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abisko's review against another edition
3.0
Deep, incisive look at the dynamics of the Indian/ British relationship in the final years of the Raj. At times fascinating, at times tedious as Scott gives us repeatedly the viewpoint of the same happening from multiple perspectives. Well written, highly knowledgeable view of India but felt somewhat long and drawn out at times. Enough here to take me on to book two with high hopes.
murray_m's review against another edition
5.0
Paul Scott died without his amazing evocation of India at the time of war and independence having achieved much recognition. When I read it few had heard of him and the TV series was several years away.
Now, rightly, it it recognised for its brilliance.
Highly recommendd for those who love good literature about India.
Now, rightly, it it recognised for its brilliance.
Highly recommendd for those who love good literature about India.
kitbunnie225's review
4.0
It took a while to get through, but what an amazing and detailed portrayal of life in India in the days of the Raj!
margotmetroland's review against another edition
5.0
I enjoyed this book a great deal. It was especially interesting to me (a white woman married to an Indian) that the main relationship in the book is between a white woman and an Indian man...the depiction of the racism of the time and the disapproval of Daphne and Hari's relationship was wrenching. I'm looking forward to reading the second book in the series.
drelbszoomer's review against another edition
5.0
Magnificent, gorgeous prose. A deep historical meditation not just on a period in British/Indian history, but a thoughtful analysis of race relations masquerading as a novel. cannot wait to read the next one in the quartet.
fictionfan's review against another edition
5.0
End of Empire...
It’s 1942 and tensions are running high in India. Britain, with its usual high-handedness, has decided that Indian troops will join the war effort without consulting the Indian leaders. Gandhi is demanding that the British quit India, even though that will probably mean that the Japanese move in. When the British arrest the leaders of the Independence movement, for a few short days the peace of Mayapore is broken as rioters take to the streets. And in that time one British woman will see her idealistic dreams destroyed while another will be brutally raped. Eighteen years later, an unnamed researcher will come to Mayapore to try to discover the truth of what happened in those days.
Scott starts by telling us:
But in fact it’s the story of two rapes – the rape perpetrated on Daphne Manners, a white girl who made the fatal mistake of falling in love with an Indian man, and the rape perpetrated by the British Empire on the culture, society and people of India. Written at the height of the breast-beating anti-Colonial guilt experienced in Britain following the gradual letting go of their empire, Scott shows no mercy in his dissection of the evils committed, not so much by individual Brits, though there’s some of that, but by the imposition of one dominant culture over another.
The book is told in a series of sections, each concentrating on one character, and gradually building to create an in-depth picture of fictional Mayapore, which functions as a manageable microcosm for India as a whole. It takes a long time to get to Daphne’s story, deliberately, as Scott circles round, showing life in Mayapore from many different angles and over a period of years both before and after the event, creating a feeling of eventual inevitability about her rape as a thing that rises out of that ‘moral continuum of human affairs’, and feeds back into it.
Scott uses many different styles to tell his story. Some parts are first person “spoken” accounts told to the researcher, some are third person narratives, some take the form of letters between characters, or official reports, and some come from Daphne’s journal. In the third person sections, where it’s written, presumably, in the author’s own style, the language is frequently complex, rather spare and understated at the moments of greatest emotion, but often with lush beauty in the descriptive passages, creating a wonderful sense of this town and the surrounding country. In the other sections, Scott creates individual voices for each of the narrators, suited to the form they’re using, and he sustains these superbly so that one gets a real feel for the personalities behind even the driest and most factual reports.
Some of the sections are intensely human stories, like that of Edwina Crane, a woman who has devoted her empty and lonely life to the Church of England mission schools that teach the Indian children how to be good little English-speaking Christians. Her admiration for Gandhi has finally been destroyed by his recent actions and she has found that the Indian women she had looked to for a meagre form of social life are no longer so keen to be patronised by white women. Or the story of Hari Kumar, an Indian boy brought up in England and suddenly transported back to the country of his birth, where he is an outsider to both cultures – unable to speak the Indian languages and lacking knowledge of their way of life, but as a ‘native’ he is not allowed to be a part of the British community either, despite his impeccable English manners and education.
