The History Book Club discussion

Hello Everyone,

For the weeks of July 7th - July 13th, we are reading PART THREE - A Wedding, 1943 - The Day of the Scorpion - Book Two of the Raj Quartet.

The fourth week's reading assignment is:

WEEK FOUR- July 7th - July 13th ~ PART THREE - A Wedding, 1943 (111-143)

We will open up a thread for each week's reading. Please make sure to post in the particular thread dedicated to those specific chapters and page numbers to avoid spoilers. We will also open up supplemental threads as we did for other spotlighted books.

This book was kicked off on June 16th.

We look forward to your participation. Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other noted on line booksellers do have copies of the book and shipment can be expedited. The book can also be obtained easily at your local library, local bookstore or on your Kindle. Make sure to pre-order now if you haven't already. This weekly thread will be opened up on July 7th.

There is no rush and we are thrilled to have you join us. It is never too late to get started and/or to post.

Jill will be leading this discussion and back-up will be Bentley.

Welcome,

~Bentley

TO ALWAYS SEE ALL WEEKS' THREADS SELECT VIEW ALL

by Paul Scott

REMEMBER NO SPOILERS ON THE WEEKLY NON SPOILER THREADS - ON EACH WEEKLY NON SPOILER THREAD - WE ONLY DISCUSS THE PAGES ASSIGNED OR THE PAGES WHICH WERE COVERED IN PREVIOUS WEEKS. IF YOU GO AHEAD OR WANT TO ENGAGE IN MORE EXPANSIVE DISCUSSION - POST THOSE COMMENTS IN ONE OF THE SPOILER THREADS. THESE CHAPTERS HAVE A LOT OF INFORMATION SO WHEN IN DOUBT CHECK WITH THE CHAPTER OVERVIEW AND SUMMARY TO RECALL WHETHER YOUR COMMENTS ARE ASSIGNMENT SPECIFIC. EXAMPLES OF SPOILER THREADS ARE THE GLOSSARY, THE BIBLIOGRAPHY, THE INTRODUCTION AND THE BOOK AS A WHOLE THREADS.

Notes:

It is always a tremendous help when you quote specifically from the book itself and reference the chapter and page numbers when responding. The text itself helps folks know what you are referencing and makes things clear.

Citations:

If an author or book is mentioned other than the book and author being discussed, citations must be included according to our guidelines. Also, when citing other sources, please provide credit where credit is due and/or the link. There is no need to re-cite the author and the book we are discussing however.

If you need help - here is a thread called the Mechanics of the Board which will show you how to cite books:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2...

Introduction Thread:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Table of Contents and Syllabus

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Glossary

Remember there is a glossary thread where ancillary information is placed by the moderator. This is also a thread where additional information can be placed by the group members regarding the subject matter being discussed.

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Bibliography

There is a Bibliography where books cited in the text are posted with proper citations and reviews. We also post the books that the author used in his research or in his notes. Please also feel free to add to the Bibliography thread any related books, etc with proper citations. No self promotion, please.

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...


Book as a Whole and Final Thoughts - SPOILER THREAD

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

by Paul Scott

We do not have to do citations regarding the book or the author being discussed during the book discussion on these discussion threads - nor do we have to cite any personage in the book being discussed while on the discussion threads related to this book.

However if we discuss folks outside the scope of the book or another book is cited which is not the book and author discussed then we do have to do that citation according to our citation rules. That makes it easier to not disrupt the discussion.

NOTE

For those of you who are reading this book on e-books or whose edition has different numbering than that used by the moderator, the last page of this week's assignment ends with the sentence, "Breakfast came to the table at last."

Chapter Overview and Summary

A WEDDING - A Marriage, 1943

Ahmed tells Pandit Baba that many people think his father is a "showcase' Muslim; a Muslim chosen for the government to show that the Congress is not a Hindu-riddled organization. PandIt Baba had lived in Mayapore and knows of the sexual assault of Daphne Manners, although he questions the issue of rape. He knows Hari Kumar but says he doesn't believe there was any intimacy between Hari and Daphne as he thinks that intimacy between Indian and English is not possible.He speaks of the tortured boys who were arrested and the special interest of the District Superintendent in Hari Kumar who was "set up" to be arrested due to the bicycle incident( mentioned in earlier chapters).

