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The Raj Quartet #4
A Division of the Spoils
Against the backdrop of the violent partition of India and Pakistan, this volume sketches one last bittersweet romance, revealing the divided loyalties of the British as they flee, retreat from, or cling to India.
672 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1975
73 people are currently reading
1498 people want to read
About the author
Paul Scott
173 books164 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Paul Mark Scott was an English novelist best known for his tetralogy The Raj Quartet. In the last years of his life, his novel Staying On won the Booker Prize (1977). The series of books was dramatised by Granada Television during the 1980s and won Scott the public and critical acclaim that he had not received during his lifetime.
Born in suburban London, Scott was posted to India, Burma and Malaya during World War II. On return to London he worked as a notable literary agent, before deciding to write full time from 1960. In 1964 he returned to India for a research trip, though he was struggling with ill health and alcoholism. From the material gathered he created the novels that would become The Raj Quartet. In the final years of his life he accepted a visiting professorship at the University of Tulsa, where much of his private archive is held.
Paul Mark Scott was an English novelist best known for his tetralogy The Raj Quartet. In the last years of his life, his novel Staying On won the Booker Prize (1977). The series of books was dramatised by Granada Television during the 1980s and won Scott the public and critical acclaim that he had not received during his lifetime.
Born in suburban London, Scott was posted to India, Burma and Malaya during World War II. On return to London he worked as a notable literary agent, before deciding to write full time from 1960. In 1964 he returned to India for a research trip, though he was struggling with ill health and alcoholism. From the material gathered he created the novels that would become The Raj Quartet. In the final years of his life he accepted a visiting professorship at the University of Tulsa, where much of his private archive is held.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 109 reviews
April 16, 2019
This is the way I like my history. Not just dates and times and places, but the actions and reactions to the people actually living it, their decisions and heartbreaks and successes, the hows and the whys and the might-have-beens. This 4th and final book of the Raj Quartet left me with a better understanding of the beginning and end of British rule in India, and also the sense that it could never really be understood. These characters, both British and Indian, were very real to me. I'll be thinking about all of them for a while, wondering where they are now, and what they are doing; how their lives turned out.
This is a remarkable history of the years between 1938 and 1947 of just a small section of India. Beginning with a rape of a white girl that reverberates through the years, it manages to encompass the past, present and future of Hindu, Muslim, and British peoples, including the prejudices and class distinctions of very diverse groups and religions, in prose that lets us enter into their lives and puts us at the center of it all. If you have the time and the patience, these books are a remarkable read.
This is a remarkable history of the years between 1938 and 1947 of just a small section of India. Beginning with a rape of a white girl that reverberates through the years, it manages to encompass the past, present and future of Hindu, Muslim, and British peoples, including the prejudices and class distinctions of very diverse groups and religions, in prose that lets us enter into their lives and puts us at the center of it all. If you have the time and the patience, these books are a remarkable read.
November 1, 2018
The fourth and final installment in Paul Scott’s inimitable
Raj Quartet
, A Division of the Spoils left me breathless and shaken. Scott has done for the struggle for Indian independence what Tolstoy did for Russia’s Napoleonic War: it has brought it to life, given it flesh and substance, and shown its effect on the people it touched and the world at large. If there was anything worse than the dominion The British Empire exercised over the Indian continent, it was the abrupt and heartless manner in which they carved up and deserted it to its own rule after some 200 years of having every decision handed down as an edict.
After building slowly a complex tale of personalities and interlocking fates, Scott did not disappoint in painting this shattering end. A historian greater than myself has told me that the writing of these books literally killed the author; that he put so much of himself into them and gave them so much of his time and energy that he neglected his deteriorating health and hastened his end. What a sad fact to contemplate, but I can surely see that there was a soul poured into their making; in fact, I feel as if a bit of my own soul was stolen in the reading. I will certainly never look at India in the same way again. I feel as if a journey I began with Forster’s Passage to India, and filled in with Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, has been completed with The Raj Quartet. The India I carried in my mind has been shattered and replaced with a sadder but more human image, peppered with a huge respect for the Indian people who have pushed forward with dignity through such a tumultuous history.
I cannot close without mentioning the central characters of this drama, who have become so real for me. Ronald Merrick is the consummate evil man who believes that he is a wise and heroic savior. He buys his own PR, the image of efficiency and capability that he sells to his superiors, while using the most vile of means to punish others for his own shortcomings. Part of what makes him so frightening is his humanity, the way he verges on the edge of being something better, his lack of understanding of himself or others and his unwillingness to attribute any responsibility to his own failings. It is observed of him,
He had a talent, one that amounted to genius, for seeing the key or combination of keys that would open a situation up so that he could twist it to suit his purpose.
And, he does that over and over again, aided and abetted by the system that has made him and left him in charge of the lives of others who are hated for the basest of reasons.
In contrast to Merrick, Hari Kumar is the epitome of a good soul and wasted potential, a man who has so much to offer society but who is deprived of giving that by the ridiculous racial prejudices of the society itself and the inexplicable hatred he incurs from Merrick for being too British, too educated, and too promising. In their company we find a dozen other breathing beings, Daphne Manners who dares to love outside the artificial lines; Barbie Bachelor a rare British citizens who comes to see the Indian population as persons, instead of servants; Sarah Layton, who belongs to India more than to England, but struggles to find her place in a world that no longer has order and soon will not even exist; Ahmed Kasim; Guy Perron; Nigel Rowan; Dmitri Boronowsky.
I agree wholly with Paul Scott when he has his character, Guy Perron, say,
The deeply subjective feelings, like joy, fear, love, are the most difficult to convey. One has to make do, more often than not, with the crutch of the words themselves.
I can assure you, the words are more than a crutch in Scott's hands. He conveys every feeling that is dearest to the heart and hardest to face or identify. He covers all the human emotions: hate, fear, jealousy, intimidation, insecurity, love, passion, desire, regret, pride, despair, horror; and he conveys them with so much feeling that you are reduced to tears or tighten with anxiety.
It is my fondest wish that I live long enough to read this set of novels again someday. I would like to come at them armed with all the foreknowledge of the first read so that I can process the details and clever hints sprinkled throughout. There are books that make me grateful to be a reader and extremely grateful that God blessed some men with the talents to write significantly--the Raj Quartet is a perfect example of writing that stirs those emotions.
After building slowly a complex tale of personalities and interlocking fates, Scott did not disappoint in painting this shattering end. A historian greater than myself has told me that the writing of these books literally killed the author; that he put so much of himself into them and gave them so much of his time and energy that he neglected his deteriorating health and hastened his end. What a sad fact to contemplate, but I can surely see that there was a soul poured into their making; in fact, I feel as if a bit of my own soul was stolen in the reading. I will certainly never look at India in the same way again. I feel as if a journey I began with Forster’s Passage to India, and filled in with Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, has been completed with The Raj Quartet. The India I carried in my mind has been shattered and replaced with a sadder but more human image, peppered with a huge respect for the Indian people who have pushed forward with dignity through such a tumultuous history.
I cannot close without mentioning the central characters of this drama, who have become so real for me. Ronald Merrick is the consummate evil man who believes that he is a wise and heroic savior. He buys his own PR, the image of efficiency and capability that he sells to his superiors, while using the most vile of means to punish others for his own shortcomings. Part of what makes him so frightening is his humanity, the way he verges on the edge of being something better, his lack of understanding of himself or others and his unwillingness to attribute any responsibility to his own failings. It is observed of him,
He had a talent, one that amounted to genius, for seeing the key or combination of keys that would open a situation up so that he could twist it to suit his purpose.
And, he does that over and over again, aided and abetted by the system that has made him and left him in charge of the lives of others who are hated for the basest of reasons.
In contrast to Merrick, Hari Kumar is the epitome of a good soul and wasted potential, a man who has so much to offer society but who is deprived of giving that by the ridiculous racial prejudices of the society itself and the inexplicable hatred he incurs from Merrick for being too British, too educated, and too promising. In their company we find a dozen other breathing beings, Daphne Manners who dares to love outside the artificial lines; Barbie Bachelor a rare British citizens who comes to see the Indian population as persons, instead of servants; Sarah Layton, who belongs to India more than to England, but struggles to find her place in a world that no longer has order and soon will not even exist; Ahmed Kasim; Guy Perron; Nigel Rowan; Dmitri Boronowsky.
I agree wholly with Paul Scott when he has his character, Guy Perron, say,
The deeply subjective feelings, like joy, fear, love, are the most difficult to convey. One has to make do, more often than not, with the crutch of the words themselves.
I can assure you, the words are more than a crutch in Scott's hands. He conveys every feeling that is dearest to the heart and hardest to face or identify. He covers all the human emotions: hate, fear, jealousy, intimidation, insecurity, love, passion, desire, regret, pride, despair, horror; and he conveys them with so much feeling that you are reduced to tears or tighten with anxiety.
It is my fondest wish that I live long enough to read this set of novels again someday. I would like to come at them armed with all the foreknowledge of the first read so that I can process the details and clever hints sprinkled throughout. There are books that make me grateful to be a reader and extremely grateful that God blessed some men with the talents to write significantly--the Raj Quartet is a perfect example of writing that stirs those emotions.
December 7, 2019
"People like us. English people in India. Except that he didn't think we were really English any more. He said we got preserved in some kind of perpetual Edwardian sunlight."
So the final book in Scott's magisterial quartet about the dying days of the Raj and 'division' is indeed the concept that reverberates through the text, with 'spoils' being ironic, figurative and literal - India is divided, and many things are 'spoiled' (not least the wrecked lives which haunt the end), even while the idea of looting with violence recalls 'the jewel in the crown' motif and the rape of Daphne Manners which is still a potent spectre in this book.
That 'division' is everywhere: the partition of India, the religious and racial divides, the splits between the English ('among themselves there emerges this dissension. The old solidarity has gone because the need for it has gone'), the breakdown of marriages and families, even the horrible deaths: the snake that is literally divided in two, the horrific massacre at the train ambush as people are hacked to pieces.
Scott changes his narrative style again in this book: where the first novel, The Jewel in the Crown, was a palimpsest of stories told with hindsight and all circling the rape in the Bibighar Gardens, this final book is far more dynamic. The canvas is broader as Hitler is dead in the opening line but the war in the east hasn't yet been brought to an end, and it finishes with India's independence. Many of the set pieces are extended dialogues and confrontations between two people, with, for the first time, first person narratives from Sarah Layton and Guy Perron, newly introduced.
At the same time as the book advances in terms of narrative and historically, it's still circling back over the past: the rape, Hari Kumar's incarceration, Ronald Merrick, the Kasim family, the Laytons.
Taken together, this series is an extraordinary accomplishment, and this book has scenes that are so vivid, so hard-hitting that I had anxiety pains in my stomach while reading .
Looking back on my reviews for the earlier volumes, I see I read the first one in 2017, the second in 2018 and the final two this year, 2019. For me, the impact of the series has been well-served by spreading the books out - read back-to-back they might have felt more repetitive, this way we remember earlier events in the way that characters do.
I should mention what a wonderful character writer Scott is: Ronald Merrick, for example, could so easily have been a stock 'evil genius' character but of course he's not, he's created and articulated in a far more complex way. As a final tribute, I closed the book and am still wondering what will happen to these characters, so alive and real do they feel to me. And that's something special.
January 30, 2018
The way the quartet ended made me want to cry.
June 8, 2018
The End of the Raj
Finally, after tackling the four volumes with a friend at three-month intervals, I come to the end of Paul Scott's Raj Quartet. It brings the story of this particular group of Englishmen in India, which had begun with an alleged rape in 1942, up to 1947, when the British withdrew and India split into two separate countries, India and Pakistan. Whatever the strengths and weaknesses of individual sections, this final volume brings a great sense of completion, not merely of a six-year epic, but also of a colonial rule lasting the better part of two centuries. Paradoxically, though, there is also a sense of incompleteness, for few of the story lines end with any more neatness than the still troubled fate of the subcontinent itself.
This fourth volume is a long book (600 pages), and by no means even. The first 200 pages are superb, but then begins a very gradual falling off that leads the reader into some pretty tedious territory before the action picks up once more in the final 50 pages or so, which are totally brilliant. The problem, for me, arises from a conflict between Scott's roles as novelist and historian. From the very beginning, the Quartet had been characterized by multiple perspectives and an unusual mixture of narrative methods: straight description; first-person accounts; journal entries; newspaper articles; and semi-formal interviews of key characters. I read somewhere that Scott adopts some of the methods of the historian to give objectivity to his portraits of people's lives as individuals. When he succeeds in doing this, the results are superb.
But there were times in the middle of this volume when I felt that, instead of using the methods of the historian to illuminate individuals, he is using individuals as an excuse to set the record straight on some point of history. Throughout the cycle, for example, he has made reference to a fictional ex-Congress Party politician, M. A. Kasim, who is imprisoned by the British and eventually released. He plays a significant role here in relation to his elder son, Sayed, and Indian Army officer captured by the Japanese and coerced to serve in the "Indian National Army" (INA) against the British war effort. All the time I was reading this, I was feeling that either the INA must have been a hot topic when Scott was writing or he wished to make it so, for the characters all but disappear in page after page of political and moral discussion between father and son. Contrast Kasim's younger son Ahmed, who is left to be his own character, and whose story is that much more moving because he is a person first and a political symbol only a very distant second.
But then there are those 250 pages of sheer magnificence, plus another 100 or so that are pretty good. Why? Because they focus on interesting and satisfyingly complex people. Because they include entertaining and significant action. Because they are emotionally involving. And because, even when rehashing old events (as most of the Quartet does, after the first chapter or so), they add depth and interest to characters we thought we knew. Chief among these is Ronald Merrick, the former police officer whose handling of the original rape case was so suspect. Scott has always balanced a tendency to see him as the villain with surprising touches that show him in a good light. Here, though, the chiaroscuro is many times richer, with deeper blacks interspersed with flashes of brilliance and even humanity. In many ways, this is Merrick's book, even though he spends far more time in the wings than center stage.
But of course it is not Merrick's book. The leading character, if there is one, is new to the series: a British sergeant named Guy Perron. The rank is an anomaly; he is distinctly upper-middle class, having gone to the same exclusive private school as several of the other characters (but not Merrick) and thence to Cambridge, where he is pretty much guaranteed a faculty job upon demobilization. His refusal to go for a commission is a deliberate choice, but it leads to some delicious situations when the old boy network of former school friends completely trumps the military hierarchy that Lieutenant-Colonel Merrick attempts to hold over his not-so-humble sergeant.
The other major character, Sarah Layton, has been haunting Scott's pages since I think the second volume. We know her as sensible, competent, kind, and blessed with a slightly detached intelligence. Although not a beauty like her younger sister Susan, she has a surprising emotional life and is by now no virgin. All through the less political sections of the book there is the titillation of a possible romance between her and Guy. I believe the Granada TV version was more explicit about this, but the novel's slightly awkward obliquity is a strong plus here.
There is a very strange moment after what might be considered the climactic scene in Sarah and Guy's story. Scott seems to go out of his way to parallel it to quite a different episode from earlier in the cycle. At the time, it seems gratuitous and to detract from the present romance. Yet thinking about it, I realize that Scott's whole method has been to draw such parallels, by revisiting the same scene again and again, or showing similar patterns in many different characters and situations. It is as though he is tracing the eddies and ripples in a slowly moving stream, picking us up almost at random, turning us in the common human circles, then letting us go as the great river flows inexorably on.
======
Here are links to my reviews of all the books in the Quartet, in order:
1. The Jewel in the Crown
2. The Day of the Scorpion
3. The Towers of Silence
4. A Division of the Spoils
And to Scott's semi-comic quasi-sequel: Staying On.
Finally, after tackling the four volumes with a friend at three-month intervals, I come to the end of Paul Scott's Raj Quartet. It brings the story of this particular group of Englishmen in India, which had begun with an alleged rape in 1942, up to 1947, when the British withdrew and India split into two separate countries, India and Pakistan. Whatever the strengths and weaknesses of individual sections, this final volume brings a great sense of completion, not merely of a six-year epic, but also of a colonial rule lasting the better part of two centuries. Paradoxically, though, there is also a sense of incompleteness, for few of the story lines end with any more neatness than the still troubled fate of the subcontinent itself.
This fourth volume is a long book (600 pages), and by no means even. The first 200 pages are superb, but then begins a very gradual falling off that leads the reader into some pretty tedious territory before the action picks up once more in the final 50 pages or so, which are totally brilliant. The problem, for me, arises from a conflict between Scott's roles as novelist and historian. From the very beginning, the Quartet had been characterized by multiple perspectives and an unusual mixture of narrative methods: straight description; first-person accounts; journal entries; newspaper articles; and semi-formal interviews of key characters. I read somewhere that Scott adopts some of the methods of the historian to give objectivity to his portraits of people's lives as individuals. When he succeeds in doing this, the results are superb.
But there were times in the middle of this volume when I felt that, instead of using the methods of the historian to illuminate individuals, he is using individuals as an excuse to set the record straight on some point of history. Throughout the cycle, for example, he has made reference to a fictional ex-Congress Party politician, M. A. Kasim, who is imprisoned by the British and eventually released. He plays a significant role here in relation to his elder son, Sayed, and Indian Army officer captured by the Japanese and coerced to serve in the "Indian National Army" (INA) against the British war effort. All the time I was reading this, I was feeling that either the INA must have been a hot topic when Scott was writing or he wished to make it so, for the characters all but disappear in page after page of political and moral discussion between father and son. Contrast Kasim's younger son Ahmed, who is left to be his own character, and whose story is that much more moving because he is a person first and a political symbol only a very distant second.
But then there are those 250 pages of sheer magnificence, plus another 100 or so that are pretty good. Why? Because they focus on interesting and satisfyingly complex people. Because they include entertaining and significant action. Because they are emotionally involving. And because, even when rehashing old events (as most of the Quartet does, after the first chapter or so), they add depth and interest to characters we thought we knew. Chief among these is Ronald Merrick, the former police officer whose handling of the original rape case was so suspect. Scott has always balanced a tendency to see him as the villain with surprising touches that show him in a good light. Here, though, the chiaroscuro is many times richer, with deeper blacks interspersed with flashes of brilliance and even humanity. In many ways, this is Merrick's book, even though he spends far more time in the wings than center stage.
But of course it is not Merrick's book. The leading character, if there is one, is new to the series: a British sergeant named Guy Perron. The rank is an anomaly; he is distinctly upper-middle class, having gone to the same exclusive private school as several of the other characters (but not Merrick) and thence to Cambridge, where he is pretty much guaranteed a faculty job upon demobilization. His refusal to go for a commission is a deliberate choice, but it leads to some delicious situations when the old boy network of former school friends completely trumps the military hierarchy that Lieutenant-Colonel Merrick attempts to hold over his not-so-humble sergeant.
