to elaborate her experiences in India and wrote novels and tales on Indian subjects. She wrote a dozen novels, 23 screenplays, and eight collections of short stories and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Diplomatic Service and Overseas List of the 1998 New Years Honours and granted a joint fellowship by BAFTA in 2002 with Ivory and Merchant. She is the only person to have won both a Booker Prize and an Oscar.
In 1951, she married Indian architect Cyrus Jhabvala and moved to New Delhi. She began then to elaborate her experiences in India and wrote novels and tales on Indian subjects. She wrote a dozen novels, 23 screenplays, and eight collections of short stories and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Diplomatic Service and Overseas List of the 1998 New Years Honours and granted a joint fellowship by BAFTA in 2002 with Ivory and Merchant. She is the only person to have won both a Booker Prize and an Oscar.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
December 22, 2025
A casual read at best
April 4, 2013
Jhabvala recently had a story in The New Yorker with many similar themes, arcs, situations, and characters to Three Continents. The former seems a careful, more mature distillation of all the best parts of the latter, and perhaps that is what it was meant to be.
Three Continents, published in 1987 (two years after Jhabvala won the Booker for Heat and Dust), is a repetitive and unsatisfying book, and there is something about the way she writes lovemaking that just seems Harlequinny, but Jhabvala's sharp characterizations and shrewdness about the inextricable nature of the political and the personal make Three Continents an arresting, if creepy read.
Harriet never redeems herself the way you hope she will (and it is the inherent intelligence of Jhabvala's prose that kept this reader hoping for redemption even as the pages in her fingertips dwindled), and this is a very hard, sadistic thing to justify from an author-reader relationship standpoint.
Putting that aside, there are numerous female characters of a certain age in Three Continents—some good, some bad—but all of them complex and real and interesting. I'm not sure exactly what Jhabvala was thinking here, what purpose or point is here besides the obvious anti-ideological one—but I am not one to deny her the prerogative to provoke instead of giving the people what they want.
Three Continents, published in 1987 (two years after Jhabvala won the Booker for Heat and Dust), is a repetitive and unsatisfying book, and there is something about the way she writes lovemaking that just seems Harlequinny, but Jhabvala's sharp characterizations and shrewdness about the inextricable nature of the political and the personal make Three Continents an arresting, if creepy read.
Harriet never redeems herself the way you hope she will (and it is the inherent intelligence of Jhabvala's prose that kept this reader hoping for redemption even as the pages in her fingertips dwindled), and this is a very hard, sadistic thing to justify from an author-reader relationship standpoint.
Putting that aside, there are numerous female characters of a certain age in Three Continents—some good, some bad—but all of them complex and real and interesting. I'm not sure exactly what Jhabvala was thinking here, what purpose or point is here besides the obvious anti-ideological one—but I am not one to deny her the prerogative to provoke instead of giving the people what they want.
July 4, 2008
This is a disturbing but compelling book about a pair of whimsical and unformed twins who get caught up in a cult-like movement and the personalities who engendered it. The story is told from the point of view of one of the twins, Harriet, who has never made a decision for herself, forestalling judgment and common sense to follow the wishes of her twin brother whom she adores. The book is frustrating because Harriet has so many chances to break out of the movement and she recognizes all these opportunities. But she stays within it even when she doesn't actually believe it. (She stays first because her brother tells her to and then later because she loses herself in one of the movement's key directors and cannot do without him. This in itself is terribly irritating because it's not made clear why she tethers herself to him when he is so superficially interested in her).
I call the twins 'unformed' because it appears that although they have a lot of feeling, they do not appear to be fully developed. They are like embryos when it comes to having personality and strength of will, unable (it seems) to think for themselves, deferring to the other twin. And throughout it's clear that two unformed personality-less characters do not make a whole person.
I call the twins 'unformed' because it appears that although they have a lot of feeling, they do not appear to be fully developed. They are like embryos when it comes to having personality and strength of will, unable (it seems) to think for themselves, deferring to the other twin. And throughout it's clear that two unformed personality-less characters do not make a whole person.
May 27, 2014
I read this book again recently for the third or forth time, it's not one of those 'stay-with-you-forever' or 'change-your-life' or 'leave-you-totally-bereft' novels by any means but I always enjoy re-reading it. Its just that little bit different and quite compelling (if a little frustrating) reading. Would recommend. Off to read more Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.
November 11, 2012
This book is depressing... That's all I can say.