Young Kasim goes riding with Sarah Layton and she questions him about his religion. She also feels that the English who live in India are strong and self sufficient which enables them to take control of their colonial territories. But she also knows that the control is coming to an end and it would not come easily.

During the ride, Sarah muses on love and happiness and what they really mean. She feels that she questions everything too much and is not content to let things just happen. And that unless she changes, she will never be happy.

Question

Do you agree with Pandit Baba that Hari Kumar hated India and would never be involved in subversive activities.....that he felt Indians were foreigners to him and he identified with the British?

"agree with Pandit Baba that Hari Kumar hated India"

Jill - I may be misreading the book, but I don't see a passage where Pandit says Hari hated India. His observations and analysis is free of any commentary that would require clairvoyance (reading the emotional state of the other).

Pandit's take, I think, is that Hari was alienated from Indians. Again, maybe I'm misreading, but a good part of Pandit's description of the rape and its outcome strikes me as a literary device to bridge the first and second books of the quartet and present a recounting of the narrative that is relatively clean of cultural baggage. But, I reserve the right to be wrong.

Maybe hated was the wrong word but I feel it was more than alienation....possibly distaste. The Pandit tried to teach Hari and got to know him. I don't think it would take clairvoyance for him to ascertain Hari's distaste, alienation, or whatever we might want to call it. I may be reading too much into it but even in the first book, my first impression of Hari was his extreme dislike of India and its people with whom he could not relate.
So let's take a middle ground and call it alienation instead of hate and I will also reserve the right to be wrong. (smile)

Well, always open to a middle way here, maybe this is it:

"All of us were foreigners to hari Kumar. He knew only English people and English ways. Only he wanted these people and these ways."

He was a foreigner in his own land. Again, reserving the right...

The beauty of literature is that each reader's response is a personal transaction with the author and, as such, is allowable, debatable, interesting, and enriching but hardly ever, I think, right or wrong. The difficulty with reading bits of a book and then trying to interpret or draw conclusions based on those bits is that one doesn't yet see the whole picture - and this is especially true and problematic with the Raj Quartet with it's slowly unfolding and circular story lines. Here, again, in The Day of the Scorpion, we have yet another version about what happened at Mayapore from the viewpoint of the Pandit Baba.

Well stated, Donna.

Or, one is aware of how the story unfolds but has to limit the scope of comments to the section being read, while having an awareness of how the story unfolds.

That said, my understanding is fluid enough that not only does it change upon a second reading, but also based on the wonderful discussion in these threads.

Well done, Martin and Donna.........the beauty of Scott's writing (and we have said this before) is that it leaves much unsaid and leaves the reader to interpret his words. I have to agree, Donna, that it can be difficult, especially with this book, to be restricted to only sections rather than the whole book but it is the easiest way to have a group read. I never read ahead on a group read for the very reason that Martin stated...."one is aware of how the story unfolds" and in my case it would affect my ability to be neutral with my comments.

I agree, Jill. And there are many rewards that come along with the group read. I find that my understanding is greatly enhanced by following the discussion.

Question

Do you think that Sarah had a particular motive, either consciously or unconsciously, for riding out with young Ahmed?

I had trouble with this section. It would seem that riding out with Ahmed as her escort was Sarah's idea. Her questions about religion demonstrate her curiousity but also serve as a contrivance for Scott to impart information about the differences between Sunni and Shiah. I think there may be some significance to the fact that the end of Ramadan and the saying of the Id al-fitr prayers (also called the "breaking of the fast" prayers according to Wikipedia) will occur about a week after Susan's wedding. Then, Sarah repeats three times, "Everybody will be happy." What is she meaning? Sarah seems troubled and much less sure of herself in this section. Ahmed continues to remain aloof - not allowing himself to be drawn in or fully engage with Sarah. More questions than answers for me.

