The Raj Quartet: The Jewel in the Crown, The Day of the Scorpion (Everyman's Library)

This book (or series of books) is so sprawling and intricate, like India itself, one might say, that it is impossible to "pin down", as it were, in a review like this. The thing to do, I think, is to cover the most salient aspects of the work separately. Otherwise, one will become lost, as many of the characters herein do. So, salient aspect numbers:1.) History - This is the novelistic equivalent of Gibbon concerning the British Empire. It might even be called "The Decline and Fall of The British Empire." As a reviewer for the Sunday Times puts it, "A history student years from now should be able to say to his professor, `Yes, but what was it REALLY like in India in the last days of the Raj?' and be told, `Read these four books and you'll not only know, you'll understand...' " The "understand" part is especially significant in that these books will have you totally spellbound by Scott's deft character portrayal and psychological insight. It is no exaggeration to say that one feels one has lived in India from 1939-1947 after having emerged from the nearly two-thousand pages that comprise this work. But the deft character portrayal leads me to a more troublesome, salient point:2.) Ronald Merrick-A host of characters populate this work, portrayed with deep sympathy herein. And yet, one can't help but feel, upon closing the pages, that the work might also be called, "Ronald Merrick: An in-depth Portrait of a Psychotic in India". It is a tribute to Paul Scott that we do not discover the depths of the....evil (Sorry, I can't think of another word that fully encompasses the character.) of Merrick until the tag end of the work. Yes, Hari Kumar is the other major character who, to a certain extent, offsets Merrick. But he fades into the background after his interrogation by Nigel Rowan with Lady Manners looking on in the second book, The Day of the Scorpion. Merrick, so to speak, stays on until the very bitter end. Not only does he stay on, but he lingers in the mind. What is he? What does he represent? The British Raj itself, as some would have it? Partly, I would say, but there is something about Scott's obsession with this fellow that refuses to be pigeonholed. It's all very eerie. By the end of the book, you won't be able to hear the word "Merrick" without a troubling frisson running through you. - He is not mad like, say, Susan Layton, who rather resembles a character from one of the Bronte novels. - His nature and the nature of his evil are complex. They defy reduction. So, I shan't venture on a futile quest to do so but rather come to salient point:3.) The brooding fatalism that overhangs everything here. Of course, one knows before one picks the book up that the Brits in India are doomed. But, well, I'll just let Daphne Manners' quote from the first book, The Jewel in the Crown, give the reader notice of the feeling that permeates this work:"We were sitting on the verandah. Oh, everything was there - the wicker chairs, the table with the tea tray on it, the scent of the flowers, the scent of India, the air of certainty, of perpetuity; but, as well, the odd sense of none of it happening at all because it had begun wrong and continued wrong, and so was already ended, and was wrong even in its ending, because its ending, for me, was unreal and remote, and yet total in its envelopment, as if it had already turned itself into a beginning. Such constant hope we suffer from!"Salient points covered...except that the reader might do worse than to do as Perron does at the end and look up Philoctetes, not a futile quest by any means.