The other major character, Sarah Layton, has been haunting Scott's pages since I think the second volume. We know her as sensible, competent, kind, and blessed with a slightly detached intelligence. Although not a beauty like her younger sister Susan, she has a surprising emotional life and is by now no virgin. All through the less political sections of the book there is the titillation of a possible romance between her and Guy. I believe the Granada TV version was more explicit about this, but the novel's slightly awkward obliquity is a strong plus here.
There is a very strange moment after what might be considered the climactic scene in Sarah and Guy's story. Scott seems to go out of his way to parallel it to quite a different episode from earlier in the cycle. At the time, it seems gratuitous and to detract from the present romance. Yet thinking about it, I realize that Scott's whole method has been to draw such parallels, by revisiting the same scene again and again, or showing similar patterns in many different characters and situations. It is as though he is tracing the eddies and ripples in a slowly moving stream, picking us up almost at random, turning us in the common human circles, then letting us go as the great river flows inexorably on.
======
Here are links to my reviews of all the books in the Quartet, in order:
1. The Jewel in the Crown
2. The Day of the Scorpion
3. The Towers of Silence
4. A Division of the Spoils
And to Scott's semi-comic quasi-sequel: Staying On.
July 15, 2020
What a horrific title when you realize it applies to a country full of people, two countries actually as it turns out. A Division of the Spoils is also one of those books known as a brick, to be kept around the house and used as a lethal weapon in lieu of firearms should you be lacking or non-proficient in them. It is huge, heavy and awkward to hold when reading—and mine is the paperback edition. My thumbs are glad I’m finished. I’m not. I leave behind the Raj Quartet now for the third time with a heavy heart.
My consolation this time is that I have discovered there is another book Paul Scott wrote about India after the Raj, called Staying On which I am eager to start next. It focuses on minor characters from the Quartet but at least it is still the same locale, so a gentle weaning this time. I recall how bereft I was on my two previous readings with nowhere to turn except to a completely different book and author. (I think I may have tried to read a history of India but didn’t get very far.) Paul Scott is just too good and therefore hard to follow up.
As mentioned, A Division of the Spoils, concludes the fictional foursome and it is a monumental finish! Not only is it the biggest book, it is also the one with the most surprises, at least it was for me, even this time around. It ties together so much and yet leaves so much still open. We come back full circle to the first book with the rape in the Bibighar Gardens, an actual event yet also symbolic of the time and place. Also, there is the allegorical picture of Queen Victoria receiving India, as her The Jewel in the Crown, while we see how that transaction has affected three countries, and a few chosen people, of various races, classes and religions. An amazing tour de force. This series is the best way I can imagine to learn a bit of Anglo-Indian history circa 1942-7, critical years for the birth of India and Pakistan.
Most highly recommended! 10 stars!
2012: One of the few series which seems to get better as it goes along. I've read it through twice and the quartet is four thick books, so it is no small task, but a delight even so. Fond memories just thinking of it. I won't part with my well-worn copies despite their age.
My consolation this time is that I have discovered there is another book Paul Scott wrote about India after the Raj, called Staying On which I am eager to start next. It focuses on minor characters from the Quartet but at least it is still the same locale, so a gentle weaning this time. I recall how bereft I was on my two previous readings with nowhere to turn except to a completely different book and author. (I think I may have tried to read a history of India but didn’t get very far.) Paul Scott is just too good and therefore hard to follow up.
As mentioned, A Division of the Spoils, concludes the fictional foursome and it is a monumental finish! Not only is it the biggest book, it is also the one with the most surprises, at least it was for me, even this time around. It ties together so much and yet leaves so much still open. We come back full circle to the first book with the rape in the Bibighar Gardens, an actual event yet also symbolic of the time and place. Also, there is the allegorical picture of Queen Victoria receiving India, as her The Jewel in the Crown, while we see how that transaction has affected three countries, and a few chosen people, of various races, classes and religions. An amazing tour de force. This series is the best way I can imagine to learn a bit of Anglo-Indian history circa 1942-7, critical years for the birth of India and Pakistan.
Most highly recommended! 10 stars!
2012: One of the few series which seems to get better as it goes along. I've read it through twice and the quartet is four thick books, so it is no small task, but a delight even so. Fond memories just thinking of it. I won't part with my well-worn copies despite their age.
September 10, 2017
In 2013, I began Paul Scott's Raj Quartet, finally finishing the series today with A Division of the Spoils. If you read the other 3 books then it is inevitable that this one must be read and while it is weighted down with political philosophy, it is done appropriately. From Daphne Manners and Hari Kumar to Guy Perron and Sarah Layton, this story is exquisitely told from beginning to end. I love how the beginnings of the story so long ago are still affecting the end of the story. Yes, this is a masterpiece. Thank-you to Professor Eva Brann for the recommendation. As usual, I am a slow but steady learner.
April 30, 2015
Ask me later. I am still reeling.
August 3, 2024
The final installment which brings to full circle the characters with also Guy Perron to narrate the end of the Raj. All the characters are there with Sarah and Susan Layton, Ronald Merrick the multilayered villain, Ahmed Kasim and the other.
The grandeur of Mirat with the dying Raj reneging on the treaties with the 600 Indian Princes. The sheer idiocy of Mountbatten is breathtaking with the secrecy and use of a mapmaker not familiar with India.
Scott captures the ineptitude, sadness and brutality of the last days of the Raj eloquently with the changing morality and treatment of Indian’s by different English generations. The code of conduct, rules and behavior of the English at the end of an era.
Now I plan to watch the tv series.
The grandeur of Mirat with the dying Raj reneging on the treaties with the 600 Indian Princes. The sheer idiocy of Mountbatten is breathtaking with the secrecy and use of a mapmaker not familiar with India.
Scott captures the ineptitude, sadness and brutality of the last days of the Raj eloquently with the changing morality and treatment of Indian’s by different English generations. The code of conduct, rules and behavior of the English at the end of an era.
Now I plan to watch the tv series.
November 29, 2020
"An emigration is possibly the loneliest experience a man can suffer. In a way it is not a country he has lost but a home, or even just a part of a home, a room perhaps, or something in that room that he has had to leave behind, and which haunts him."
This novel is the concluding part to Paul Scott's 'Raj Quartet'. This book is largely written in two parts. The first set in 1945 just as WWII is coming to an end, the latter in 1947 just before India gains independence. Both English and Indians alike must ask themselves what place there is for them in a new India.
In this book we are introduced to a new character, Sergeant Guy Perron. Perron is not really made to be a soldier or an intelligence officer rather he is an academic interested in Indian history and culture. Despite coming from a privileged background and having attended the same boy's school as most of the central male characters Perron has resisted all attempts to make him an officer. He is trying to keep a low profile, hoping to pass the war years quietly and resume civilian life as soon as possible thereafter. Perron attends a party hosted by a maharanee as part of his investigation into possible security leaks where he meets Ronald Merrick (the policemen, now a soldier, at the centre of the incident in The Jewel in the Crown), Sarah Layton and Count Bronowsky (both of whom we first met in The Day of the Scorpion). When Perron's senior officer commits suicide Merrick decides to get Perron transferred to his own staff.
Merrick, now a Major, remains eager to achieve a rise in social standing despite his hatred for those born into privilege. Merrick represents the worst characteristics of the English in India, where greedy, unremarkable Englishmen have carved something out for themselves, simply because of the colour of their skin.
The Layton family have their issues as well. Susan, is clearly still struggling to cope with the death of her husband whilst their father, Lt Col Layton, has returned from a German prisoner of war camp a different man; uncertain of himself as his family are of him. Sarah works diligently to be the glue that keeps the family together, sacrificing herself to do so.
With Indian independence inevitable the future of princely states such as Mirat, ruled by the Nawab assisted by his chief-advisor Count Bronowsky, is increasingly uncertain, whilst the growth in power of the Muslim League has made the formation of Pakistan almost inevitable. Meanwhile the Indian National Army (INA) – a rebel army composed of Indian soldiers captured by the Japanese and released on the condition that they now serve Japan are now returning to their homes. Are they freedom fighters or traitors?
As Perron reluctantly works for Merrick, befriends the Layton family, enjoys the hospitality of the Nawab, he becomes the reader's main witness to unfolding events. Though he remains enchanted with India, shocking events as independence nears, means that, like the English, his time there too must come to an end.
Being the final book in the series this review inevitably also becomes one of the quartet, largely because the two seem to neatly dovetail one another. Despite the whole series stretching over roughly 2000 pages there is remarkably little action but when there is it is often explosive.I found some parts genuinely engrossing, often when characters discuss events in India at the time, cultural and racial divides, and the roles of colonist and colonised. However, frustratingly, there were also a lot of dull passages. Parts that are slow, uninteresting or seemingly unnecessary, whilst his penchant for repetition and long convoluted sentences, (often consisting of brackets) continued to annoy me. In this book, a long section was taken up by a near repetition of the interview between Hari Kumar and Rowan whilst the former was still in prison. In the earlier book this was compelling reading but here it was just plain annoying and a touch patronising.
Having now read the entire quartet, I think this final novel is symptomatic of the whole. There is much to admire and despite my issues with some of his writing style, his knowledge and appreciation of a complex and controversial time in history, his exploration of them through a disparate set of characters caught up in events much larger than themselves is quite astounding, making this quartet: a true epic.
This novel is the concluding part to Paul Scott's 'Raj Quartet'. This book is largely written in two parts. The first set in 1945 just as WWII is coming to an end, the latter in 1947 just before India gains independence. Both English and Indians alike must ask themselves what place there is for them in a new India.
In this book we are introduced to a new character, Sergeant Guy Perron. Perron is not really made to be a soldier or an intelligence officer rather he is an academic interested in Indian history and culture. Despite coming from a privileged background and having attended the same boy's school as most of the central male characters Perron has resisted all attempts to make him an officer. He is trying to keep a low profile, hoping to pass the war years quietly and resume civilian life as soon as possible thereafter. Perron attends a party hosted by a maharanee as part of his investigation into possible security leaks where he meets Ronald Merrick (the policemen, now a soldier, at the centre of the incident in The Jewel in the Crown), Sarah Layton and Count Bronowsky (both of whom we first met in The Day of the Scorpion). When Perron's senior officer commits suicide Merrick decides to get Perron transferred to his own staff.
Merrick, now a Major, remains eager to achieve a rise in social standing despite his hatred for those born into privilege. Merrick represents the worst characteristics of the English in India, where greedy, unremarkable Englishmen have carved something out for themselves, simply because of the colour of their skin.
The Layton family have their issues as well. Susan, is clearly still struggling to cope with the death of her husband whilst their father, Lt Col Layton, has returned from a German prisoner of war camp a different man; uncertain of himself as his family are of him. Sarah works diligently to be the glue that keeps the family together, sacrificing herself to do so.
With Indian independence inevitable the future of princely states such as Mirat, ruled by the Nawab assisted by his chief-advisor Count Bronowsky, is increasingly uncertain, whilst the growth in power of the Muslim League has made the formation of Pakistan almost inevitable. Meanwhile the Indian National Army (INA) – a rebel army composed of Indian soldiers captured by the Japanese and released on the condition that they now serve Japan are now returning to their homes. Are they freedom fighters or traitors?
As Perron reluctantly works for Merrick, befriends the Layton family, enjoys the hospitality of the Nawab, he becomes the reader's main witness to unfolding events. Though he remains enchanted with India, shocking events as independence nears, means that, like the English, his time there too must come to an end.
Being the final book in the series this review inevitably also becomes one of the quartet, largely because the two seem to neatly dovetail one another. Despite the whole series stretching over roughly 2000 pages there is remarkably little action but when there is it is often explosive.I found some parts genuinely engrossing, often when characters discuss events in India at the time, cultural and racial divides, and the roles of colonist and colonised. However, frustratingly, there were also a lot of dull passages. Parts that are slow, uninteresting or seemingly unnecessary, whilst his penchant for repetition and long convoluted sentences, (often consisting of brackets) continued to annoy me. In this book, a long section was taken up by a near repetition of the interview between Hari Kumar and Rowan whilst the former was still in prison. In the earlier book this was compelling reading but here it was just plain annoying and a touch patronising.
Having now read the entire quartet, I think this final novel is symptomatic of the whole. There is much to admire and despite my issues with some of his writing style, his knowledge and appreciation of a complex and controversial time in history, his exploration of them through a disparate set of characters caught up in events much larger than themselves is quite astounding, making this quartet: a true epic.
December 23, 2015
This is the last book of the Raj Quartet and without a doubt the best of the four. The author set a complicated story about the end of British India and rounded it off with this final gem. Scott writes fiction so well that you forget that it is not a history book. He uses the actual settings and events that were happening at the time, even though the characters (or at least most of them) are fictional. He uses allusion in his writing which causes the reader to stop and think, so it is not a quick read. You sometimes wonder if you have interpreted his meanings correctly so each reader may see some of the situations differently. Regardless of your conclusion about any characters' actions, the story coalesces beautifully. I would, however, suggest that the Quartet be read in chronological order since there is much overlap which could be confusing.
December 30, 2022
I can't imagine reading this without having read the entire quartet, so to me it's tough to rate it alone. The Quartet: FIVE stars definitely. "Spoils" alone? Perhaps bewildering, as internal/sexual/psychological issues are resolved along with historical conflicts but you do really need to read these in order: the entire 2,000 page story is EPIC. But Scott delivers at every level: awesome writing, thrilling set pieces, and dozens of single images imprinted in my brain (Merrick's final scene or just bacon on a train). Unforgettable.
May 14, 2016
A masterpiece of writing, with amazing characters that you love and hate.
March 23, 2014
Siva's arc, the deity of firey destruction and creation, comes full circle in the fourth volume of the Raj tetralogy.
Through Scott's pantheon of characters we see the Raj crumble, while simultaneously India is born through the rupture of its partition. We see the firey destruction of both the old colonial order, as well as any attempt at unifying a Hindu/Muslim nation; while at the same time India is born in fire.
Any illusions that may have sprung from the metaphor of the painting The Jewel in the Crown with Queen Victoria presiding over a diverse but subservient and orderly Raj, or for that matter springing from Ghandi's idealism, goes up in smoke, a Siva puja (or smoke offering).
In the end, there is a feeling that all of the characters through which we have seen the demise of the Raj and the simultaneous birth of India, are all carried away as smoke on the karmic winds.
Those of the Raj, the middling class of Britain who ruled the subcontinent for more than two centuries through the East India Company and then through the Raj, reap the karma of their administration.
And the people of the subcontinent reap their own karma in the violence between it's two major religious sects whose differences were accentuated by British rule.
All are in a limbo, a bardo. The characters of the Raj, middling English at home, are marginally English at this point because of their experiences in ruling a foreign land. There is a lineage of female characters, the last of which Sarah Layton determines to leave, only to stay at the end because she is no longer English, even if she also obviously is not Indian either. Other characters of the Raj are faced with the same decision.
Muslims who have been elevated by the Raj to ruling positions are faced with their social order going up in flames as a modern nation, and a Hindu one at that, is born. Their sons become sacrificial offerings.
But it is in the character Hari Kumar, wrongly accused of raping an English woman and railroaded by the Raj on sedition charges, who answers the key question posed by Scott here: "what is the difference between dharma and karma?"
Both are tricky sanskrit terms and like many sanskrit words their meaning covers a spectrum of meanings in English, or even when specific their definitions are multilayered and complex.
Dharma is both religious or philosophical teachings, but also it can accurately be translated as any phenomenon. All phenomena are dharma.
Karma on the other hand is easier to define, but harder for the western mind to grasp. Karma can be translated as action. Action has three parts: cause & effect, but also motivation. Karma falls into three categories: good (that which eases discomfort and suffering known as dukha), bad (increases dukha), and neutral. Karma is both individual, but also collective. A group of people generates collective karma.
Without giving too much away, it seems to me that Hari Kumar is the character who masters the answer to the question, to which he did not have an answer when posed to him originally by an English classmate in boarding school.
The answer lies in one's experience. It's not intellectual.
For most of the Raj Quartet, Hari is suspended in that bardo of being neither English, nor Indian. But in the end, through the suffering of being unjustly accused, imprisoned, and mistreated in the Raj's penal system, he stays true to his compassion for Daphne Manners and burdens all the false accusations and abuse (emotional and physical) to protect her. Faced with his accuser's madness, he bests the Raj police official Robert Merrick and the Raj system, which also is neither Indian, nor British.
Through this journey, Hari comes out a teacher, who not only lives dharma, but I think it's fair to see that through his skill in the English language, a detriment early in the quartet, he becomes a bridge between the English and Indian influences in the new nation.
Of all the characters who have made the journey spun by Scott, Hari is the one whose experiences are forged in the potentially destructive crucible (fire again) of persecution into karma that reduces suffering for those around him.
by
Paul Scott
Through Scott's pantheon of characters we see the Raj crumble, while simultaneously India is born through the rupture of its partition. We see the firey destruction of both the old colonial order, as well as any attempt at unifying a Hindu/Muslim nation; while at the same time India is born in fire.
Any illusions that may have sprung from the metaphor of the painting The Jewel in the Crown with Queen Victoria presiding over a diverse but subservient and orderly Raj, or for that matter springing from Ghandi's idealism, goes up in smoke, a Siva puja (or smoke offering).
In the end, there is a feeling that all of the characters through which we have seen the demise of the Raj and the simultaneous birth of India, are all carried away as smoke on the karmic winds.
Those of the Raj, the middling class of Britain who ruled the subcontinent for more than two centuries through the East India Company and then through the Raj, reap the karma of their administration.
And the people of the subcontinent reap their own karma in the violence between it's two major religious sects whose differences were accentuated by British rule.
All are in a limbo, a bardo. The characters of the Raj, middling English at home, are marginally English at this point because of their experiences in ruling a foreign land. There is a lineage of female characters, the last of which Sarah Layton determines to leave, only to stay at the end because she is no longer English, even if she also obviously is not Indian either. Other characters of the Raj are faced with the same decision.
Muslims who have been elevated by the Raj to ruling positions are faced with their social order going up in flames as a modern nation, and a Hindu one at that, is born. Their sons become sacrificial offerings.
But it is in the character Hari Kumar, wrongly accused of raping an English woman and railroaded by the Raj on sedition charges, who answers the key question posed by Scott here: "what is the difference between dharma and karma?"
Both are tricky sanskrit terms and like many sanskrit words their meaning covers a spectrum of meanings in English, or even when specific their definitions are multilayered and complex.
