The Raj Quartet

About 25 years ago I got a list of the best 100 books of all time, and found "The Raj Quartet" by Paul Scott listed. I started at the beginning with "The Jewel in the Crown" and got bogged down. Coincidentally, PBS started its Masterpiece Theatre version. I watched a few of the episodes (actually all of them, eventually) and got back to reading. What I discovered was the best set of novels I've ever read, and each one an individual "jewel" as well. A pebble thrown, the towers of silence, and many other images stay with me, as well as the memory of Scott's beautiful writing and well-developed, complex characters, and the scope and importance of the story. If there wasn't so much else to read, I'd reread the whole set--sounds like a good retirement project some day.

In the four books that make up "The Raj Quartet", Paul Scott recounts the final years of British India, the "jewel" in the crown of the Empire. As he simply states in the first book, "This is the story of a rape, of the events that led up to it and followed it and the place in which it happened." Through the gang-rape of a young English girl by Indian thugs, Scott takes us on a brilliantly exhaustive journey which brings together the time, the place and the people, and shows through the eyes of one family how the sun finally set on the British Empire.The story starts out with a love affair between Daphne Manners, an English girl and a young English-educated Hindu man, Hari Kumar; a relationship forbidden by the mores of the times and the ingrained British sense of their own superiority. Complicating the situation is a young British officer named Ronald Merrick, whose attentions towards Daphne are rejected out of hand. Merrick is at once contemptuous and resentful of Hari; despising his dark skin, he hates Hari for attracting the girl he wants for himself, for being better educated, and for being the product of a prosperous Indian family better than his own. Merrick is the product and the victim of the British class system; coming from the lower classes, the only way he can better himself is through military service, where he will have the opportunity to treat dark-skinned British subjects like dirt. When Daphne is raped at the Bibighar Gardens, Merrick has no problem believing Hari is to blame and has him arrested for the crime.Merrick is a swine, but through brown-nosing the proper people, he manages to rise through the army ranks and ingratiates himself into the Layton family, who belong to the class he has secretly aspired to join. He takes advantage of the tenuous emotional health of the younger sister to get her to marry him. He is thus secure in his new caste -- or so he thinks. But his fundamental, underlying sense of insecurity causes him to bully everybody under him -- his men, the natives he hates, and occasionally his wife. Meanwhile, Hari has been released from jail and simply bides his time. The end of the second world war finds Merrick a wounded war hero, but his prospects are far from certain. His life is bound up with British India, and British India is on its last legs. The Laytons can return to England, where they will live a comfortable upper-middle-class existence; Merrick's wife is dead, her death has disconnected him from her family who want nothing to do with him, and in England he will once again be the nobody he was before he joined the military. As despicable as he is, he's a tragic figure with nowhere to go; he'll almost certainly be persona non grata in an independent India whose citizens have long memories concerning British soldiers who mistreated the natives. But before Merrick can decide whether or not to offer himself as a soldier of fortune to Pakistan, the question is decided for him; his lifeless

Hari Kumar's father made every effort to ensure his son would grow up to become the perfect Anglo-Indian executive. Hari was raised in England and was attended by a governess and later a tutor. He attended Chillingborough a top school known for its production of British Civil Servants. Eventually, Hari was to return to India to work for the Indian Civil Service. Unfortunately, external forces disrupted his life and although he returned to India, it was not in the circumstances his father had planned. THE JEWEL IN THE CROWN is the story of Hari's life.THE JEWEL IN THE CROWN is Book I in the series written by Paul Scott known as the Raj Quartet. JEWEL is a complete novel, but it also lays the groundwork for the three other books in the series. The later books elaborate the story laid out in Book 1. Although Hari is absent from large sections of the text in Books 2-4, he is the main character from the beginning to the end. He is the invisible presence who haunts the other characters. He may symbolize India, but As Daphne Manners says in her journal, he is his own simile. JEWEL takes place in 1942, mostly in India. Hari's story is a composite developed from many viewpoints--court depositions, recorded hearing proceedings, journals, and the personal remembrances of those who him. The narrator piecing the story together appears to be a writer or reporter describing the so-called Mayapore riots of 1942 and their aftermath in the years following. Pandit Baba, an Indian scholar, says in a Book 2 that the word "riot" is a misnomer. The English say it was a riot but the Indians say it was a lawful protest by a people who had suffered outrage and wanted Independance.The Raj Quartet reminds me of Jane Austin's novels --especially her later books MANSFIELD PARK and EMMA. Like Austin, Scott has a keen understanding of human nature. His characterizations of Harry and Daphne are flawless. He builds them one fine layer at a time until the reader is convinced they must have been "real" people. Scott also describes an historical place and the people who lived in it with what the reader can only believe is verismilitude. Like Austin, Scott brings an exquisite sense of timing to his storyline. The near misses and plot twists leave the reader breathless. And,like Austin, Scott's sense of irony is so deftly incorporated one can only wonder at the various possible interpretations of the text. JEWEL like India is difficult to understand. Scott has written his book in English, and as Hari Kumar's father said, English is a beautiful language but "it cannot be called truthful because its subtleties are infinite. It is the language of a people who have probably earned their reputation for perfidy."

This novel, and the three following it, which together comprise the "Raj Quartet" are not to be missed. The fascinating stories of a dozen or so people in India during the last years of British rule are told from several different points of view throughout the entire series, and with each retelling, new impressions and opinions are expressed by the characters. New information is also relayed each time, adding new layers and propelling the story forward. The technical skill with which Scott manages to present so many different points of view alone makes the series worth reading. The incidental history lesson provided also adds a great deal. But it is the literary skill displayed that makes me rate these four novels near, if not at, the top of my list.Be warned - these are not easy reads, especially if your knowledge of India under British rule is as limited as mine! The effort is well worth it, however.

"The Jewel in the Crown" (1966), "The Day of the Scorpion" (1968), "The Towers of Silence" (1971) and "A Division of the Spoils" (1975). These novels are interwoven narratives, set in India during and immediately after World War 2. The story revolves round the alleged rape of a young Englishwoman, Daphne Manners and an English-reared, British public school-educated Indian named Hari Kumar who is accused of it. He is brutally interrogated by the district superintendent of police, Ronald Merrick. The consequences and reprecussions of the affair examine the political, class, personal, racial and religious conflicts within both British and Indian communities during the period leading up to Independence and Partition in 1947. The story covers a vast panoramic canvas telling the tale through the princpal characters as well as the minor characters Lady Chatterjee, friend of Lady Manners, Daphne's aunt, Barbara Batchelor a missionary school teacher who dies insane, Miss Crane also a missionary who burns herself to death after her Indian colleague, Mr Chaudhuri is killed. The heavy drinking Mildred Layton, wife of Colonel Layton who is a Prisoner of War. Their daughters, Sarah Layton the sensible one who becomes the lover of Guy Perron, a Cambridge educated NCO in the British Army intelligence corps. Susan Layton a vain and feckless woman who marries Merick after he attempts to saves her first husband (Teddie Bingham)from a blazing vehicle in Burma. Mohammed Ali Kasim a muslim leader, imprisoned by the British, his son Ahmed, one of the first vicitims of the massacres attending Partition. Count Bronowsky a Russian emigre and adviser to the Nawab of Mirat. The saga gives a remarkable insight into the social and political machination of end of empire and is recommended to anyone who wishes to understand the last days of British India.