The History Book Club discussion

Hello Everyone,

For the weeks of December 8th - 14th, we are reading PART ONE - The Unknown Indian - The Towers of Silence -Book III,(pg. 1-38).

The first week's reading assignment is:

WEEK ONE- December 8th - December 14th ~ PART ONE ~ The Unknown Indian (pg. 1 - 38))

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 December 8th.

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 December 8th.

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

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

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

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

by Paul Scott

Chapter Overview and Summary

The year is 1939, war is just beginning and we find Barbi Batchelor retiring from her post as Superintendent of the mission school. She could have stayed for a few more years but the school was not moving in the direction that she felt was its goal. She desired to bring the Hindu and Muslim children to Christianity but the administration decreed that their purpose was education, not conversion.

She feels that she might become a lonely old woman living on her pension until she sees a advertisement in the local paper from Mabel Layton, seeking someone to share her home at Rose Cottage in Pankot. Barbie writes to Mrs. Layton (Auntie Mabel from our previous reading) and it is decided that Barbie will visit and if it goes well, she will move to Pankot. Mrs. Layton's servant, Aziz, meets her at the station and as they drive uphill, Aziz stops the cart and gestures to the valley below..."Pankot" he says and Barbie gazes at a beautiful scene of green hills and valleys and whispers "Praise God". Barbie gives Aziz a little photograph of herself and later finds that he has put it in a silver frame and that she had passed Aziz's "test"....she was welcome.

Rose Cottage is delightful but Barbie realizes that she must learn more about gardening since Mabel spends most of her time in the lovely gardens surrounding the house. During the first week of her stay, many neighbors and friends drop by and Barbie realizes that she is being vetted by Mabel's circle. Barbie thinks she is a disappointment but finds that Mabel wants her to stay on and consider Rose Cottage her home.

Mildred Layton and her daughters Sarah and Susan come to Pankot looking for a place to live. Barbie thinks that maybe Mabel had been anticipating this and that is why she took her on as a companion. They settle, instead, in a grace and favor bungalow of the Pankot Rifles. Mildred, although disappointed, remains on good terms with Mabel and the girls visit Rose Cottage often. Barbie feels somewhat threatened by what she identifies as Mildred's "virtue". This virtue is traced to her connection with the Pankot Rifles which is the overriding basis for everything in Pankot.....something to which Barbie has no connection. Mabel is impervious to that attitude of "duty to the regiment" thinking of the wives/daughters of officers although she also belongs to that group.

Mildred begins drinking rather heavily and is vague and disconnected. Bills pile up but she seems to ignore the situation and the town wonders how many times Mabel has bailed her out to avoid scandal.

Note: For those of you who have different editions of the book, this week's reading assignment ends at the close of Chapter Three.

Discussion

The colonial era saw huge differences of opinion among the colonialists themselves about education for Indians. This was divided into two schools - the orientalists, who believed that education should happen in Indian languages (of which they favoured classical or court languages like Sanskrit or Persian) or utilitarians (also called anglicists) like Thomas Babington Macaulay, who strongly believed that India had nothing to teach its own subjects and the best education for them should happen in English. Thomas Babington Macaulay introduced English education in India, especially through his famous minute of February 1835. He called an educational system that would create a class of anglicised Indians who would serve as cultural intermediaries between the British and the Indians

Question

Barbie is not happy with the changes that were happening in the mission school. Do you think that the school administration saw what was about to occur in India (independence) and modified their stance on converting Muslims/Hindus to Christianity?

Hello Raj and Jill - we are delighted to continue this series and I know that you have a few people catching up so I hope this journey is a good one.

I will place another notice in the moderator's corner that you are now open

Yes, I am in. Love, love this series and so glad to be continuing.

It is the English War and Peace and I know that Jill is happy that you are joining in. This is a great undertaking and Jill has done a great job so far.

The first time through the Quartet, it seemed to me that the character Barbie fell off the dark side of Mars and landed in the story. Not only did I have no earthly idea what she was doing in the story, but I sensed clanging dissonance with her presence in the narrative.

In the opening, she's quite a comic character, a none too bright, but energetic, chattering missionary whose voice carries, prays out loud, and visualizes bringing the heathen Hindus and Moslems into the Christian fold. Nothing impedes her.

But, she ultimately bumps into the mission schools' reality, which is to provide education in English and other practical skills the Hindus and Moslems need to play their role in the society imposed by the civil administrators.