If agape is selfless love, a passion committed to the other, then that is how I felt at the end of The Jewel in the Crown.There are two stories here, one within the other. The inner story is of a young Englishwoman named Daphne who immerses herself in India and the flow of history during the volatile period of 1942. The larger story is of the relationship between the colonizer and its subject, both yearning for India's freedom, yet unable to get it done.In both cases, they are stories of the Siva cycle of destruction and rejuvenation (or creation), so entwined they not only can't be separated, but sometimes can't be told apart.A story this complex that treats time as spatial may be best understood graphically. More than anything, this story reminds me of a thangka, those stylized paintings of the East, especially India, that frequently tell a story.Perhaps Siva should occupy the center, I'm thinking with his second wife Parvati, who not so coincidentally to Scott's story is the daughter of the Englishwoman Daphne (more on her later). Parvati also is the brother of Vishnu, a deity of some significance in The Crown Jewel.A difficulty is their posture and gestures. All goddesses in Hinduism, or so I'm led to believe, derive from Parvati. So obviously she must be portrayed as powerful.But, also, in Scott's story, she is quite the accomplished singer of traditional Indian songs, bringing to mind the singer of the 19th century, the consort of MacGregor, moved into the house of women, displaced by the wife (required acquisition to be socially acceptable in the colonizer's social confines).The anonymous singer, of course, runs off with her dark-skinned lover, a story that repeats itself in the more recent story of Daphne and Hari/Harry.The problem with Siva's posture in the center of our thangka is that in Scott's story his dancing manifestation is cited. This is fine for our principal concern, the unity of the cyclic destruction and rejuvenation manifested in our larger story of colonizer and colonized, as well as the inner story of Daphne and Hari/Harry.But it is most difficult to incorporate the union of male and female aspects, or qualities, in that posture. So, I think we should remove Parvati from the center space, and place her in the union posture with Siva below and in front of Siva's placement.The Ganges River, flowing into the sea, dark in the foreground, completes the bottom-center foreground.On either side of the river are Daphne and Hari/Harry, thus completing the triangle (triangles are important in Scott's story, see pages 134 & 149, for instance) of Daphne, Hari/Harry, and the union of Siva and Parvati, which aptly describes the relationship between the historical and mythical figures.Daphne, in a posture of courage in search of wholeness (think Siva's destruction/rejuvenation), will be placed a foot in the waters, ready to give herself over to the flow, whatever may come, as there is no bridge capable of crossing (p.142).In the upper left corner, with a line connecting it to the central Siva, is MacGregor House "where there is always the promise of a story continuing instead of finishing" (p.461) and a place of trust, compromise, exploratory, noncommittal, learning, not accusatory (p.444). Opposite in the right upper corner is Bibighar Gardens, a place where something had gone horribly wrong, still alive, that can be set right, if only one knew how. By implication it is Indian, and universal (p.398). Bibighar is the former house of women, now in ruins, but nonetheless also an arbor to provide temporary shelter for the union of Daphne and Hari/Harry, but at the same time it is the place of the union between the destructive force and Daphne.Along either side of Siva's space, in the appropriate postures: Ludmila, who ferries the dead and understands, "For in this life, living, there is no dignity except perhaps laughter" (p.133). And Deputy Commissioner Robin White who understands "the moral drift of history" (p.342), and its matrix of "emotions," "ambitions," and "reactions." And his wife, who understood Daphne's motivations, and her sacrifice.In the upper center, between MacGregor House and Bibighar Lady Chatterjee, whose chattering reveals far more than idle gossip, and above Siva's center positioning is the sleeping, dreaming Vishnu, brother of Paravati.Finally, to the right and just below Hari/Harry is Parvati in her singing posture, with two attendants approaching bearing a palanquin. She sings:Oh, my father's servants, bring my palanquin.I am going to the land of my husband. All myCompanions are scattered. They have gone todifferent homes.

This great work has gotten better over the years since it first appeared. It was superb then, but since then, nothing by anyone has achieved the level of execution of its imaginative grandeur. Scott’s ability to speak authentically in the different voices of his large cast constitutes one of the joys among many in the first reading. After finishing the quartet, one feels as close as possible to the world being conjured up: bereft of a guiding principle, emotionally shattered - yet no matter how misguided the courses of action on display, deeply enriched by the depths of its humanity. Not to be missed. And, for those who remember the British television series made in the early ‘80s and think they therefore don’t need to read the novels, think again! No visual presentation ironed out into chronological sequence can approach the suggestive power of Scott’s novelistic structure that attempts to reproduce the chaos of life as it is actually experienced by each individual. And, for those who “just” want to curl up with a superbly intelligent page-turning yarn of a vanished and highly provocative culture, you can’t find better than this.

The Raj Quartet is one of the best stories around, it is based on historical events in India before and after they sought independence from England. The characters in the book are so easy to love or hate as the case may be and you can identify with all of them. Paul Scott did a great amount of research on India and its inhabitants and how overbearing and haughty the British were to the Indians.

The TV adaptation is still I think one of the best dramas ever produced. This CD version I have been listening to in the car. I can thoroughly recommend. The superb cast really bring it to life - many portraying the characters as in the TV series brilliantly such that you imagine them as they were on TV.

A very significant approach to the the story of the Raj. Well interpreted on this CD.

Thank you for making this radio serial available on DVD. One of my favorite stories.

Great

Book as promised