November 6, 2023
This very long novel, as its title suggests, spans three continents. It is the sad story of nineteen-year-old twins, Harriet and Michael Wishwell, the children of a wealthy American family, who are spoiled, emotionally impoverished, naively idealistic and have little purpose in life. They present rich pickings for the Fourth World Movement, a fanatical religious organization that is purported to promote world unity and peace. The story moves the entourage from America to England and then to India as the naïve and deluded twins who have fallen prey to the group's attentions lose everything -- their money, freedom, self-respect and their identity.
Harriet is the first-person narrator in this story, which goes back to the time Michael met Rawal during his travels, befriended this likeable prince of a minor Indian Kingdom, his consort Rani and Crishi their adopted son. Michael invited them into his mother’s home in upstate New York and it was not long before the trio moved in, took over the twins’ lives and their property.
The narrative describes how these cads, adept at cashing in on the Western World’s preoccupation with eastern spirituality, easily deluded the two naïve teenagers, who fell prey to their advances. What the trio was hiding behind was a huge transcontinental smuggling ring, filled with swindlers and drug pushers. Michael was the first to fall for the movement, but also the first to begin to have doubts about what was going on, as the twins and the cult’s entourage leave America and head to England and India. Their family tries to follow and knock some sense into them before all is lost, but the twins are already in too deep and there is nothing the family can too to stop the inevitable.
It boggles the mind how two educated westerners who grew up in a secure, comfortable and wealthy environment, had not learned to be more skeptical about those who approached them offering such blurry notions as peace and a world united by different cultures and traditions. How had they never learned to be cautious, to guard against those ready to take advantage of their wealth?
There are no likeable people in this large cast of characters and in fact they are so disagreeable it becomes difficult to care about any of them. Harriet especially proves to be so passive she becomes annoying. She has absolutely no common sense, avoids the warnings staring her in the face and marches headlong into danger, her stupidity straining belief. At times readers may want to yell at her, grab her and shake some sense into as she falls so easily into their manipulative ways.
Jhabvala’s narrative explores themes of home and belonging, as restless young people from western nations, brought up in secure, coddled environments, seek the emotional haven they believe they will find in Eastern spirituality. It describes the nature of cults, the type of people who lead them and the type of people who become their followers. Spoiled, wealthy teenagers become prime targets for fanatical cults that easily trap their victims, humiliating them, depriving them of their money and making it almost impossible for them to escape their tangle of deceit.
The novel has a gloomy tone, too many characters and is far too long. I applaud Jhabvala’s attempt to explore an important theme, one especially prevalent during the sixties when so many disillusioned Americans went to India in search of a higher truth. Those trips often resulted in disaster as these spiritual leaders led the victims down a path to benefit their own ends.
Knowing this writer is a respected author, I pushed through the many pages of this novel, determined to finish it, but it just did not work for me.
Harriet is the first-person narrator in this story, which goes back to the time Michael met Rawal during his travels, befriended this likeable prince of a minor Indian Kingdom, his consort Rani and Crishi their adopted son. Michael invited them into his mother’s home in upstate New York and it was not long before the trio moved in, took over the twins’ lives and their property.
The narrative describes how these cads, adept at cashing in on the Western World’s preoccupation with eastern spirituality, easily deluded the two naïve teenagers, who fell prey to their advances. What the trio was hiding behind was a huge transcontinental smuggling ring, filled with swindlers and drug pushers. Michael was the first to fall for the movement, but also the first to begin to have doubts about what was going on, as the twins and the cult’s entourage leave America and head to England and India. Their family tries to follow and knock some sense into them before all is lost, but the twins are already in too deep and there is nothing the family can too to stop the inevitable.
It boggles the mind how two educated westerners who grew up in a secure, comfortable and wealthy environment, had not learned to be more skeptical about those who approached them offering such blurry notions as peace and a world united by different cultures and traditions. How had they never learned to be cautious, to guard against those ready to take advantage of their wealth?
There are no likeable people in this large cast of characters and in fact they are so disagreeable it becomes difficult to care about any of them. Harriet especially proves to be so passive she becomes annoying. She has absolutely no common sense, avoids the warnings staring her in the face and marches headlong into danger, her stupidity straining belief. At times readers may want to yell at her, grab her and shake some sense into as she falls so easily into their manipulative ways.
Jhabvala’s narrative explores themes of home and belonging, as restless young people from western nations, brought up in secure, coddled environments, seek the emotional haven they believe they will find in Eastern spirituality. It describes the nature of cults, the type of people who lead them and the type of people who become their followers. Spoiled, wealthy teenagers become prime targets for fanatical cults that easily trap their victims, humiliating them, depriving them of their money and making it almost impossible for them to escape their tangle of deceit.