In fact, after that revolt in 1857 - the one where the Moslems objected to cartridges greased with pig fat, or so it was said - the general consensus was to tamper down efforts to convert.

But none of this deters Barbie, even as she is put aside and nudged into retirement. Her secret sorrow is her loss of faith.

It seems to me that's a fairly apt metaphor for the action at the opening of The Towers of Silence. There is a general loss of faith. By the characters and the institutions they inhabit, whether the missionary school system, the administrators, there seems to be either a loss of faith, or at least an erosion of it.

Barbie takes on added importance in this volume. But for now, in addition to being a metaphor of the Raj, she is about to become a central figure - the third figure signaling yet another dangerous triangle - in Mabel's defense against Mildred's siege of the Rose bungalow.

I also felt in the beginning that Barbie would be a person who passed through the skein of the story and be a secondary character who would be mentioned now and again......an extra in the crowd of acquaintances, if you will. It appears instead that she may be symbolic of the changing face of India but I am going to give the story of Barbie a little more time to develop before I get a grasp of her importance........though I like your idea of the triangle concerning Rose Cottage.

Bentley wrote: "It is the English War and Peace and I know that Jill is happy that you are joining in. This is a great undertaking and Jill has done a great job so far."

Thanks, Bentley.

Barbie's loss of faith..........a conundrum. She still believes in God but feels that He does not believe in her any longer. She has no joy in teaching children in the mission school but hopes to regain that joy in retirement. I see your point, Martin, as her loss of faith being a metaphor for the general loss of faith in the late Raj period and would generally agree. But she lives a rather secluded existence so she is not exposed to the changing attitudes in British India except within the mission school. It makes me wonder if there is something else going on that we are not aware of at this point. Or it may just be one of those little points that Scott makes that shows alienation of Britain/India and we will hear no more about it.

I don't want you slapping me around, putting me in time out, or sentencing me to the spoiler hoosegow, but Barbie is a trip. She's a metaphysical gal.

But, I've never gotten a handle on that dream with the Japanese overrunning the golf course under umbrellas. I'm hoping Ulla can shed some light on that. I think she has psychological insights into these characters that are enlightening.

No cuffs for you this time, Martin!! I am looking forward to seeing Barbie in a different way as the story progresses....she seems pretty neutral at this point. Her life was her teaching, as long as it was of the religious bent and not "reading, writing, and arithmetic". Does she have the initiative to turn her life to something more fulfilling? I have hopes since she is about to tie up with Auntie Mabel who is absolutely her own woman and may open up Barbie's horizons.

Not to sell Memsahib Barbie short. Already at Rose Cottage she is in contact with the spiritual, the illness and Miss Crane. Not everything of value is found on resume.

Barbie is almost destitute at the point when Mabel takes her in. Her life is ready to spin out of control but she lands somewhere safe, even if it feels foreign. I see this as a new beginning for her. She's hopeful that the change will be good, although she is very unsure of it. In that aspect she is like the evolving Raj. Will it survive the test of time and if so, will it have a solid base or will it find itself thrown out in the cold.

Glad you joined us, Barbara. I am hoping that life with Auntie Mabel will indeed help Barbie with her "secret sorrow" as she called it.

Did Mabel take in Barbie because she liked her or, as Martin pointed out, to avoid the problem arising when Mildred and her daughters show up, looking for a place to live? Barbie seems so colorless that maybe Mabel wanted someone to share the house who would not "get in the way". Having Mildred, Sarah, and Susan living there would totally disrupt Mabel's life and would also create a situation of ascendancy.....who would be in charge. So her selection of Barbie may have been two-fold.

Mabel was clever yet very subtle about her actions. She had enough confidence to emotionally tolerate Mildred's claim to Rose Garden but didn't want to be bothered by a fight. She may have used Barbie to keep Mildred out of her hair, but I also think she liked Barbie's independence, not needing constant attention and disposition to not gossip. So I think Mabel found Barbie the perfect housemate and it conveniently worked well with other "concerns" at the time.

Yeah. All this maneuvering by the women is more intricate, a better display of strategy and tactical positioning than anything the much vaunted 1st Pankot Rifle Company does. The men just marched off to North Africa and got their posteriors shot off by a bunch of Italians.

Poor Mildred, the rock of the 1st Pankot, not only is outflanked by her step mother in law, but step daughter in law is confronted by this chattering missionary who has been deployed in her path and is blocking her from what is rightfully hers, living quarters at the Rose Cottage.