I don't think most young English women would have ridden out alone with an Indian man.......even if the reason were only that "it was not done", rather than fear. But Sarah does not seem to care and I am beginning to feel that she has much in common with Daphne Manners.

It seems to the one-eyed reader that there is much in this passage about a gallop on horseback. Some thoughts:

1) We've not talked much about a primary character in the quartet, the vastness of India, the land. It figures prominently in this section and emblematic of the role the land plays in the novel. Remember, the quartet begins with "Imagine, then, a flat landscape..."

Already in this installment of the quartet we've seen, or metaphorically experienced (?) the land as a train of passengers going they know not where speed through it never reaching a final destination, a final state of being.

The land's role is explored in the recounting of Sarah's paper on the effect geography has on the people who live in it (tip of the hat to Passage to India?). Some of it is patent nonsense of the imperil Raj, but some of it reflects a coeval revolution in history to consider the impact geography has on the recounting any people's story. At the time Scott was penning the quartet, the French scholar Fernand Braudel was expanding our understanding of history with the notion that history is made of three times: geographical, social, and individual. It seems that if Scott was aware of Braudel's work, he then arrived at a similar approach on his own. (Again, as with the previous passage with Pandit Baba, the ridiculous and the profound are woven so tightly together that it is difficult if not impossible to separate the strands.)

Also, on the use of the word "Imagine" to open the story, I would remind dear readers that the Hindu origin story first recognizes Brahmin dreaming the world into existence.

2) We get important insight into another facet of Sarah's complexity, which is described in the context of the land.

"She dug in her heels. A moment she loved: the slight hesitation, the gathering of propulsive forces in the animal she sat astride, the first leap forward that always seemed to her like a leap into a world of unexplored delight which she could only cut a narrow channel through and which she would reach the farther end of too soon but not without experiencing on the way something of the light and mysterious pleasure that existed for creatures who broke free of their environment..."

Then later: "She noted the first phase of that curious phenomenon of the Indian plain, the gradual disappearance of the horizon, as if the land were expanding, stretching itself, destroying the illusion that the mind, hand and eye could stake a claim to any part that bore a real relation to the whole. It is always retreating.

So, it seems, this sets Sarah in the geographic time that is India in the quartet. It's not the stake-in-the-ground differentiation that lends certainty; but rather it is a fluid relationship between a questioning soul traveling through a vast and expanding universe that denies any attempt to fix it in a sense of time that is static.

Ultimately, Sarah recognizes: "My trouble is, she thought, I question everything, every assumption. I'm not content to let things be, to let things happen. If I don't change that I shall never be happy."

True. But, what a lot she'll know.

by E.M. Forster

Much like what she said to Lady Manners!

I was taken by her thoughts on the "phenomenon of the Indian plain..........destroying the illusion that the mind, hand and eye could stake a claim to any part.......". This is a young woman who, in my opinion, sees the futility of the British presence in India....their time has passed and Mother India waits patiently for the change to come. Is she thinking of what her role will be when change comes and although not stated, she is attracted to young Ahmed, much as Daphne was attracted to Hari. Does she feel the parallel of that situation and how it will affect her happiness?

Scott does this a lot in the quartet and by this time he has already established the coupling of characters for the purposes of character as action and inviting the reader to make comparisons such as Sarah and Daphne.

I think there are similarities, but also vast differences.

Both are open minded, questioning, to differing degrees comfortable flaunting conventional wisdom and customs.

But where Daphne threw herself into the river, immersed herself with not much, if any, care for herself; Sarah travels a middle path between the nonconventional and conventional, perhaps more akin to say Mabel.

The relationship between Sarah and Ahmed, while not without sexual tension, is in a different orbit than Daphne and Hari.

Would you expound on your statement that the relationship between Sarah and Ahmed is in a different orbit. Although it has certainly not reached any level of friendship,let alone intimacy, I seem to see them traveling a similar path as Daphne and Hari or at least a concentric circle.

A similar path, but also fundamentally different.

Scott uses the metaphor of throwing oneself in the river, consequences be damned to describe Daphne's motivation(s).

