Staying On (The Raj Quartet, #5) in Around the World

Apr 23, 2015 Andrea rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: indian-challenge-2016, challenge, fiction-foreign-locale, around-the-world-2016

I really enjoyed this 1970s-era Man Booker Prize winner. It's a small story, but one that has been written to perfectly capture the time, the place and the circumstances of Tusker and Lucy Smalley; here an elderly couple, but previously younger minor characters in Paul Scott's Raj Quartet novels. Staying On is like a sequel to the Quartet, but it stands very happily on its own. And it's really quite funny, but with some sad, tender moments.

We meet the Smalleys when they have already been married ...more

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Apr 22, 2022 Judy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction, british-fiction, india-fiction

Decades ago I read the books that comprise the Raj Quartet by Paul Scott. Staying On was published in 1977 and won the Booker Prize, but somehow I missed it. This novel revisits India in the years following its independence from British rule.

The book is centred in Pankot and the lives of Colonel Tusker and Lucy Smalley who have decided to “stay on” in India when other British people have gone home. Seen through the eyes of Lucy Smalley as she reflects on her life, the past social mores and life ...more

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Oct 06, 2013 Beth rated it really liked it

Shelves: man-booker-prize, audiobooks, around-world-13, alphabonkers

When Tusker Smalley died of a massive coronary at approximately 9.30 a.m. on the last Monday in April, 1972, his wife Lucy was out, having her white hair blue-rinsed and set in the Seraglio Room on the ground floor of Pankot's new five storey glass and concrete hotel, The Shiraz.

These are the opening lines of Paul Scott's sequel to The Raj Quartet, which, having just so enjoyed reading about the end of Tusker and Lucy's life together, I will have to read to learn about their earlier days. Stayin ...more

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