The novel has a gloomy tone, too many characters and is far too long. I applaud Jhabvala’s attempt to explore an important theme, one especially prevalent during the sixties when so many disillusioned Americans went to India in search of a higher truth. Those trips often resulted in disaster as these spiritual leaders led the victims down a path to benefit their own ends.
Knowing this writer is a respected author, I pushed through the many pages of this novel, determined to finish it, but it just did not work for me.
March 11, 2020
tfw u ruin ur life for ideology & dick
Read
May 17, 2020The ZM and I read this book together. Boy meets girl. Boy meets boy. Boy moves in with girl and boy and takes over. Influence is a powerful thing.
May 22, 2025
3 stars - American adolescent twins, boy and girl, future inheritors of two Long Island manor properties, become enthralled by an Indian international visionary, descendant of an ancient (and defunct) desert kingdom. The boy has wandered in India looking for something spiritual to believe in, so when he runs into the "Rawul," he is captivated. Or is he more captivated by the Rawul's capable young male fixer, arranger and go-fer (and adopted son) who is beyond-belief charming and beyond-belief handsome?
Numerous additional characters, subtle side plots and the details of daily events, told virtually in real time, fill out the 380-page novel.
I give the book only three stars because the adolescent twins who are at the center of the book seem barely conscious as the complex swirl of vivid characters races around them. The Rawul and his staff, with their plans and plotting, fundraising and meetings, their passions and visions, and their sexual adventuring, create a sprawling drama as the twins react with one form after another of vacancy and passivity.
The story is narrated by the girl, who tells of allowing herself to drift entirely into the embrace of the young and handsome male fixer, with horrifying results, yet even when faced with a final check-mate to her blind naivete, she appears to accept her fate with numbed silence.
So, a complex and complete story with vivid Indian characters (the American twins' parents and their partners are also memorable) but whose central figures remain an enigmatic absence.
Numerous additional characters, subtle side plots and the details of daily events, told virtually in real time, fill out the 380-page novel.
I give the book only three stars because the adolescent twins who are at the center of the book seem barely conscious as the complex swirl of vivid characters races around them. The Rawul and his staff, with their plans and plotting, fundraising and meetings, their passions and visions, and their sexual adventuring, create a sprawling drama as the twins react with one form after another of vacancy and passivity.
The story is narrated by the girl, who tells of allowing herself to drift entirely into the embrace of the young and handsome male fixer, with horrifying results, yet even when faced with a final check-mate to her blind naivete, she appears to accept her fate with numbed silence.
So, a complex and complete story with vivid Indian characters (the American twins' parents and their partners are also memorable) but whose central figures remain an enigmatic absence.
December 1, 2014
This was the first book I read by this author (although I loved the movie version of her other book "Heat and Dust") and I was impressed by her ability to hold my attention consistently as I read this book. We've all heard about spiritual cults, about the kind of people who lead them and the other kinds of people who fall for them, but this was the first time I got a good idea of what goes on in their heads and the kind of lies people tell others and themselves. I had trouble putting this book down even though I really did not like the main characters at all. I give the book 4 stars because the end left me terribly disappointed but then again, I do not like weak female characters at all, even if I understand how they got to be that way (had bad parents, got spoilt, etc). This book really haunted me and even freaked me out a bit after I put it down so that says a lot for this author being able to touch a chord in my soul. I consider myself an avid, discerning reader so this is not something every author can do.
September 11, 2012
Ugh, I read the first part (of three) but just could not get into this. I have been interested in cults lately so I thought I'd like this, but after 150 pages the Fourth World Movement (called the "Sixth World Movement" on the back of the book--not sure if it's a copyediting mistake or what) is still unexplained beyond a vague "West meeting East" so it's completely unclear why the twins and their parents are so taken with it. I thought Jhabvala would be a fantastic writer because she won the Booker prize for another of her books, but she apparently never learned to "show, not tell." This is a seriously boring book that doesn't make you care for or about the characters. I rarely stop reading a book, but life is too short to finish this one.
August 16, 2015
Mid 1. The premise for the novel had so much potential, but this story of spoilt American twins drawn to an Indian cult fails to do more than become a repetitive dirge, with a narrator whose lack of common sense loses all the reader's sympathy.
May 25, 2010
Just couldn't get into this book - written in the 1980's it might have have been more interesting then; the plot revolves around an Indian "guru" and his followers. That was popular in the 80's but seems dated now. I didn't finish the book
March 5, 2016
This is perhaps the most maddening and frustrating book I have ever read. I'm sitting here in a state of shock that it ended as it did. Oh my! If I had known what I know now, I would have abandoned it at the beginning.
August 18, 2013
I can't Reach pag 100.Boring!
November 4, 2014
Devastating.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews