Six Days in Marapore

by Paul Scott

In this swiftly paced and lyrical novel about British expatriates at the time of Indian independence, Paul Scott grapples with the themes of race, possession, and history that dominate all four novels of his masterpiece, The Raj Quartet, especially The Jewel in the Crown. As always, Scott fills his book with vivid characters: the seductive, bigoted war widow; the sophisticated, wily Hindu politician; and the athletic young American who only gradually begins to understand the legacy of pain and hatred veiling the woman he has come to rescue. Set against the backdrop of a nation in violent transition—a climate of exhilaration and shifting loyalties—Six Days in Marapore unfolds amidst the possibility of reconciliation, freedom, and healing.



"Scott's brief characterizations are as important to Six Days in Marapore as the basic plot . . . This is not primarily a novel of India, but rather more of frightened foreigners living there at the end of their era."—New York Times



"Intense, abrasive, the many conflicts and telltale stigmata of Hindu and Moslem, white and off white, give this its uncertain temper and certain suspense."—Kirkus Reviews

Genres: India, Fiction, Historical Fiction

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Librarian 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.

Reviews

[Lobstergirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joe MacKendrick, a young American, has come to the (imaginary) town of Marapore on the eve of the partition of India, searching for a woman his dead brother abruptly ended a love affair with. Tensions are high between the Indians and the British. Tom Gower, husband of the woman Joe is seeking, has been threatened by the locals who work at his agricultural outpost. Scott's characters are often expatriates who have been so long in India that England can no longer be considered home; after partition, they will be rootless, finding themselves in the disconcerting position of equals or less to those over whom they had just been overlords. Paired with this social and political turmoil are the racial divisions. At a dinner party where one guest is Eurasian, MacKendrick notes the others' reaction to her: "This girl is a freak. Half-European, half-Asian, the only unity she has is a sexual one. Because of the colour of her skin one's mind immediately recalls an act of union." Scott is a superb writer who makes it seem effortless.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a novel about the end of the British Raj in India, this mostly overlooked work by Paul Scott does a decent job of capturing in one book what the author conveyed in his 4-volume "Raj Quartet" series, which includes "The Jewel in the Crown". The story follows an American man arriving in a small town in India shortly after the death of his brother. He seeks for a woman who had a close connection to his brother, and becomes involved with a cast of mostly British characters who are in the midst of their own crises as the dawn of Indian independence approaches. The book's themes of class and racial divides, rulers and the ruled, the end of British imperialism, violence vs law, and lost loves are typical of Paul Scott's more well-known works, but the added element here is that of an American as a central character. By itself, the character was fairly flat. But as a literary technique, it worked on some level as a method to view both the British and Indian perspectives from an outsider's point of view. However it wasn't fully successful, as we never really know what the American is thinking or feeling when it comes to the novel's major themes; we only get a glimpse of what he is thinking or feeling regarding his own condition. A decent read, but more as a supplement to other works dealing with the same time frame of British and Indian histories.

[Reet · Rating 3 out of 5]

St John chapter 11 verse 35, "Jesus wept." this book treats with the time in India when the Brits were leaving, and the Mountbatton agreement cut off part of India, creating Pakistan so that Muslims could live in Pakistan and Hindus in india. There's a lot of anger, resentment, blaming, going on on the part of both Indians and Brits, but mostly the Indians. The Brits were so used to having their way, that it's created havoc among them, losing their jobs and their places. They don't know what to do with themselves; many of them had an Indian put over them as a boss. There's a sickening racism about people that were the offspring of an Indian and a european.

"...the athletic young American who only gradually begins to understand the legacy of pain and hatred veiling the woman he has come to rescue. "
The American, Joe mckendrick, had a brother named Dwight who had died in the Pacific on his way home from being stationed in India in the war. He had found letters from Dwight that led him to know that Dwight had had an affair with a married woman in marapore, Dorothy Gower. Dwight had left her and let her know that he was getting married to his fiance. Joe has an idea that he's going to rescue her. But when he finds out why she's so filled with hate, he doesn't want her either. She's a Eurasian, and she's trying to pass as a European with her white skin, living in dread that she'll be found out.

Mckendrick shows that he's a good guy when he helps out Cynthia with her finances, and he's not even going to go to bed with her. Her husband died as a soldier, and she has absolutely no resources. So here she is selling her wedding rings:
" "Twenty rupees. Three hundred rupees I will give for both rings. My final offer."
She let the hand drop. MacKendrick took the diamond ring from the shaking hand.
"Let's go."
She followed him out. He helped her into the tonga. With face averted she said, "Thanks for trying to beat him up. You did it well."
"Thanks. My one social grace, perhaps."
They sat together, without physical contact, and the tonga took them back to the cantonment, to Hari Chand's shop, which was a converted bungalow, and opened from nine until midday on Sunday mornings. There, while the tonga waited in the road beyond the overgrown garden, she bought cigarettes and ordered the wine. MacKendrick took out his wallet, but she said, almost angrily, "It's charged to Harriet."
When they came out the sunlight had gone. Looking up he saw that the sky was the colour of slate. The hot wind had died but suddenly it came fiercely alive again; an overwhelming force that whirled dust in stinging, angry clouds. "The shop, back to the shop!" she yelled, and together they ran back down the drive, half blinded. When they reached the door it had already been barred. The wind whipped round the bungalow and lashed their skin. There was a roaring above their heads as the trees tossed their branches in the storm. A violent gust shrieked down the drive and he caught her to him and covered her head against his chest with his jacket. He felt one side of his face pierced as if with a hundred hot needles.
The gale lasted for five minutes and then it whirled itself away from Marapore, leaving the dust floating like a mist. It lay on everything. It was in the mouth, the nostrils, beneath one's very clothes.
The tonga had gone.
Cynthia laughed. "I hope it bolted. I don't know about you, but I could use a drink right now. . ."

Dorothy gower, a half and half pretending to be white, pretends like she doesn't know her old friend from school, Judith Anderson:
"Led by Miss Haig, the girl moved awkwardly round the semi-circle of guests. Her dress was too short, the material too shiny: more obviously so in comparison with the dinner gowns Miss Haig and Dorothy Gower were wearing. The light in the room was bad and her skin showed dark and swarthy.
"This is Mr. Jimmy Smith. He's staying at your hotel, too." They shook hands, wordlessly. Even Jimmy with his whim-sical smile could not disguise his attitude towards her.
"And this is Mr. Gower."
Gower's eyes had the same look as Jimmy's. MacKendrick caught its meaning. Try as one would to ignore it, instinct said: This girl is a freak. Half-European, half-Asian, the only unity she has is a sexual one. Because of the colour of her skin one's mind immediately recalls an act of union.
Turning from the fireplace where Gower stood the girl came face to face with Dorothy.
"- and this is Mrs. Gower."
Judith was suddenly transformed. Her whole body seemed to tense up and then relax as though she had come through danger to safety, from enmity to friendliness.
"Dorothy!" she said. "Dorothy Robertson!"
She put out her hand eagerly. "Gracious, I haven't seen you in years." But as soon as Dorothy's hand closed over hers the sparkle went out of her eyes, as suddenly as it had come. She glanced swiftly down at their joined hands; then up again.
"Oh - have I made a mistake?"
"Apparently not. I was Dorothy Robertson before I was married."
"I'm Judith Anderson."
"Judith Anderson?"
The two were staring at each other.
"Judith Anderson? Oh yes. You lived not far away from my aunt's place in Calcutta before the war."
The girl made no reply, but when she moved round to Mac-Kendrick he realised she hardly saw him. ..."

The poor Indian girl who had lived with the foreman of gower's farm is treated horribly by other Indian women after her man's internment. Here she was coming to put flowers on his grave, and some Indian women beat her:
". . . he knew who she was, and knowing, he wanted to kneel by her side, comfort her, raise her up and bid her go unmolested to Steele's grave. The pitifully thin hands, the bowed head, the kneeling, shrouded figure, the bare calloused feet - all the poverty and wretchedness that was India, to these, surely, he could be tender? To these, surely, his heart would go out as for year after year he had bidden it go out?
He stood above her. He had only to bend down and touch her shoulder. He had only to do this simple, almost undemonstrative act, to prove his understanding and his compassion. But his arm was fixed rigidly by his side. Where there should have been compassion there was only distaste, and where there should have been understanding was only the desire to turn away.
He looked towards the gate and there, strewn on the ground with bruised stems and torn petals, were the remains of her bunch of flowers; and lying in the mud, a cheap, tawdry postcard with a picture in garish colours of the Virgin and Child; her offering to the alien grave, her charms against the spirits of evil.
He said, "Do you need money?" And when she did not reply, "You had better go now. While I am here they will not attack you." He watched her as she stirred. Still crouching, she began to gather up the flowers.
"Leave those. I will see that fresh ones are put where those were going."
Listlessly she obeyed, but standing, still did not face him.
He said, roughly, "Here. Here is money."
He hoped she would not take it. He thought: If she doesn't take it, then I'll be able to pity her. But he had forgotten the poverty. She turned to him and he held out the notes, his hand beginning to tremble because he could see her clearly now and see that she was not more than sixteen and already heavy with child. Knowledge of the child stunned him. The child was obscene, sprung from an act of lust and the urgency of the flesh's need. . . "

Gower's finished in marapor. The maharaja, Jimmy smith, has offered him a job, but Jimmy turns out to be a fake. He's been taken over by the Indians as well, and he's out of a job:
"And, Harriet, do please ask everyone's forgiveness. I left Delhi much sooner than I expected and everything else has been driven out of my mind." He paused. "I wish I had you here to fall back on for advice. At the moment everything looks rather grim." But she knew he said it only for the sake of saying it. "Well, Harriet - a thousand thanks for ringing."
"Goodbye, Jimmy."
"Goodbye."
She replaced the receiver and looked at the instrument, expecting it to vanish. The call had never been made. There was no telephone on the desk. She had not spoken to Boo and she had not spoken to Jimmy. She was still living on the hope that her suspicions that the job had fallen through were groundless. In a moment - why, yes - right away! - Jimmy would bound into the room - Hello, hello - There, Harriet, take my hand - don't scold - father said I mustn't be unkind. So always there had been that secret knowledge of her love, her sorrow; that knowledge that turned his kindness into pity.
She heaved her unfeeling body out of the chair and felt blindly for her sticks. When she went through into the sitting-room she saw that Dorothy had come out of the bedroom and was standing, listening, in the dining-room, her eyes on her husband. Gower turned from watching Dorothy and spoke to Miss Haig.
"I was right, wasn't I?"
She began, "In a month - he says he'll come over -"
"Yes."
"It will be all right, Tom."
"Will it?" He wavered. But then he knew. "When? This year? Next year? No - we cross off Kalipur. We cross off Jimmy, don't we?" He looked again at Dorothy who now walked back into her bedroom. He called out, "Dor! Dor!" and followed her. She crossed the bedroom to her almirah, opened the door and pulled out a small suitcase. This she placed on the stool by her dressing-table. In a drawer she had placed a selection of clothes and personal possessions. They were all ready for packing. . . "

The truth:
". . .cleaning that needs to be picked up and children that need to be bathed. And when they return home, they'll pretend to be excited. They'll feign gratitude at a family of their own choosing. They will masturbate in the shower. They will sneak nips of vodka in the pantry. They will watch their husband of fifty years snore in his chair and be struck with the crippling notion of wanting him dead and never loving someone so much, even her children.
Day after day.
Year after year.
This is what the American dream has always looked like.
Every single action is a stepping stool to another. Every conversation is one-sided, a mirror reflecting looks and status and wealth. Every person is steeped in want, and this is applauded. It's aptitude. It's go-get-'er-ness. It's hunger. It's filling themselves with goods and sex and alcohol and validation so they forget about the fact that they all will die. That there's no heaven. There's no reincarnation. There's nothing. Because Gods roam this earth, eight billion of them and counting. We all are God. We all have unlimited power and we all can access Truth through sickness and Honesty and we can see flashes of any past we desire to understand and we can move through the world like shadows.
I imagine an America in which this Truth is achieved.
This image fades into flames because Truth is shy and Ameri-cans are still Americans, each of us wanting to be a bigger God than our counterparts.
I wonder if we have enacted change.
I doubt it.
We could do the same thing every night for a year and still be cuckolded by denial.
Why?
Because the vast majority simply don't give a fuck about Honor..."

[Michael Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book by a masterful writer. Not perhaps as complete as the Raj quartet, but a brilliant single novel. It was thoughtful, it was insightful, it was sad, it was scary. One wishes Paul Scott would have gone on writing forever and written shelves-full of books like a Hemmingway or a Le Carre. Sadly, there were only six, and I have now read them all.

[Carolyn Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful book about the last days of the Raj, full of empty British people who do not know what they will do next.

[Bob Peru · Rating 4 out of 5]

the british get ready to leave.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some Faulkner-like moods invoked in this story of complex, dark emotions amongst the English community in an unimportant part of the Raj in the months before its dissolution. As this group of British confront their legacy in India the sense of failure and polution becomes overwhelming - polution in the form of the secretative anglo-indian community, of women, like Dorothy Gower, living white lives and creating hatred and self-lothing because of it.

One of Scott's earlier novels, I think, but the themese of his later work already strongly present.

[Pascale · Rating 4 out of 5]

A real page-turner. This book had me hooked right from the beginning and t remained tightly-paced and gripping until the very end. My exposure to Paul Scott before reading this consisted exclusively of the film adaptation of "Staying On", which has really stayed with me. I guess that the end of the British Empire resonates with me, but regardless of the subject matter I'd vouch for Scott's story-telling skills. This novel is as taut as any thriller, except it doesn't rely on grisly murders to propel itself forward.

[Maura · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the book well enough, but it was an intensely psychological novel of India in the waning days of the British Raj. If you aren't familiar with the time period and politics I think this book would seem a bit obscure. Readers of Paul Scott's Raj Quartet and Staying On novels would probably enjoy this. Somewhat similar to Staying On, but much darker than I recall that novel being, it examines the lives of a handful of British and Anglo-Indian characters as the days to Indian independence are counted down.

[Pam Mezaraups · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continues with Staying On and some of the Jewel in the Crown Quartet exploring the territory right before and close to England's handing over the "colony". And he understands and expresses it perfectly...his ear for character is unerring. But Jewel and Staying On I thought were so good I found it hard to rate higher...Bottom Line: Read Paul Scott.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this, but didn't enjoy it as much as The Raj Quartet and Staying On. Still, an interesting evocation of the last days of the Raj in a small Indian town, among a group of British residents (and an American visitor).

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recently discovered Paul Scott; this is the first work of his that I've read and I liked the pace, dialogue, setting. Ordered the Raj Quartet and looking forward to immersing myself into this world.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Raj from the master, Paul Scott of the Raj Quartet fame. I hadn't read this and it's certainly fascinating, beautifully written as always and tells the heartbreak of love across the racial divide

[Martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early Paul Scott and good but not nearly as good as The Raj Quartet. Those books examine many of the same issues in much greater depth.

[Rob Withers]

A meditation on race and class set against the final days of the British in the Indian subcontinent.

[Annette]

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