The History Book Club discussion

Hello Everyone,

For the weeks of August 18th - August 24th, we are reading PART TWO - A Christening - The Day of the Scorpion - Book Two of the Raj Quartet.

The tenth week's reading assignment is:

WEEK TEN- August 18th - August 24th ~ PART TWO ~ A Christening (321-346))

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 August 18th.

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, "You do amount to something and you're really not alone....."

Chapter Summary and Overview

Ghandi's wife dies while in prison and he is released. There is also a rumor that a two headed child was born in a village but had died. The people believe that this is a forewarning. Moreland, an officer on the staff of the Deputy Commissioner of the Pankot district tries but fails to find exactly where this child was born but does not succeed. He is plagued by dreams of drowning.

He is in Ranpur when it is reported that the Japanese have crossed the border of India and are poised to march on Delhi. The Indians remember the forewarning and expectations of disaster. Miss Batchelor, the retired missionary teacher, also has a dream that she interprets to mean that Miss Crane, the former teacher who committed suttee was at peace in spite of her suicide. Additionally, Sarah has a dream that the family is saying goodbye to Teddie and he knows that he will not return from the war. The dream began a few days before they were notified of Teddie's death.

General Rankin comes to the house where only Sarah is at home and tells her that Teddie has been killed and he needs to tell her mother so that she can help Susan through the grief. Susan and her mother are at Aunt Mabel's Rose Cottage. Sarah tells her mother about Teddie and knows that she will have to break the news to Susan. She also thinks the doctor should be called since Susan is pregnant. Susan is asleep and Sarah and Aunt Mabel don't want to wake her. Sarah realizes that she has become a young pillar of the Anglo-Indian community. Her role as older sister was gone, trumped by Susan's marriage, since married women took precedence over a spinster.

Susan wakes and wonders why Sarah is there. Sarah tells her that Teddie has been killed and Susan pushes her away. Sarah goes to the garden to weep and hears a desolate cry of anguish and pain. But Susan does not cry and will not respond to her mother. The doctor tells Sarah that Susan wants to go home but he could not get her to lie down or take a sedative. She does not speak on the ride home and goes straight to her room. Sarah catches her mother drinking. Her mother tells her that she never really liked Teddie and really didn't think Susan had loved him. Visitors start coming to the house and the doctor visits Susan again. She wants a memorial service for Teddie and she wears grey rather than black. Susan tells Sarah that she could not face it and had prayed for the baby to die and that she never wanted a child. Sarah tells her that she is not alone but Susan says that she is nothing, that there is nothing to her but she tried and that Sarah was always herself. Sarah realizes that the world does not know this Susan.

Question

What is the significance of the two-headed child rumor?.......or is there no significance except that of being an omen for disaster.....or, as a part of Scott's imagery, does it represent India?

For anyone using the Everyman's Libary double volume edition, this week's reading ends on page 834.

So much nonfiction has made me a very literal reader. I am looking forward to hearing others' thoughts on the 2-headed child rumor and the significance of all the dreams in this section. I like your idea of the child representing India, Jill.

Jill wrote: "Question

What is the significance of the two-headed child rumor?.......or is there no significance except that of being an omen for disaster.....or, as a part of Scott's imagery, does it represent..."

Hindu deities are often depicted with multiple heads and/or arms. Serpents in Hindu mythology also often have multiple heads. Not sure what that all means, but perhaps a start on understanding?

All very good, I think. The two-headed child, whose mother expires and who didn't see day 2 in its life, as a metaphor for India works for the one-eyed reader; also as a portent of things to come.

The dreams are interesting from the differing perspectives of East and West, as well. In the west, the dream is something to be analyzed as a metaphoric expression.

But in the East, the dream is a direct expression of the mind without being filtered by the ego, which is not active in sleep.

So, in the Hindu creation story, Brahma dreamed the world into existence. No metaphor about it.

DotS seems to be treating these dreams as metaphors.

The first thing that came to my mind was the body of India with two heads, one British, one Indian......an image that the body cannot live with two heads.

I am also mostly a non-fiction reader and therefore, a literal reader as well, Donna. But it seems that Scott uses so many images and metaphors that I am seeing things in this book from a different angle. He stretches the imagination.

The meaning of the dreams could be interpreted in many ways and it is possible that each of us will have a different idea of what they mean. As Martin noted, the Westerners' dream is "something to be analyzed as a metaphoric expression".

After your mention, Jill, I saw two aspects to the two-headed, baby metaphor:

1) as you mention, India. But I saw the two heads as Hindu and Muslim. The mother as the English.

2) an omen of disruption in the natural order of things, but highly impermanent. Remember that India the land is vast and its history arises from the vast land and one could get the impression will subside back into it ultimately.

By the bye, it's a little early to rule out the dreams as only metaphoric. Some may indicate things to come, just sayin'. Don't want to run afoul of the spoiler police.

it's a little early to rule out the dreams as only metaphoric

Exactly my thought, Martin. I feel the dreams are a foreshadowing of things to come.

Could it be that the two-headed baby was a metaphor for both the Hindu and Muslim as well as the British and Indian conflicts? Scott knew that in 1947 the British would give India it's independence. Dissension was rising in India as evidenced by the earlier riots in Mayapore and Pandit Baba's overt dislike of the British. As a result of the lines drawn by the British in 1947 there were many Muslim and Hindu deaths. Ghandi himself was a Hindu but championed the rights of the Muslims, which was not a popular position to take.