I don't think that the same can be said about Ahmed's early relationship with Sarah. Note the objectivity and distance he maintains during their ride.

Are they testing social conventions, and conventional wisdom? Yes, they have that in common with Daphne and Hari. But other characters in the quartet to this point have tested conventional wisdom and the social norm, Mabel and Lady Manners, most recently for example.

Martin wrote: "A similar path, but also fundamentally different.

Scott uses the metaphor of throwing oneself in the river, consequences be damned to describe Daphne's motivation(s).

I don't think that the same ..."

Excellent analysis, Martin, as always. I don't think we yet see the full flowering of the relationship between Sarah and young Ahmed. We don't know why they are out riding or on whose request, although we can guess that Sarah asked Ahmed to accompany her. I agree that so far it's a tentative relationship, with Ahmed remaining more aloof. But that, I think, is somewhat comparable to the relationship of Daphne and Hari at the beginning. I remember them standing outside at a party with Hari remaining very aloof, almost rudely so, while Daphne made overtures. Like Sarah, Daphne was curious and not racially biased or driven by societal norms, although Sarah is perhaps more self-aware and analytical.

I liked what you said about India - the land - and it's role in this whole theme. The land, itself, and the way in which the people in the narrative relate with it and are influenced by it can't be overlooked.

Donna - thanks for your post. I do not mean by any regard to rule out similarities between the Daphni/Hari pairing and that of Sarah/Ahmed. But, simultaneously, even at this early stage, I see profound differences.

Hari, in my estimation, was diffident during that first meeting.

Ahmed, not so much. His is a calculated difference. Calculated in the distance he keeps from Sarah, but also calculated in the proximity he provides in helping to bring unruly horses to order (a loaded metaphor if ever there was, no?). Calculated in the guidance he gives about the route they should follow. Calculated in the danger he is courting, whether riding a bicycle over rough ground at night, or a horse with an English woman the next day (p.96).

We also know at this point that Ahmed is what Jimi Hendrix might have called "experienced." He's been to a few brothels and is chided for it by Bronowsky (p.90).

Also, in his exchange with B we learn that Sarah has asked to ride (p.91) and that Ahmed says "I'm expected to ride with her I think."

Even in their education, I think Ahmed differs substantially from Hari. Where both tend to western liberalism and B advocates for Indian youth more firmly rooted in their home country, Ahmed was educated in India, and regards himself proudly and passionately as Indian, even as the young Muslim sips whiskey with the Russian count.

I think Ahmed is a more complex character when contrasted with Hari. I also think Sarah more complex than Daphne. Scott seems to be shifting this narrative onto higher ground.

Yes, there are similarities and differences. It will be interesting to get a handle on Ahmed as we learn more of his back story and see more of him in action. Right now, he's a bit of an enigma for me, but I agree his aloofness appears more deliberate and, as you say, calculated. He wasn't just dropped into an alien culture as was Hari.

I'm reading Spurling's biography of Scott. It's interesting to see his inspiration for many of his characters and amazing that this body of work came from someone who had spent so little time in India.

by Hilary Spurling

Please expand on the Spurling comment. I haven't read it.

Sure. Scott had a relatively brief - about 3 years - wartime experience in India and apparently fell in love with the country. He did return for two visits some 20 years later. But his initial visit had a lasting impact on him and helped him to understand the world in which he grew up. In his words, "When I lived in Southgate, I knew nothing of India. Returning I see images of India everywhere...the maidan, the club, the cantonment, the governor's residence. Only the names were different...we were as aware of social distinctions as they were in Mudpore, to that extent, India was never a surprise to me" (pp.3-4).

There are many references throughout the book to the sources and inspirations for characters. I'm still reading the book but some of these I've looked at skimming through. For example, the early inspirations for Susan and Sarah Layton were Scott's own two daughters, Sally and Carol. But, as they took on fictional identities, Scott, according to Spurling, "at a deeper level, drew on himself" (p.327). Spurling expands on this, revealing that Sarah's voice and consciousness, in particular, is one that Scott's friends immediately recognized as his own.