Dharma is both religious or philosophical teachings, but also it can accurately be translated as any phenomenon. All phenomena are dharma.
Karma on the other hand is easier to define, but harder for the western mind to grasp. Karma can be translated as action. Action has three parts: cause & effect, but also motivation. Karma falls into three categories: good (that which eases discomfort and suffering known as dukha), bad (increases dukha), and neutral. Karma is both individual, but also collective. A group of people generates collective karma.
Without giving too much away, it seems to me that Hari Kumar is the character who masters the answer to the question, to which he did not have an answer when posed to him originally by an English classmate in boarding school.
The answer lies in one's experience. It's not intellectual.
For most of the Raj Quartet, Hari is suspended in that bardo of being neither English, nor Indian. But in the end, through the suffering of being unjustly accused, imprisoned, and mistreated in the Raj's penal system, he stays true to his compassion for Daphne Manners and burdens all the false accusations and abuse (emotional and physical) to protect her. Faced with his accuser's madness, he bests the Raj police official Robert Merrick and the Raj system, which also is neither Indian, nor British.
Through this journey, Hari comes out a teacher, who not only lives dharma, but I think it's fair to see that through his skill in the English language, a detriment early in the quartet, he becomes a bridge between the English and Indian influences in the new nation.
Of all the characters who have made the journey spun by Scott, Hari is the one whose experiences are forged in the potentially destructive crucible (fire again) of persecution into karma that reduces suffering for those around him.
by
Paul Scott 
March 30, 2024
"The Division of the Spoils" has the great flaws of the previous three novels in Paul Scott's "Raj Quartet"; it is far too long with and leaves many lose threads. Somehow it manages to be a brilliant finale and to resolve the important native threads. It concludes the cycle in a manner similar to the way "Gotterdammerung" concludes Wagner's "Ring Cycle". The old world is destroyed and those characters who survive will have no roles to play in the new order.
Like most readers, I had understood that the "Raj Quartet" was going to tell the tale of the eradication of the Anglo-Indian Community that ruled India for two centuries. What I failed to understand was that it was also telling the story of the demise of India's princely states. At the end of its existence, two-thirds of British India was ruled directly by Whitehall. The remaining third of the sub-continent was rule by roughly 600 independent princely states in liege to the Raj (a.ka. the British colonial regime). The primary Indian characters in the novel were nobles in the tiny, fictional princely state of Mirat which would disappear with all the other princely states when Indian and Pakistan acceded to independence in 1947.
All of Scott's characters become losers. He follows three young girls in the Anglo-Indian community who fail in the game of finding viable husbands in the old Anglo-Indian military caster. He also portrays the sad fates of two spinster missionaries who see that their dream of a Christian India will never be realized once the Raj. Finally, the members of Kasim noble family that rules Mirat fail to find roles for themselves in either Gandhi's India or Ali Jinnah's Pakistan. The destruction is complete and for the reader cathartic.
"The Raj Quartet" is a fine novel that should have become a classic of British literature. Unfortunately, Scott who was not an economical writer produced a work that was absurdly long and which is now being forgotten. I personally enjoyed it but I am 70 years old. I cannot think of any young readers that I would recommend it to.
Like most readers, I had understood that the "Raj Quartet" was going to tell the tale of the eradication of the Anglo-Indian Community that ruled India for two centuries. What I failed to understand was that it was also telling the story of the demise of India's princely states. At the end of its existence, two-thirds of British India was ruled directly by Whitehall. The remaining third of the sub-continent was rule by roughly 600 independent princely states in liege to the Raj (a.ka. the British colonial regime). The primary Indian characters in the novel were nobles in the tiny, fictional princely state of Mirat which would disappear with all the other princely states when Indian and Pakistan acceded to independence in 1947.
All of Scott's characters become losers. He follows three young girls in the Anglo-Indian community who fail in the game of finding viable husbands in the old Anglo-Indian military caster. He also portrays the sad fates of two spinster missionaries who see that their dream of a Christian India will never be realized once the Raj. Finally, the members of Kasim noble family that rules Mirat fail to find roles for themselves in either Gandhi's India or Ali Jinnah's Pakistan. The destruction is complete and for the reader cathartic.
"The Raj Quartet" is a fine novel that should have become a classic of British literature. Unfortunately, Scott who was not an economical writer produced a work that was absurdly long and which is now being forgotten. I personally enjoyed it but I am 70 years old. I cannot think of any young readers that I would recommend it to.
June 4, 2021
I can't believe I'm here, finishing the 4th book of this incredible series. It seems like a journey (oh it was!) over the course of a long time (oh it was!) getting through the 4 books that detail the end of the raj (ie. British people) in India. It starts with the Edwardian perceptions of Victoria's rule and ends with the start of violence between the Muslim and Hindu people as India asserts it's independence and the muslim nation of pakistan begins to form. Paul Scott, the author, spent his time in India during this period and his richness and observance from the point of view of the raj sprinkled with Hindu, Muslim, and non sect Indians is just astounding.
Did I make that sound dry? It's not, it's rich with wonderful characters that you can envision and follow intensely. Their stories are etched with tragedy and hope and my feelings as I read this saga were ripe with concern and sadness over their fates. The style of writing is different than 2020 American or global fiction. In these pages you find the depth in the conversations, the way characters do not react, the way that political maneuverings and glances with eyes tell you as much as what was not said. But Scott is a great guide, and you never feel out of depth, instead you feel welcomed into this club of inequity. I loved reading this part by part week over week with Zoe and talking about it. It made everything just so rich. I feel more books need to be consumed this way.
But really my reward here is that I get to watch the Jewel in the Crown series from 1980's BBC/Masterpiece Theatre origins with Art Malik, Charles Dance, and Derek Jacobi and others. And i get to eat Zoe's trials at indian street food while watching it. I'm already getting questions on what food i want to eat and damn am it not uber excited for THAT.
Highly recommend this series!
Did I make that sound dry? It's not, it's rich with wonderful characters that you can envision and follow intensely. Their stories are etched with tragedy and hope and my feelings as I read this saga were ripe with concern and sadness over their fates. The style of writing is different than 2020 American or global fiction. In these pages you find the depth in the conversations, the way characters do not react, the way that political maneuverings and glances with eyes tell you as much as what was not said. But Scott is a great guide, and you never feel out of depth, instead you feel welcomed into this club of inequity. I loved reading this part by part week over week with Zoe and talking about it. It made everything just so rich. I feel more books need to be consumed this way.
But really my reward here is that I get to watch the Jewel in the Crown series from 1980's BBC/Masterpiece Theatre origins with Art Malik, Charles Dance, and Derek Jacobi and others. And i get to eat Zoe's trials at indian street food while watching it. I'm already getting questions on what food i want to eat and damn am it not uber excited for THAT.
Highly recommend this series!
March 14, 2012
Start with two major religions, Islam and Hinduism. To a history of one ruling the other, add the complication of a determinedly, in part evangelical Christian colonial administration that lords it over both and in recent memory has massacred innocents. Calls for independence are frequent, but the detail of “from what” remains negotiable. There is civil disobedience in a state whose imperial government can only function by virtue of local cooperation. But should independence lead to a unitary state, religiously mixed, or should it divide along ethnic lines in an attempt to avoid conflict of interest?
Then there’s a World War against an invading Japanese army to be coped with. And when a new kind of independence is called for, one that not only politically rejects the colonial masters but also wages war against them, new complications emerge. Those who deserted to fight alongside the enemy risk courts-martial and death sentences for treason, despite their being viewed locally as freedom fighters by those who desire independence at any cost, whilst remaining traitors in the eyes of anyone seeking any form of accommodation with the status quo.
This is India in the 1940s, and as yet there has been no mention yet of the princely states, each with its Nawab or Maharajah at its head, ostensibly independent but land-locked in their geographical and political dependency, surrounded by colonialism that, if anything, has nurtured them. Which way would these august gentlemen lean?
A Division Of The Spoils by Paul Scott is the last novel in his Raj Quartet. It is set against this backdrop of complex social, political, military, even geo-political considerations, all of which interact and thus influence one another. The novel’s story features a group of British colonials, perhaps locked in time, adherents of assumptions that no longer apply, who have to cope not only with all the complications of war and changing India, but also of their own lives, their forcibly limited aspirations and their enforced change of identity.
A Division Of The Spoils is such a vast project that a reader might suspect that the pace might flag somewhere within its six hundred or so pages. The reader would be wrong. By shifting the focus from one character to another, by changing the narrative’s point of view, the book not only enthrals from first to last, it also brings to life the dilemmas that face these people, often tragically, but never without compassion or empathy.
Paul Scott has not written a novel that reaches, or even tries to offer solutions or analyses. The only end products are history, itself, and the deaths of some of the characters, whom, when deceased, we realise we may not have known very well at any time. Perhaps they themselves did not really know who they were, why they were playing the role of the ruler, acting out superiority whenever a suitable minion or perhaps target might be identified. They might have been sure what disgusted them, but they were never sure of their own motives, or their motivations, even when these ran to an overtly paternalistic, perhaps patronising attitude towards the ruled.
Yet, through all the confusion of politics, war and change, people must live their lives. Hopefully, they are the subjects of this change because, if they are its objects, they are in danger. Just ask Ahmed Kasim, who was never very political, or even very Islamic. Ask Susan Layton, then Bingham, then Merrick. Ask those who stay on or those who leave, those who sign away their independence and power, or those who manipulate events to their advantage. And finally, if you ask me, I would conclude that The Division Of The Spoils, and the Raj Quartet as a whole, represent an achievement in writing through the medium of fiction that has certainly never been surpassed. When piles appear, look for this one at the top.
Then there’s a World War against an invading Japanese army to be coped with. And when a new kind of independence is called for, one that not only politically rejects the colonial masters but also wages war against them, new complications emerge. Those who deserted to fight alongside the enemy risk courts-martial and death sentences for treason, despite their being viewed locally as freedom fighters by those who desire independence at any cost, whilst remaining traitors in the eyes of anyone seeking any form of accommodation with the status quo.
This is India in the 1940s, and as yet there has been no mention yet of the princely states, each with its Nawab or Maharajah at its head, ostensibly independent but land-locked in their geographical and political dependency, surrounded by colonialism that, if anything, has nurtured them. Which way would these august gentlemen lean?
A Division Of The Spoils by Paul Scott is the last novel in his Raj Quartet. It is set against this backdrop of complex social, political, military, even geo-political considerations, all of which interact and thus influence one another. The novel’s story features a group of British colonials, perhaps locked in time, adherents of assumptions that no longer apply, who have to cope not only with all the complications of war and changing India, but also of their own lives, their forcibly limited aspirations and their enforced change of identity.
A Division Of The Spoils is such a vast project that a reader might suspect that the pace might flag somewhere within its six hundred or so pages. The reader would be wrong. By shifting the focus from one character to another, by changing the narrative’s point of view, the book not only enthrals from first to last, it also brings to life the dilemmas that face these people, often tragically, but never without compassion or empathy.
Paul Scott has not written a novel that reaches, or even tries to offer solutions or analyses. The only end products are history, itself, and the deaths of some of the characters, whom, when deceased, we realise we may not have known very well at any time. Perhaps they themselves did not really know who they were, why they were playing the role of the ruler, acting out superiority whenever a suitable minion or perhaps target might be identified. They might have been sure what disgusted them, but they were never sure of their own motives, or their motivations, even when these ran to an overtly paternalistic, perhaps patronising attitude towards the ruled.
Yet, through all the confusion of politics, war and change, people must live their lives. Hopefully, they are the subjects of this change because, if they are its objects, they are in danger. Just ask Ahmed Kasim, who was never very political, or even very Islamic. Ask Susan Layton, then Bingham, then Merrick. Ask those who stay on or those who leave, those who sign away their independence and power, or those who manipulate events to their advantage. And finally, if you ask me, I would conclude that The Division Of The Spoils, and the Raj Quartet as a whole, represent an achievement in writing through the medium of fiction that has certainly never been surpassed. When piles appear, look for this one at the top.
October 28, 2020
[Note: A Division of the Spoils is the fourth and final book in Scott’s The Raj Quartet, and may contain spoilers for books one, two, and three, The Jewel in the Crown, The Day of the Scorpion, and The Towers of Silence.]
As one would expect in the final book in a series, author Paul Scott does an excellent job telling the story of the final days of the British Raj. The narrative concludes with India’s independence and the partitioning of Pakistan. However, there is only a muted illustration of what must have been a bloody and horrific time as Hindus migrated out of Pakistan and into India, and Muslims did the reverse. In addition, although most of the story threads result in tidy, satisfactory knots, this reviewer felt there was at least one major unresolved loose end, and two others that were rather shortchanged.
Nevertheless, the story of the Layton family continues, mostly featuring the events surrounding sisters Susan and Sarah. Susan, surprisingly, once again marries without loving. The husband this time is the dastardly Ronald Merrick, whose inherent evil and misdeeds have been revealed layer by layer in each of the preceding books. Against all odds, one saving grace of Merrick’s is that he works magic with his hitherto fatherless stepson, who was showing signs of being withdrawn, no thanks to his mentally unbalanced mother.
Sarah continues to make shadowy appearances as she casts about for a direction in life. She forms an attachment with a character new to the story, Guy Perron, a cynical but gently inquisitive intellectual. However, it is this curiosity that reveals the final layer of Merrick’s dark side—his sado-masochistic homosexuality. Perron connects enough dots of Merrick’s shady activities to uncover the fact that he does not die of a riding accident (the substitute reason fabricated for wife Susan and the general public), but is brutally murdered.
Perron leaves India, but returns in 1947 as an observer of the days leading up to the India/Pakistan independence. Perron also pieces together the history of Hari Kumar, whom we first meet in The Jewel in the Crown. Kumar is eking out a squalid, near-poverty living as an English tutor, but seems oddly content with his lot. Given his victimization at the hands of Merrick, this hardly seems credible. The aforementioned major unresolved loose end is Parvati, confidently assumed to be the illegitimate daughter of Kumar and Daphne Manners—she simply disappears off the plot radar!
Another important story element is the fate of the two sons of Muslim congressman Mohammed Ali Kasim: the elder son deserts from the Indian Army when captured by the Japanese to serve in the illegitimate Indian National Army; the younger son, who perfects the art of remaining uninvolved in the independence-related tension, suddenly falls victim to a train massacre and, in a poignant, noble Sydney Carton gesture dies a brutal death to save several others.
Overall, A Division of the Spoils, by far the longest of the four books, is a compelling read. Its combination of factual history and fictional drama is engrossingly entertaining. Though there is a prodigiously large cast of characters across the four books, the principal ones will remain memorable to readers for a long time. This reviewer highly recommends the entire Raj Quartet, consisting of The Jewel in the Crown, The Day of the Scorpion, The Towers of Silence, and A Division of the Spoils.
As one would expect in the final book in a series, author Paul Scott does an excellent job telling the story of the final days of the British Raj. The narrative concludes with India’s independence and the partitioning of Pakistan. However, there is only a muted illustration of what must have been a bloody and horrific time as Hindus migrated out of Pakistan and into India, and Muslims did the reverse. In addition, although most of the story threads result in tidy, satisfactory knots, this reviewer felt there was at least one major unresolved loose end, and two others that were rather shortchanged.
Nevertheless, the story of the Layton family continues, mostly featuring the events surrounding sisters Susan and Sarah. Susan, surprisingly, once again marries without loving. The husband this time is the dastardly Ronald Merrick, whose inherent evil and misdeeds have been revealed layer by layer in each of the preceding books. Against all odds, one saving grace of Merrick’s is that he works magic with his hitherto fatherless stepson, who was showing signs of being withdrawn, no thanks to his mentally unbalanced mother.
Sarah continues to make shadowy appearances as she casts about for a direction in life. She forms an attachment with a character new to the story, Guy Perron, a cynical but gently inquisitive intellectual. However, it is this curiosity that reveals the final layer of Merrick’s dark side—his sado-masochistic homosexuality. Perron connects enough dots of Merrick’s shady activities to uncover the fact that he does not die of a riding accident (the substitute reason fabricated for wife Susan and the general public), but is brutally murdered.
Perron leaves India, but returns in 1947 as an observer of the days leading up to the India/Pakistan independence. Perron also pieces together the history of Hari Kumar, whom we first meet in The Jewel in the Crown. Kumar is eking out a squalid, near-poverty living as an English tutor, but seems oddly content with his lot. Given his victimization at the hands of Merrick, this hardly seems credible. The aforementioned major unresolved loose end is Parvati, confidently assumed to be the illegitimate daughter of Kumar and Daphne Manners—she simply disappears off the plot radar!
Another important story element is the fate of the two sons of Muslim congressman Mohammed Ali Kasim: the elder son deserts from the Indian Army when captured by the Japanese to serve in the illegitimate Indian National Army; the younger son, who perfects the art of remaining uninvolved in the independence-related tension, suddenly falls victim to a train massacre and, in a poignant, noble Sydney Carton gesture dies a brutal death to save several others.
Overall, A Division of the Spoils, by far the longest of the four books, is a compelling read. Its combination of factual history and fictional drama is engrossingly entertaining. Though there is a prodigiously large cast of characters across the four books, the principal ones will remain memorable to readers for a long time. This reviewer highly recommends the entire Raj Quartet, consisting of The Jewel in the Crown, The Day of the Scorpion, The Towers of Silence, and A Division of the Spoils.
June 24, 2015
Like my Mom, I now count The Raj Quartet as one of my all-time favorite series, and this, the concluding book of the series, was the most complex and possibly the best. I read it ahead of the History Book Club, and I'm looking forward to re-reading it more slowly with them because I know there are many subtleties I missed. Some may think it a silly comparison, but to me, The Quartet shares its best qualities with my other all-time favorite series, Harry Potter. Both feature immensely complex universes where details hidden early on turn out to be the linchpin of completely unpredictable plot twists. J.K. Rowling has the advantage of magic to dazzle and surprise us, but Paul Scott does it with plain old mundane reality, which makes him the even greater master. I would not be at all surprised if J.K. Rowling considers him an influence.
This book is probably the most political of the series, and it's those parts that I most need to re-read. I'm ashamed to say that I followed the threads of the British characters' stories much better than I did the Indians'. And there was one more very pleasant surprise in this book: a minor character whose raunchy humor made me laugh out loud. So hats off to Paul Scott. Not only is he a brilliant wordsmith and worldsmith, he's got a sense of humor, too.
Read the entire series. It's spectacular.