And if that weren't enough, this chattering Bible thumper is the mirror image of what Mildred would have become under the causes and conditions that shaped Barbie.

Whew.

"As often as not it is the sense of the unbearable comedy of life that lights those fires which can only be dampened down by compulsive drinking."

Ain't that the truth?

The hierarchy in Pankot is a complex one and Mabel has just disassociated herself from what I imagine she thinks is the pettiness of it all. She is secure in Rose Cottage and now she has Barbie to run interference for her. She refused to be drawn into a family squabble and stayed above it. Was she aware that she was causing Mildred sorrow and defeat by taking in a boarder rather than her own family?

From my seat in the bleachers, it would appear that Mabel and Mildred have each executed intricate battle plans, waging a war, without so much as a sharp word being exchanged.

The whole reading this week is comedy. I missed that first time through. I'm not sure but that it signals a seismic shift in the Quartet, a comedy of secret sorrows. I think.

In a sense, this war was waged in silence. A fair amount of silence has entered into this book entitled The Towers of Silence.

Obviously, the title refers to those associated with funeral rites, the gateways to death and the silence beyond. But then there was this silent war over the Rose Cottage. And later on (get those handcuffs out, and whip me this time too) Barbie and Mabel are referred to as the towers of silence. I think it's fair to see Mabel and Mildred as towers of silence.

And, in this section, there is reference to holy silence, little silences (has to be a play on little death, the French term for orgasm) from Mabels friends in response to Barbie's prattling, among others.

Haven't quite put this all together and have to run now, but wanted to throw that out there.

The entire social machinations of the women in Pankot are humorous to me.......who has seniority over whom and why borders on the ridiculous but that was the way of British India where the rituals of the Victorian age were still the norm. The twentieth century is held at bay and the situation of escalating unrest in India can be ignored by holding on to the past.

No whips and chains for you this time, Martin, since the situation regarding Rose Cottage, Barbie, and the unspoken struggle between Mabel and Mildred fits nicely as representative of the title. But I think there may be more than that as we move forward in the book........are the British the towers of silence since they make no move to let go of India?......we shall see.

I agree that Mabel knows just what she is doing.

She is her own woman. And even though she is the step-mother-in-law of Mildred, she is the senior member of the Layton family and makes use of it, albeit very subtly.

Martin wrote: "The first time through the Quartet, it seemed to me that the character Barbie fell off the dark side of Mars and landed in the story. Not only did I have no earthly idea what she was doing in the s..."
I appreciate the character of Barbie and understand her motives a bit better after reading your comments. I was rather annoyed with Barbie before but know I have a bit of empathy for her.

Not sure, Janis, if you've read Towers of Silence all the way through, but we see Barbie evolve into an important character. I'll say nothing about the specifics, but it seems to me she is the character through which Scott explores perhaps the book's main theme. Of course, I reserve the right to be wrong.

I think she's in the mold of the person who originally is thought a fool, only to be revealed as far more significant.

In real life, a similar occurrence happened when the Dalai Lama met with a monk of whom he had a modest opinion. The meeting was after the monk was released from prison by the Chinese. Making "small" talk that two monks in those circumstances would exchange, the Dalai Lama asked him about his experiences.

The mond relayed that he had almost become angry with his jailers and that overall the experience was a good opportunity to practice meditation and equanimity.

The Dalai Lama made a mental note to himself to reappraise his opinion of the monk.

In a legendary case, Shantideva was an eighth century monk whose sobriquet was "eat, shit, and sleep," because of his scruffy experience, and because of his seeming lackadaisical practice. As was customary, monks had to deliver a teaching on Buddhism. The monks thought it great fun for Shantideva to be selected.

He delivered one of the more profound teachings on ethics in Mahayana Buddhism that is still widely taught today.

I will say that nothing Barbie has to pass along will be studied by any philosophy 12, or so, centuries from now. But I can't help but think that in the character Barbie had in mind the type of individual who seems so unworthy of profundity yet proves transcendent...oh, and historical.

So glad you joined us, Janis. Barbie was pretty much a bit player in the last book but is now coming to the forefront. I'm not sure how she is going to evolve but being outside of the stifling life that she led before is bound to make a change in her attitude/actions. And she has Mabel who is one tough cookie.....before she really had no friends and Mabel can have a positive influence upon her.