I'm reading the bio slowly because it gives away much of the later plot points.

Hilary Spurling

In another source, I found this quote by Scott, which I love:

"For myself, the act of writing a novel is an act of asking questions, not answering them. My curiosity is more valuable to me than are my transient assumptions."

http://harvardreview.fas.harvard.edu/...

Thanks much Donna. keep us informed.

Great posts. I have to admit that I never achieved a real understanding of Hari beyond his identification with the British rather than his countrymen. I am inclined to think that Scott will flesh out the personality of Ahmed more than he did with Hari. He feels uncomfortable communicating with his imprisoned father because of his service to the Nawab so I am interested in how his employment with the Nawab in a princely state that has some autonomy, will affect his involvement (if he has one) in the eventual push for Indian independence.

Stay tuned, Jill. Both characters are fleshed out going forward. That's pretty much true of all the main characters going forward.

I think there's an observation by some quartet experts, or scholars, or whatever, that Scott to a large degree was feeling his way and experimenting in The Jewel in the Crown; and that he gained his footing in the remaining three volumes.

That makes sense, Martin, since he was fairly vague about a few of the characters who we knew would show up in later volumes. Many series books can be read in non-sequential order but this is not one of them. You really have to read the quartet chronologically or you would be floundering, I fear.

It is obvious that the English ladies already have decided on Sarah's character. When Susan and Teddie's wedding is not postponed because of his re-assignment, the ladies suppose that maybe there is another reason for the rush to the altar but decide that would only be if it had been Sarah since where she was concerned, "nothing was beyond the bounds of possibility". What do you think she has done, besides visiting Lady Manners on the houseboat, that has somewhat sullied the opinion of the English ladies?

Where's Hana? She's such a slacker.

Martin!!!!!! She will hunt you down for that appellation. (smile). I think she is still on last week's assignment. She'll show up with her interesting comments.

Drat, Martin! You're right :D

I'm brain dead from the heat. Waiting for the monsoon (such as it is in New England) and debating whether to make Thai Grilled Chicken with Cilantro Dipping Sauce or Grilled Jerk Chicken with Mango Cilantro Salsa for Friday night.

In between I'll try to think of something witty and intelligent, but mostly I need to catch up with you all :)

I vote for the Thai Grilled Chicken with Cilantro Dipping Sauce!!!! That really sounds good.

When you have a minute look at post#31 and give me your take on that situation. Thanks.

Jill wrote: "When Susan and Teddie's wedding is not postponed because of his re-assignment, the ladies suppose that maybe..."

But that supposition, so typical of that ladies of that age and class (yes, sorry, type-casting here), seems to have been dead wrong.

If the encounter young Ahmed overheard is to be believed, Susan seems not to have been particularly attracted to her future husband, and may well have been rather turned off by the whole idea of physical contact.

Jill wrote: "It is obvious that the English ladies already have decided on Sarah's character. When Susan and Teddie's wedding is not postponed because of his re-assignment, the ladies suppose that maybe there i..."

I think Sarah just doesn't quite follow the unwritten rules. She seems to be a bit too honest for the English in India.

That's an interesting point Kathy. My first thought about Sarah was not honesty but impatience and a sort of desire to shake off other times and other places.

But she knows that there is a fundamental dishonesty about the...what shall I call it...the triangle of her relationship with her parents and her sister. Susan is the favored child. The one everyone loves, including her parents.

Perhaps Sarah's father sees a more complex picture, but is that enough to heal the wounds of so many years of voluntarily taking second place?

Susan reminds me of the typical "spoiled brat" type. I don't think Teddie is the brightest bulb on the tree and is not aware that she only cares for herself (or at least it appears that way). This will end up being a wedding of convenience....the English lady married to the British officer....a most acceptable relationship in Colonial India.
Sarah on the other hand is an independent and as she said about herself,"I question things too much". As Kathy said, she doesn't quite follow the rules. What do you think her position will be as things heat up in the independence movement?

I am loathe to judge any of the characters in the quartet, especially after having read all four volumes. By the time the perceptive reader reaches the end, it is most difficult to label any of these characters, in my estimation anyway.

As a wise man I once knew often counseled: reserve judgment.

As someone whose father was a diplomat, I derived much amusement from the last seven pages in this section. The wives of men assigned overseas face a unique challenge. Their job prospects, for the most part, are awfully limited. Essentially, they are stay-at-home moms in a foreign country. Associations such as the club(s) in the quartet offer an opportunity for them to form their own social organizations.

That said, Scotts description of the English women in India as "white brood mares" earned a guffaw and chortle from me.

An insight, I think, unique to the Raj is this:

"'But then,' Sarah thought, 'we all have the same sort of history. Birth in India, of civil or military parents, school in England, holidays spent with aunts and uncles, then back to India.' It was a ritual. A dead hand lay on the whole enterprise. But still it continued; back and forth, the constant flow, girls like herself and Susan, and boys like Teddie Bingham: so many young white well-bred mares brought out to stud for the purpose of coupling with so many young white well-bred stallions, to ensure the inheritance and keep it pukka. At some date in the foreseeable future it would stop. At home you understood this, but something odd happened when you came back. You could not visualize it, then, ever stopping.'"

Like another lawyer of the onion, the passengers on that metaphorical train enduring their going hither even as their coming hence is revealed, breathing more life into those passengers.

Aunt Fenny is a stitch and her type is not limited to the Raj. I recognize Aunt Fenny in a number of matrons presiding in the sorority of women whose husbands are assigned to a post in a foreign country.

The description of Merrick as "a gee-three-eye" by Teddie speaks volumes, not about Merrick, but by how the men are seen through the eyes of their colleagues.

From the first volume, readers have a much different and fuller description of Merrick. But at a wedding breakfast presided over by the matrons of the Raj, identification is by civil or military rank. That rank defines who one is. It fixes them in the universe of the Raj.

Of course, the blot on the almost perfect order of the Raj is Lady Manners.

Lastly, Sarah has this insight to offer, which I find awfully telling:

"Once out of our natural environment (she thought) something in us dies. What? Our belief in ourselves as people who each have something special to contribute? What we shall leave behind is what we have done as a group and not what we could have done as individuals which means that it will be second-rate."

Martin wrote: "I am loathe to judge any of the characters in the quartet, especially after having read all four volumes. By the time the perceptive reader reaches the end, it is most difficult to label any of the..."

That is why I don't read ahead...I don't want to be influenced in my impressions of the characters at this point which are only gut reactions (that's an ugly term, isn't it?). Scott drops hints and allusions that give us some insight into each character but these can also be interpreted incorrectly. As we move forward, I will probably change my mind several times before reaching a decision about the major players but that is what makes this book so interesting. It is like the magician who uses misdirection....I may be looking at the wrong thing to form my opinions.

I feel strongly that Sarah is the most independent of the younger set and because of her sometimes cavalier attitude, the matrons or as I like to call them, "the ladies who lunch", don't look particularly favorably upon her. It is a very closed society.

I concur, Jill, on the reading ahead and on Sarah. She is independent in thought, word, and deed - reason enough for the "ladies who lunch" (love that) to look upon her with suspicion. Susan, herself, seems to recognize that if she could just be more conventional, and not so questioning, she would be "happier."

Aunt Frenny's type is indeed not limited to the environment of the Raj. She is the center of information and rumour, the social arbiter and I found it amusing that she supposedly kept an Army List by her bedside so that she would know the order of seniority so necessary to her for social reasons. She speaks of a neighbor on the lake "who turned out to be someone on whom it was impossible to call" (pg 141) and of course that was Lady Manners. Sarah thinks back to her visit to Lady M and also of her Auntie Mabel, realizing that they are of a different stripe than Aunt Frenny and her group of mem'sahibs. It makes Sarah think of her own inadequacy as a human being. This gives me the impression that we may expect something significant from Sarah that will "upset the apple cart" in this world in which social rules are everything. Or am I stretching a point?