Why do you think that Miss Batchelor thought that her dream was an indication that Miss Crane, who we met in the first book, was at peace? Of the three dreams mentioned, that one was the least clear as to meaning,or at least to me.

Given her deep Christian beliefs, I think Crane's story of moral rectitude and sacrifice resonated with her...at least that's the best I could make of it. In a manner, Barbie is a descendant of Crane's lineage, figuratively speaking.

It's the other part of her dream - the bit with the preacher and the Japanese storming the golf course under paper umbrellas that has me buffaloed. Great movie scene for a spoof, but it seems out of place here. And, this is not the first time it will come up, so it seems to hold some importance that escapes me.

The most I can get out of it is that Scott is spoofing the fear of the Japanese overrunning the Raj, as well as the authority of the church, but not sure that's right.

While we're on things Barbie, ain't she a hoot and a half?

At once comic and pathetic, as many missionaries are, she really grew on me as a quixotic figure, but also as a perfect imperfect bookend for Mabel.

Susan's description of her own emptiness actually made me sympathize with her. I didn't like her at the wedding at all.

I gave the question some thought because the meaning of the dream is difficult to analyze. Edwina Crane had always shown her students a drawing which I believe she felt justified her existence as a missionary school teacher in India. In the drawing India was symbolized as the jewel and England the crown. Like Martin said, Barbie was 'cut from the same cloth' and felt proud to be British 'helping' the Indians; until the type of Brits in India changed. I think Barbie 'felt' the end of the Raj coming and thought Edwina lucky to have escaped the disillusionment that came with it's fall. That's why she felt Edwina could be at peace. The Brit's work in India was done.

That is a pretty good analysis, Barbara. I just wasn't getting a connection to the other parts of the dream which I felt I partially understood.

@Martin.......the spoofing aspect of a Japanese invasion is probably as close as we will get to the "paper umbrella" scene. It seemed a bit out of place in the overall flow of the narrative.

Why did the author introduce Moreland into the story? He says that "Moreland himself passed out of sight and mind (as he passes into the limbo of only marginal images)" {pg 322}. Was it just to introduce the first dream (drowning) or am I taking the author's statement "marginal images" too literally? Will he reappear later?

What I noticed in the reference to Morland were his observations: constant freshness of the flowers on the wayside shrines of tribal gods. This may have provoked the dream about death by drowning - a symbol of rebirth. Perhaps Morland, having come under the spell of the Naga hills people, saw a prophecy from their perspective; that being the over throw of the Brits by the Japanese. The tribal people had been ruled by shifting powers throughout history.

Susan's response to Teddie's death did not surprise me. She feels that she is nothing and a nobody, widowed and left with a soon-to-be born child that she never wanted. She is no longer "protected" by her position as wife and center of attention.......she had "created a world around herself of which she was the organizing determinedly happy centre" (pg.346). That world has been destroyed by Teddie's death. What are your thoughts about Susan at this point?

Teddie's death, it seems to me, has tipped Susan over into madness. The other characters perceive her grief as "savage."

Sarah is headed off in another direction as indicated by her claustrophobial dream (p.323 in the Chicago edition). She dreams of a man with an insatiable sexual appetite for her, yet climax is not possible. But the promise is enough.

The dream is a more sophisticated expression of Sarah's suspension between two poles, whether it's being neither in England, nor in India, or the dream of unfulfilled love.

She is trapped in claustrophobia and cannot go to her lover, but he can enter the sphere in which she is confined.

Not sure what the point of Morland is. He wasn't around long, was he?

Thanks, Martin.....I would agree that Susan is walking on the edge and I was not surprised that she stated that she didn't' want the baby. I don't believe that had anything to do with the fact that Teddie was killed. I don't think she ever wanted it. A child would be an intrusion to her "circle of happiness" as she would define it.

I can't figure out why Morland was introduced. Was it the fact that his dream of drowning was a metaphor for the loosening grip of Britain on India? But it is a little strange that the author introduced a character for that one reason when the dream could be assigned to a continuing character. Will he show up again.....probably not.

Susan is just the opposite to Sarah. Where Sarah is introspective, Susan is superficial. Sarah is nurturing compared to Susan as self-centered. I could go on and on with the differences, although they both liked Barbie, which surprised me as I would have expected Susan to disdain her. I wonder if Scott has Susan in the book to act as a counterpoint to Sarah's growth.

Remember Susan and Sarah are both Scorpios. As in all things astrological, for every quality, there is a counter quality. I think it could be a little overly simplistic to only focus on Susan's negative qualities and see Sarah as a paragon.

Sarah's dream is indicative. She lives in a claustrophobic world (the Raj) for all her independent thinking. She's not rocking the boat. Truth be told, she lives in the shadow of Lady M, who can pull strings, make things happen, and achieve a degree of equanimity that Sarah gives no indication of mastering.

@Martin.....I like your comparison of Sarah to Lady M. Since she is HE's widow, she has many connections that Sarah will never have, especially since the times are about the change in the political environment of India. If she had been born earlier in the time of the Raj, she may have been a mirror of Lady M.

Sarah seems like a paragon compared to Susan but that may be a flawed comparison. Sarah's self introspection and reaction to outside influences often
seem rather overly dramatic. I feel that I don't really know Sarah or the direction her life will take.