This book is probably the most political of the series, and it's those parts that I most need to re-read. I'm ashamed to say that I followed the threads of the British characters' stories much better than I did the Indians'. And there was one more very pleasant surprise in this book: a minor character whose raunchy humor made me laugh out loud. So hats off to Paul Scott. Not only is he a brilliant wordsmith and worldsmith, he's got a sense of humor, too.
Read the entire series. It's spectacular.
August 13, 2020
After finally finishing over 2000 pages that make up the Raj Quartet, I'm exhausted. Consistent and compelling, the third book ("The Towers of Silence") rises a bit above the others because of the humanity of the Barbara Bachelor character. All are well-written, and obviously well-researched. Part of me would like to go back and reread them with the benefit of knowing the characters. They come in and out of the books and contribute small pieces that make up a fascinating whole. I feel like I've not only been drawn in by a fascinating story and characters, but that I've learned a great deal about the British reign in India - a subject of which I knew very little.
February 5, 2012
Yet again I stand in awe of Paul Scott...this is a wonderful book, and a fantastic finale to the Quartet. Where the third book was perhaps over-wordy, and a bit inclined to indulge in too much inner spiritual monologue, this is faster moving, almost a political thriller, and a love story. Perron is so attractive, Sarah even more mysterious - and almost the only character who never gets his own voice, Merrick, is a masterpiece. Fascinating that we never see him take centre stage, and yet he dominates the stories of everyone he comes into contact with.
March 9, 2012
Magnificent series. If you're 'into' the period, and liked Forster's 'Passage to India' these are an absolute must.
Get them all and wallow in the story, the locations, and the prose. End up with 'Staying on', which is the shortest and most poignant. (If possible, get the film as well...Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard doing an extraordinary job with the book, and providing a wonderful coda to their respective careers).
Get them all and wallow in the story, the locations, and the prose. End up with 'Staying on', which is the shortest and most poignant. (If possible, get the film as well...Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard doing an extraordinary job with the book, and providing a wonderful coda to their respective careers).
January 20, 2024
"I walk home, thinking of another place, of seemingly long endless summers and the shade of different kinds of trees; and then of winters when the branches of the trees were bare, so bare that, recalling them now, it seems inconceivable to me that I looked at them and did not think of the summer just gone, and the spring soon to come, as illusions; as dreams, never fulfilled, never to be fulfilled."
A gripping end to the series as events begin to tumble downhill, out of control. The intricately built English characters watch with growing detachment as the British Raj prepares to leave India and in doing so, opens Pandora's box.
A gripping end to the series as events begin to tumble downhill, out of control. The intricately built English characters watch with growing detachment as the British Raj prepares to leave India and in doing so, opens Pandora's box.
May 1, 2020
Awesome book, awesome series. These books make me cherish my time in India.
November 10, 2020
There is much written of this series so I don t think I have much to add.
I was very aware that there were many allusions to events in the history of the British in India that I think would be obvious to someone who is British but of which I am more vaguely aware. None the less I ve read and heard enough to feel like I get the point.
It was also interesting to me to see how the personal relationships unfold in the writing. I had watched the mini-series based on the book. In the book the relationships and resolutions are more ambiguous leaving more for the reader to decide.
I did think that the unfolding of character Merrick was even better done in the mini-series more forceful. The book was possibly a bit more sympathetic to this flawed character.
At any rate I m glad I read the book. I enjoyed the mini-series and the two complement each other well.
I was very aware that there were many allusions to events in the history of the British in India that I think would be obvious to someone who is British but of which I am more vaguely aware. None the less I ve read and heard enough to feel like I get the point.
It was also interesting to me to see how the personal relationships unfold in the writing. I had watched the mini-series based on the book. In the book the relationships and resolutions are more ambiguous leaving more for the reader to decide.
I did think that the unfolding of character Merrick was even better done in the mini-series more forceful. The book was possibly a bit more sympathetic to this flawed character.
At any rate I m glad I read the book. I enjoyed the mini-series and the two complement each other well.
December 27, 2018
The Raj Quartet - this book had been on my to-read list for a very long time, because, the rating of each of the books was more than 4, and I just couldn't understand how that was possible. What was in it, that many other series don't?
Ronald Merrick - the hideous villain is the only character that appears in all four volumes, and no character takes more than 20% of the total space, yet some characters leave behind a lasting impression, and one such character is Ahmed Kasim. If 'The Jewel in the Crown' made me fall head-over-heels in love with Hari Kumar, 'A Division of the Spoils' made me want to become friends with Ahmed Kasim, I so much wanted the story to be real, I wanted to go to Mirat, I just had to meet Ahmed at any cost, but no, all that was fine until last night. Now, I do not want to be friends with Ahmed, I wish to become Ahmed himself.
Nobility is a state of mind, it's not in your blood, its in your heart. Its something admired by people around you, and remembered by them long after you are gone. The character does not seem like a fiction anymore, to me its more real than anything, not just Ahmed, but almost every character. I am sure, I am going to spend the next few of days of my life, trying to emulate him. Though he doesn't have more than 15% of the total story space, he manages to leave a lasting impression.
Paul Scott is a master story-teller, beyond doubt, with exquisite knowledge of Indian history. What is more admirable is the very fact that the same incident is narrated from different perspectives, and each looks beautiful, never boring. The only heartache was that, none was narrated by Ahmed, none at all. I would have loved to see his times and acquaintances through his brilliant mind.
The author's portrayal of the British emotional blackmailing of their Indian troops with the 'maan-baap' theory just showed how arrogant they truly have been. The INA Trials (Redfort Trials) of Indian PoW in Japan was highly informative, the conversation between Sayed Kasim and Mohammed Ali Kasim was very emotional and intelligent. Though Operation Zipper itself wasn't discussed much, one does get to meet the stalwarts of the INA - Mohan Singh and Shah Nawaz Khan in passing.
I am not sure if any other historical fiction based on the same era, depicted the divide-and-rule policy and the unification of princely states more vividly.
Guy Perron and Sarah Layton were undoubtedly intelligent and impressive characters, but Ahmed Kasim, is simply the show-stopper. Merrick is another character sculpted to perfection - where a villain has more space in the book than any other. Paul Scott has toiled more on portraying the different dimensions of a villainous mind meticulously - and that is quite impressive.
What I didn't like:
No single character took much space. Yet, there were numerous small characters, so many so that, not only does one fail to remember and acknowledge their presence, but, one tends to realise these characters are wasting the reader's time profoundly - particularly the Smalleys and the Peabodys were more than annoying, and made me lose my patience on many occasions. These are just two of the several annoying unwanted characters.
I am glad I picked this book, I am glad I finished reading the series. I am glad to have met Ahmed Kasim in my life, and eternally grateful to Scott for creating him.
Ronald Merrick - the hideous villain is the only character that appears in all four volumes, and no character takes more than 20% of the total space, yet some characters leave behind a lasting impression, and one such character is Ahmed Kasim. If 'The Jewel in the Crown' made me fall head-over-heels in love with Hari Kumar, 'A Division of the Spoils' made me want to become friends with Ahmed Kasim, I so much wanted the story to be real, I wanted to go to Mirat, I just had to meet Ahmed at any cost, but no, all that was fine until last night. Now, I do not want to be friends with Ahmed, I wish to become Ahmed himself.
Nobility is a state of mind, it's not in your blood, its in your heart. Its something admired by people around you, and remembered by them long after you are gone. The character does not seem like a fiction anymore, to me its more real than anything, not just Ahmed, but almost every character. I am sure, I am going to spend the next few of days of my life, trying to emulate him. Though he doesn't have more than 15% of the total story space, he manages to leave a lasting impression.
Paul Scott is a master story-teller, beyond doubt, with exquisite knowledge of Indian history. What is more admirable is the very fact that the same incident is narrated from different perspectives, and each looks beautiful, never boring. The only heartache was that, none was narrated by Ahmed, none at all. I would have loved to see his times and acquaintances through his brilliant mind.
The author's portrayal of the British emotional blackmailing of their Indian troops with the 'maan-baap' theory just showed how arrogant they truly have been. The INA Trials (Redfort Trials) of Indian PoW in Japan was highly informative, the conversation between Sayed Kasim and Mohammed Ali Kasim was very emotional and intelligent. Though Operation Zipper itself wasn't discussed much, one does get to meet the stalwarts of the INA - Mohan Singh and Shah Nawaz Khan in passing.
I am not sure if any other historical fiction based on the same era, depicted the divide-and-rule policy and the unification of princely states more vividly.
Guy Perron and Sarah Layton were undoubtedly intelligent and impressive characters, but Ahmed Kasim, is simply the show-stopper. Merrick is another character sculpted to perfection - where a villain has more space in the book than any other. Paul Scott has toiled more on portraying the different dimensions of a villainous mind meticulously - and that is quite impressive.
What I didn't like:
No single character took much space. Yet, there were numerous small characters, so many so that, not only does one fail to remember and acknowledge their presence, but, one tends to realise these characters are wasting the reader's time profoundly - particularly the Smalleys and the Peabodys were more than annoying, and made me lose my patience on many occasions. These are just two of the several annoying unwanted characters.
I am glad I picked this book, I am glad I finished reading the series. I am glad to have met Ahmed Kasim in my life, and eternally grateful to Scott for creating him.
