The Towers of Silence
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15
Ratings2
Average rating4
Paul Scott's epic study of British India in its final years has no equal. Tolstoyan in scope and Proustian in detail but completely individual in effect, it records the encounter between East and West through the experiences of a dozen people caught up in the upheavals of the Second World War and the growing campaign for Indian independence. Book one, The Jewel in the Crown, describes the doomed love between an English girl and an Indian boy, Daphne Manners and Hari Kumar. This affair touches the lives of other characters in three subsequent books, most of them unknown to Hari and Daphne but involved in the larger social and political conflicts which destroy the lovers. On occasions unsparing in its study of personal dramas and racial differences, the Raj Quartet is at all times profoundly humane, not least in the author's capacity to identify with a huge range of characters. It is also illuminated by delicate social comedy and wonderful evocations of the Indian scene, all narrated in luminous prose.
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I didn't like this as much as the previous one. I guess it's because the point of view was from someone who was a relatively minor character before. But I saw a beauty in the way Barbie Batchelor's inner voice - much louder than her actual voice - was shown to analyse situations around her, especially towards the end of the book. A sadness descends upon the reader after it is over - the events described are, for the most part, a repeat of the previous book, and the reader knows of most if not all the happenings. But only with this book does the full extent of those changes upon everyone's lives become clear.
