I was not expecting this to be at all funny, but it was. I wasn't expecting it because I've read a few of Forster's works by now, and you can call A Passage to India a great many things, but a barrel of laughs it was not. It was absolutely, cuttingly observant, and that facility for observation has here been applied to a central pair who are mildly ridiculous in their extreme youth and earnestness, as well as a supporting cast who are wildly, awfully ridiculous in the same way that Austen's Mr. Collins is ridiculous. The difference is that Forster supports his ridicule with a much kinder understanding of the skewered characters than Austen ever does with her painful little clergyman. Nearly everyone here has some moments where they become, even if only briefly, their better selves, and if I can't stand either Miss Bartlett or Cecil, both of whom would induce a desire for strangulation in a saint, they're still extremely well developed characters, portrayed with immense skill. Honestly, they're probably more carefully drawn than the central pair.