April 29, 2020
The four volumes of the Raj Quartet overlap and complement one another, while at the same time forwarding the main storyline of the slow twilight of the British ascendancy in India, always with the rape of a white girl by Indian men as the central lodestone everpresent in the background, the nightmare which is seldom mentioned but which none can drive from their minds. Events occur, are discussed, witnessed as newspaper reports, court documents, interviews, vague recollections from years later, or perceived directly by the main characters. Then the next volume will take two or three steps back into previous events, and these same events will be perceived from another angle, perhaps only as a vague report heard far away across the Indian plain, or witnessed directly by another character, or discussed in detail long after their occurrence over drinks on a verandah. This may at times seem like rehashing, indeed as one reads the four volumes one will be subjected to the account of the rape in the Bibighar Gardens many times over; but what will also become apparent is that additional details, sometimes minor variations in interpretation and sometimes crucial facts, are being added slowly to the events discussed, as though the window to the past were being progressively wiped cleaner and cleaner with successive strokes of Scott's pen. In this way he draws the picture of the last days of the Raj not in a conventional linear fashion, but recursively, and from multiple angles. One gets the clear impression of life in India during the first half of the 20th century as similar in nature: Fragmented, multifaceted, largely dependent upon perspective and experience and never perceived whole or all at once.
Book 4 is the tour-de-force of the series, the longest and the one that covers the greatest distance, emotionally and chronologically. Into the Laytons' social set come Nigel Rowan, an officer in the political branch whom we have met before in Book 2 interrogating Hari Kumar some years after his imprisonment, and Guy Perron, a sergeant in the intelligence service who is "chosen" against his will by Ronald Merrick to serve in his unit. Merrick seems deliberately to surround himself with people who dislike him: Guy Perron, Sarah Layton, and before them Daphne Manners and Hari Kumar. Rowan and Perron, incidentally, are former schoolmates of Kumar's at the posh Chillingborough Academy in England. And they're not the only ones: The British in India seem constantly reminded that Kumar symbolizes the insoluble problem of India's Britishness. He's too British for the Indians and too Indian for the British. Perron is an excellent guide through the final days of the Raj, stolid and proper yet inwardly seething with intellectual outrage. An explosive yet sombre climax in 1947 details the very end of the British presence in India, the beginnings of the Hindu-Muslim riots throughout the country, and gives an expansive sense of just how far one has come from the small town of Mayapore and the darkly deserted Bibighar Gardens.
Book 4 is the tour-de-force of the series, the longest and the one that covers the greatest distance, emotionally and chronologically. Into the Laytons' social set come Nigel Rowan, an officer in the political branch whom we have met before in Book 2 interrogating Hari Kumar some years after his imprisonment, and Guy Perron, a sergeant in the intelligence service who is "chosen" against his will by Ronald Merrick to serve in his unit. Merrick seems deliberately to surround himself with people who dislike him: Guy Perron, Sarah Layton, and before them Daphne Manners and Hari Kumar. Rowan and Perron, incidentally, are former schoolmates of Kumar's at the posh Chillingborough Academy in England. And they're not the only ones: The British in India seem constantly reminded that Kumar symbolizes the insoluble problem of India's Britishness. He's too British for the Indians and too Indian for the British. Perron is an excellent guide through the final days of the Raj, stolid and proper yet inwardly seething with intellectual outrage. An explosive yet sombre climax in 1947 details the very end of the British presence in India, the beginnings of the Hindu-Muslim riots throughout the country, and gives an expansive sense of just how far one has come from the small town of Mayapore and the darkly deserted Bibighar Gardens.
May 29, 2015
This is an astounding achievement and I think will become more important as time goes on and we continue to reassess the legacy of colonialism. It was also fairly ground-breaking at the time, being written from the point of view of a number of different characters.
What I think interests me most is that Scott's view of the Raj and its legacy is extremely ambiguous: almost as if he couldn't make up his mind what it all added up to. I disagree completely with Wikipedia's blanket assertion that it illustrates how the Raj had a detrimental effect on all the characters. It seems to me that Scott makes an interesting distinction between the older characters (Miss Crane, Barbie Bachelor, Mabel Layton) who went to India to 'serve' and the younger ones (Merrick, Mildred Layton, Captain Coley) with the older ones clearly caught in the crossfire. Barbie Batchelor's witnessing of Captain Coley and Mildred Layton's frantic sex and her subsequent unhinging and death is symbolic on many levels. But Barbie Bachelor and Miss Crane maintain their integrity - even in the face of death - to the very end. You can't say the Raj damaged them from a moral standpoint.
Then there are the younger characters who don't feel they fit in: Daphne Manners, Sarah Layton, Hari Kumar, Guy Perron and others. Are these the characters who are 'caught in the web' illustrated by the butterfly shawl - doomed to be part of what is happening around them but unable to break free?
I have always felt it was more about the way the characters manage their interaction across racial boundaries that is doomed to define them, for better or worse. But perhaps that's a little simplistic in what is an incredibly multi-layered and subtle work.
I am just about to read these books (including Staying One) again, prompted by watching the rather inferior Indian Summers on TV. Although this was a brave attempt, it seemed like a mess of genres to me and had the dead hand of Hollywood hovering over it.
What I think interests me most is that Scott's view of the Raj and its legacy is extremely ambiguous: almost as if he couldn't make up his mind what it all added up to. I disagree completely with Wikipedia's blanket assertion that it illustrates how the Raj had a detrimental effect on all the characters. It seems to me that Scott makes an interesting distinction between the older characters (Miss Crane, Barbie Bachelor, Mabel Layton) who went to India to 'serve' and the younger ones (Merrick, Mildred Layton, Captain Coley) with the older ones clearly caught in the crossfire. Barbie Batchelor's witnessing of Captain Coley and Mildred Layton's frantic sex and her subsequent unhinging and death is symbolic on many levels. But Barbie Bachelor and Miss Crane maintain their integrity - even in the face of death - to the very end. You can't say the Raj damaged them from a moral standpoint.
Then there are the younger characters who don't feel they fit in: Daphne Manners, Sarah Layton, Hari Kumar, Guy Perron and others. Are these the characters who are 'caught in the web' illustrated by the butterfly shawl - doomed to be part of what is happening around them but unable to break free?
I have always felt it was more about the way the characters manage their interaction across racial boundaries that is doomed to define them, for better or worse. But perhaps that's a little simplistic in what is an incredibly multi-layered and subtle work.
I am just about to read these books (including Staying One) again, prompted by watching the rather inferior Indian Summers on TV. Although this was a brave attempt, it seemed like a mess of genres to me and had the dead hand of Hollywood hovering over it.
October 20, 2021
3.5 … A Division of the Spoils / Paul Scott ... 20 October 2021
Series: The Raj Quartet, No.4
ISBN: 9780099478836 … 660 pp.
The first 80% of the book is set in 1945. So the war is over and the writing is well and truly on the wall for the days of the British raj. Events continue to be seen through the lives of the various characters who have populated the first three books of the quartet. Plans are forming for the future.
The final 20% of the book is set in 1947. The style is quite different, looking at the political situation through cartoons of the time and through quite large slabs of diary extracts. The cartoons, or some of them, can be found online but there are no illustrations in the book. To be honest, this makes for tedious reading. I'm sure this could have been better written as straight history.
As the raj is so close to ending, the upheaval in India is going full steam ahead, violence between religious groups is pervasive and people are on the move, seeking to be in areas of personal safety as the country divides into India and Pakistan along religious lines.
But the emphasis remains on the British, the raj collapsing, England wanting to save face, and those English in India scrambling to get 'home' or to secure positions in the new subcontinent for those intending to stay on.
For the English, Scott's story ends with a whimper, not a bang (in spite of a violent episode). That is perhaps how the reality was. But as a novel, it is less than satisfactory.
There is a coda to the quartet, Staying On, which I'm hoping will round things out nicely .... if not necessarily historically.
In spite of my reservations here, this quartet is a highly recommended read.
September 1, 2015
This--The Raj Quartet--is an amazing series. I'm shocked, and a little embarrassed, that I only recently discovered it, thanks to watching the three-decades-old television series (The Jewel in the Crown, named after the first novel). So, generally late to the party! But what a party it is. A magnificent series of novels, matching the enormity of the topic--India, England, and the legacy of colonialism. When you think about it, how could England essentially rule India for several hundred years? It seems absurd. It's also probably a bit absurd that although I studied quite a bit of history, including British history, I learned virtually nothing about India. I'm guessing that a British reader would bring a lot more context to the book and the excellent television series.
Not having this background didn't detract from the story and the characters, which are strong, individual, and sufficiently mysterious to hold one's interest. But the historical forces that came to a head in the 1940s are integral to the plot and personalities.
I don't know whether seeing the series beforehand helped or hindered my reading. I did have pictures in my head of the characters in a way I wouldn't have otherwise. That could be a plus or a minus. Almost all seemed well cast. And perhaps it helped me follow a rather complicated structure, where some events are treated in several different books.
I read these books from a couple of different libraries, and they didn't seem to have gotten a lot of wear. Now I want to read Paul Scott's other books, and to spread the word about this remarkable writer.
Not having this background didn't detract from the story and the characters, which are strong, individual, and sufficiently mysterious to hold one's interest. But the historical forces that came to a head in the 1940s are integral to the plot and personalities.
I don't know whether seeing the series beforehand helped or hindered my reading. I did have pictures in my head of the characters in a way I wouldn't have otherwise. That could be a plus or a minus. Almost all seemed well cast. And perhaps it helped me follow a rather complicated structure, where some events are treated in several different books.
I read these books from a couple of different libraries, and they didn't seem to have gotten a lot of wear. Now I want to read Paul Scott's other books, and to spread the word about this remarkable writer.
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