Other sections are told to the researcher and although their purpose is to shed light on Daphne’s story, the characters reveal as much about themselves along the way: Lady Lili Chatterjee, high caste and with a British title via her deceased husband, she is respected by the British but still subjected to constant, often unthinking, discrimination; or Mr Srinivasan, a lawyer who was involved in the Independence movement, and who shows us the Indian perspective on the political questions. The reports from the military and civil authorities are formal in style, but are accompanied by letters to the researcher, where the characters are able to look back on and reassess events with the perspective of time passed.
And in the last section we learn Daphne’s own story in her own words – not just the story of her rape, but of her life, of the choices she made and of her reasons for making them.
Scott creates a vivid and believable picture of the society, culture and politics that led to this moment in time, but he never forgets to put people at the heart of it. While some sections are focused very much on the political situation and, as a result, might be rather dry for readers who are less interested in that aspect, these are broken up by the often intensely intimate stories of the characters, many of whom become unforgettable. Since I’m fascinated by the British Empire, and India especially, I found the political stuff just as engrossing as the personal. Superbly written, intelligent at the political level and deeply moving at the personal – a wonderful novel.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
It’s 1942 and tensions are running high in India. Britain, with its usual high-handedness, has decided that Indian troops will join the war effort without consulting the Indian leaders. Gandhi is demanding that the British quit India, even though that will probably mean that the Japanese move in. When the British arrest the leaders of the Independence movement, for a few short days the peace of Mayapore is broken as rioters take to the streets. And in that time one British woman will see her idealistic dreams destroyed while another will be brutally raped. Eighteen years later, an unnamed researcher will come to Mayapore to try to discover the truth of what happened in those days.
Scott starts by telling us:
This is the story of a rape, of the events that led up to it and followed it and of the place in which it happened. There are the action, the people, and the place; all of which are interrelated but in their totality incommunicable in isolation from the moral continuum of human affairs.
But in fact it’s the story of two rapes – the rape perpetrated on Daphne Manners, a white girl who made the fatal mistake of falling in love with an Indian man, and the rape perpetrated by the British Empire on the culture, society and people of India. Written at the height of the breast-beating anti-Colonial guilt experienced in Britain following the gradual letting go of their empire, Scott shows no mercy in his dissection of the evils committed, not so much by individual Brits, though there’s some of that, but by the imposition of one dominant culture over another.
The book is told in a series of sections, each concentrating on one character, and gradually building to create an in-depth picture of fictional Mayapore, which functions as a manageable microcosm for India as a whole. It takes a long time to get to Daphne’s story, deliberately, as Scott circles round, showing life in Mayapore from many different angles and over a period of years both before and after the event, creating a feeling of eventual inevitability about her rape as a thing that rises out of that ‘moral continuum of human affairs’, and feeds back into it.
Scott uses many different styles to tell his story. Some parts are first person “spoken” accounts told to the researcher, some are third person narratives, some take the form of letters between characters, or official reports, and some come from Daphne’s journal. In the third person sections, where it’s written, presumably, in the author’s own style, the language is frequently complex, rather spare and understated at the moments of greatest emotion, but often with lush beauty in the descriptive passages, creating a wonderful sense of this town and the surrounding country. In the other sections, Scott creates individual voices for each of the narrators, suited to the form they’re using, and he sustains these superbly so that one gets a real feel for the personalities behind even the driest and most factual reports.
Some of the sections are intensely human stories, like that of Edwina Crane, a woman who has devoted her empty and lonely life to the Church of England mission schools that teach the Indian children how to be good little English-speaking Christians. Her admiration for Gandhi has finally been destroyed by his recent actions and she has found that the Indian women she had looked to for a meagre form of social life are no longer so keen to be patronised by white women. Or the story of Hari Kumar, an Indian boy brought up in England and suddenly transported back to the country of his birth, where he is an outsider to both cultures – unable to speak the Indian languages and lacking knowledge of their way of life, but as a ‘native’ he is not allowed to be a part of the British community either, despite his impeccable English manners and education.
