Journey to Ithaca - Couverture souple

A stirring and profound novel of spiritual quests and emotional exile. Young and in love, Sophie and Matteo share a dissatisfaction with their bourgeois upbringing and a yearning for spiritual fulfillment that brings them, like so many others, to India. But the realities of life on an ashram magnify the lovers’ differences. Pragmatic Sophie is horrified and disillusioned by the poverty and hardships they encounter; Matteo, a dreamer, sees only the purity of ascetic life. Eventually his personal search leads him away from Sophie and toward the Mother, a charismatic guru. In an effort to reclaim Matteo, Sophie embarks on her own journey for the truth about the Mother’s mysterious past. What these three people discover is at the heart of this masterful novel—that wisdom is found in the journey itself, and not at its destination.
 
“The richest and subtlest of her novels . . . Desai’s ‘truth’ is a peacock’s tail. Long after I closed this beautiful book, I watched the iridescent colors change, and change again.”—San Francisco Chronicle
 
“As always, Ms. Desai writes with intelligence and power. She has a remarkable eye for substance, the things that give life its texture.”—San Francisco Chronicle

'Superbly powerful...A rich, evocative book' Spectator

Like so many other young Westerners in the 60s and 70s, Matteo leaves home to search for spiritual enlightenment in the ashrams of India. He believes he finds it at the feet of 'the Mother', but down-to-earth Sophie, who accompanies him, does not find her inspiring so much as mysterious, and decides to trace the Mother's own story - from her travels with an Indian dance troupe in Paris, Venice and New York, to her search for divine love in India.

'Anita Desai is one of the most brilliant and subtle writers ever to have described the meeting ot eastern and western culture' Alison Lurie

'A beautiful book of epic scope. Anita Desai has surpassed her own previous high standards' Literary Review

'Full of revelations and pleasures' Independent on Sunday