Paul Scott: A Life of the Author of the Raj Quartet

Rating:
Summary: Through the looking glass....
Review: I went out of my way to track down a copy of "PAUL SCOTT: A Life of the Author of the Raj Quartet" by Hilary Spurling because I have just completed reading the four books Scott called "The Raj Quartet": JEWEL IN THE CROWN, DAY OF THE SCORPIAN, TOWERS OF SILENCE, DIVISION OF THE SPOILS. I have also recently purchased the fabulous BBC production available on DVD and I recommend it. Spurling has written an exquisite biography and I found she answered many answers I had about THE masterpiece of the 20th Century (including what happened to some of the key characters).

Scott was born in 1920 when England ruled 1/4 of the globe. When WWII broke out, and he was in his early twenties, England conscripted him and sent him to fight the Japanese. He served three years in Southeast Asia, much of that time in India. He returned home after the war and began a writing career that did not florish. As he had an accountant's training, he became a writer's agent--handing the financial arrangements of many authors including Murial Spark who wrote THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE and M.M. Kaye who wrote THE FAR PAVILLIONS (long after he wrote his first book in the Raj Quartet).

Scott continued to write in the evenings, but after several mediocre novels, he realized he would never be a first class author unless he took the giant step and quit his job and began writing full time. His novels during this second phase of his career were modestly successful, enough to pay the rent, but not enough to keep the wolf completely away from the door. After writing several less-then-successful books set in India, he decided he needed to travel to India again.

He wasn't sure what he would find on his second trip, but once in India he met many individuals, English and Indian, who shared stories of their lives during the last days of the Raj. Inspired by these stories, he returned to England and began to compose the four novels that became the Raj Quartet.

Spurling's description of Scott's creative process--how the frustrations of his life, his perseverance in the belief he was supposed to write even after nine failed novels, and his of love of India finally coalesced into a masterpiece--is well-written. I recommend it to anyone who aspires to write.

The first book JEWEL IN THE CROWN was published in the mid-60s and set off a storm of controversy. Many of the English were not ready to "visit" the reality of their colonial past. The loss of India was not unlike the "permanently open, stinking, supporating, unhealed wound" of Philoctetes, the Greek archer who killed Paris in the taking of Troy--whose name became Hari Kumar's pseudonym. Scott died in 1978 before the Raj Quartet became an international hit. In the early 1980s the BBC dramatized the stories and the rest is history.

This is a fine book. Spurling does not pull any punches and she's done her homework. She used letters, diaries, jounals, personal interviews and many historical documents to compile an excellent story. She apparently admired her subject, but she seems to have written about him honestly. It may surprise anyone familiar with these stories to know that Scott acknowledged he could be found in all his characters, and like Wilde's Dorian Grey who had a public and a hidden side, Scott was a divided man who discoverd he was both Hari Kumar and Ronald Merrick.

Rating:
Summary: Through the looking glass....
Review: I went out of my way to track down a copy of "PAUL SCOTT: A Life of the Author of the Raj Quartet" by Hilary Spurling because I have just completed reading the four books Scott called "The Raj Quartet": JEWEL IN THE CROWN, DAY OF THE SCORPIAN, TOWERS OF SILENCE, DIVISION OF THE SPOILS. I have also recently purchased the fabulous BBC production available on DVD and I recommend it. Spurling has written an exquisite biography and I found she answered many answers I had about THE masterpiece of the 20th Century (including what happened to some of the key characters).

Scott was born in 1920 when England ruled 1/4 of the globe. When WWII broke out, and he was in his early twenties, England conscripted him and sent him to fight the Japanese. He served three years in Southeast Asia, much of that time in India. He returned home after the war and began a writing career that did not florish. As he had an accountant's training, he became a writer's agent--handing the financial arrangements of many authors including Murial Spark who wrote THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE and M.M. Kaye who wrote THE FAR PAVILLIONS (long after he wrote his first book in the Raj Quartet).

Scott continued to write in the evenings, but after several mediocre novels, he realized he would never be a first class author unless he took the giant step and quit his job and began writing full time. His novels during this second phase of his career were modestly successful, enough to pay the rent, but not enough to keep the wolf completely away from the door. After writing several less-then-successful books set in India, he decided he needed to travel to India again.

He wasn't sure what he would find on his second trip, but once in India he met many individuals, English and Indian, who shared stories of their lives during the last days of the Raj. Inspired by these stories, he returned to England and began to compose the four novels that became the Raj Quartet.

Spurling's description of Scott's creative process--how the frustrations of his life, his perseverance in the belief he was supposed to write even after nine failed novels, and his of love of India finally coalesced into a masterpiece--is well-written. I recommend it to anyone who aspires to write.

The first book JEWEL IN THE CROWN was published in the mid-60s and set off a storm of controversy. Many of the English were not ready to "visit" the reality of their colonial past. The loss of India was not unlike the "permanently open, stinking, supporating, unhealed wound" of Philoctetes, the Greek archer who killed Paris in the taking of Troy--whose name became Hari Kumar's pseudonym. Scott died in 1978 before the Raj Quartet became an international hit. In the early 1980s the BBC dramatized the stories and the rest is history.

This is a fine book. Spurling does not pull any punches and she's done her homework. She used letters, diaries, jounals, personal interviews and many historical documents to compile an excellent story. She apparently admired her subject, but she seems to have written about him honestly. It may surprise anyone familiar with these stories to know that Scott acknowledged he could be found in all his characters, and like Wilde's Dorian Grey who had a public and a hidden side, Scott was a divided man who discoverd he was both Hari Kumar and Ronald Merrick.