Other sections are told to the researcher and although their purpose is to shed light on Daphne’s story, the characters reveal as much about themselves along the way: Lady Lili Chatterjee, high caste and with a British title via her deceased husband, she is respected by the British but still subjected to constant, often unthinking, discrimination; or Mr Srinivasan, a lawyer who was involved in the Independence movement, and who shows us the Indian perspective on the political questions. The reports from the military and civil authorities are formal in style, but are accompanied by letters to the researcher, where the characters are able to look back on and reassess events with the perspective of time passed.
And in the last section we learn Daphne’s own story in her own words – not just the story of her rape, but of her life, of the choices she made and of her reasons for making them.
Scott creates a vivid and believable picture of the society, culture and politics that led to this moment in time, but he never forgets to put people at the heart of it. While some sections are focused very much on the political situation and, as a result, might be rather dry for readers who are less interested in that aspect, these are broken up by the often intensely intimate stories of the characters, many of whom become unforgettable. Since I’m fascinated by the British Empire, and India especially, I found the political stuff just as engrossing as the personal. Superbly written, intelligent at the political level and deeply moving at the personal – a wonderful novel.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
kris_mccracken's review against another edition
3.0
Any interesting perspective on a matter of epic proportions: the years leading up to Indian independence. There is a complex tale woven here, with more than enough 'heroes', 'villains' and people in between to go around. I did enjoy it, but would have like delving a little deeper into the Indian voice a little more. That said, given that the insularity of the British is a critical point, it seems somewhat harsh to damn it too much on that score.
pearl35's review against another edition
5.0
I first read this 20 years ago, and like all truly great books, it is an entirely different one reading it at 40. Oddly, while I concentrated on the grand ans sweeping WWII events on first read, now that I know so much more about them, and India and imperialism and the British army, it is the people who have come into sharper focus and I empathize with their flawed decisions.
tomleetang's review against another edition
4.0
The Jewel in the Crown is the story of a rape, as the first page of the novel will tell you, but it is of course much more than that. It is the story of the end of the British Raj, and the racial tensions that surrounded it. It is the story of India in 1942, with the specter of the Japanese on the doorstep; an India deeply divided on how to achieve independence and what to do with that independence. And it is the story of a handful of Europeans who try to overcome the elitism of their own kind to build bridges with Indians as fellow human beings. (Spoiler: Most of them fail.) It is an education on a pivotal moment in 20th century history as well as an engrossing story on the evils of mob violence and racial segregation.
What’s great about this novel is that it depicts the story of the rape from lots of different perspectives – I know how that sounds, bear with me – and in so doing shows how different types of people perceive the Indian populace and the move towards independence: there’s the forward-thinking regional deputy commissioner; the conservative brigadier; a Rajput princess; a prominent Indian businessman; the rape victim’s Anglo-Indian lover and the English rape victim herself.
Yet while each character represents a particular societal viewpoint, they are also profoundly individual, with their own sympathetic and unsympathetic aspects. They often contradict one another or have singular opinions on the same issues, and thus The Jewel in the Crown is also about trying to find the line between how our views/actions are dictated by race and how our views/actions are dictated by the fact that we’re each unique individuals.
What’s great about this novel is that it depicts the story of the rape from lots of different perspectives – I know how that sounds, bear with me – and in so doing shows how different types of people perceive the Indian populace and the move towards independence: there’s the forward-thinking regional deputy commissioner; the conservative brigadier; a Rajput princess; a prominent Indian businessman; the rape victim’s Anglo-Indian lover and the English rape victim herself.
Yet while each character represents a particular societal viewpoint, they are also profoundly individual, with their own sympathetic and unsympathetic aspects. They often contradict one another or have singular opinions on the same issues, and thus The Jewel in the Crown is also about trying to find the line between how our views/actions are dictated by race and how our views/actions are dictated by the fact that we’re each unique individuals.