The History Book Club discussion
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The Day of the Scorpion
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ASIA
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WEEK SIX ~ THE DAY OF THE SCORPION ~ July 21st - July 27th > PART THREE ~ A Wedding, 1943 (171 - 230)) No Spoilers
Martin wrote: "Bronowski is an interesting figure. ..."I love the fact that Bronowsky views the Nawab as something of a personal creation, with himself in the role of Ovid's Pygmalion.
This author is on the radio (WNYC - Leonard Lopate show) right now speaking about India's growth today:
by Simon Denyer (no photo)
Hana wrote: "Martin wrote: "Bronowski is an interesting figure. ..."I love the fact that Bronowsky views the Nawab as something of a personal creation, with himself in the role of Ovid's Pygmalion."
Well, Mudder Russia was an imperial power...of sorts. Not top drawer, but in their own slavic way.
Martin wrote: "Hana wrote: "Martin wrote: "Bronowski is an interesting figure. ..."I love the fact that Bronowsky views the Nawab as something of a personal creation, with himself in the role of Ovid's Pygmalio..."
Russia was slowly coming into her own during WWII... and Stalin knew exactly what he wanted from the war!! I see the Count as an old White Russian gentleman of the peerage (did they call it "peerage" in Russia?) who is very persuasive and was even more so in his younger years with the Nawab. it appears that the Nawab was putty in his hands. He is one interesting character.
Tsarist Russia was an active player in trying to establish a sphere of influence in what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan earlier in the 20th century. But, I never got the feeling that is B's role here. He and the Nawab met in Europe, something about a scandal involving a woman.
Thank you Jill and Martin. My knowledge of Russian history during that era is very hazy, so you've helped me sort things out. I thought at first that the Count's loyalties might be divided and that he might have been serving Russian interests along with the Nawab's but it seems unlikely. p. 93-95: The Count actually accomplished a great deal: helping to bring the Nawab's kingdom (and the Nawab himself) into the 20th century, creating a Council of State, a Chief Judiciary and encouraging a more tolerant society by founding a Hindu Boys College to give the majority some of the opportunities enjoyed by graduates of the Muslim Academy of Higher Education. That's quite a record.
I wonder if Bronowsky and the Nawab will play some role in the negotiations leading up to independence...but that's for the next book, I think, so don't tell me! :)
I don't see the Count as any type of Russian agent either since during the Revolution, the majority of the titled population were either murdered or fled for their lives to other parts of the world. And Stalin certainly wasn't partial to them. So possibly he is just setting up a little kingdom of his own with the Nawab.I wonder how far his influence reaches...is his power just concentrated in this tiny princely state or is he more "connected" in higher echelons of government? He certainly seems to know what is going on outside his sphere of influence.
Have we discussed that rather revealing conversation between Sarah and Merrick?A couple of things struck me as re-read that scene:
- Sarah asks some very personal questions and, rather astonishingly, Merrick answers with almost as much directness. It amazed me to hear Merrick answer Sara's question 'What was she like? the girl' by saying 'Rather like you' without hesitation. And then his description doesn't quite fit Sarah, but is amazing and rather insightful.
-I found myself sympathizing with Merrick, which going back to Kressel's comments, shows how brilliantly Scott draws his characters. We dare not stereotype, because he forces us to see ourselves in even the least appealing characters.
-And I would love your thoughts on that moving but enigmatic coda from Sarah: "'My family,' she told herself as she entered the geometrical pattern of light and the circle of safety. 'My family. My family. My family.'"
To be honest, I didn't think that Merrick was well acquainted enough with Sarah to admit to some of his inner feelings....about India, Hari Kumar, and Daphne. He was particularly blunt when discussing Daphne and the fact that he thought Sarah was like her......not "drawing a line", as Merrick called it. When he saw her riding with Ahmed, he felt that his opinion was validated. Then he changed his mind as he assumed (wrongly) that she asked him to breakfast to get rid of him, since she knew he wouldn't accept. Frankly, I can't quite get a handle on him......at some point he seems personable, other times his "non-public school" background come through and at other times his attitudes about Indians become evident. His comment that a white man with a dark skinned woman is not diminished by it but a white woman with a dark skin man is diminished shows the racist/sexist side of his personality. So you are right....we dare not stereotype him.
For all of his seeming complexity, there is a word that aptly describes Merrick: pathological.
"Scorpions will live anywhere from 4 to 8 years. During the first few years of its life, it is growing into adulthood. After the exoskeleton is produced by the scorpion, it cannot grow with the rest of the body. Therefore, it must be discarded, and a new exoskeleton must be formed in order for the scorpion to grow to adult size."Thought we were done with our Scorpios?
The post ceremony scene with Susan, Sarah, Aunty Fenny, and Millie shall not pass unremarked.
Remember Sarah's earlier observation that weddings are a transformative experience, but difficult to read because that would require who we were, are, and becoming?
Well, this is after the wedding, and maybe it's just me, but it seems to me that Scott's description of Susan and Sarah peeling off their dresses is not unlike the transformation of scorpions shedding their skins.
The new Susan takes issue with Aunty Fenny's feasting on poor Merrick on her day. Her confrontation with Fenny is new, but the prior Susan is still there, fighting to maintain her pretend world.
As for Sarah:
"Perhaps, she thought, I am no longer in darkness, perhaps there is light and I have entered it. But she did not know what light exactly, nor what entering it would already have laid on her by way of obligations. But it was light she wanted to share it."
We've touched upon some of the many pairings in the Quartet, but not much on the triangles. This immediately follows Susan's and Sarah's shedding:
"And to end it, adding a third link to the chain forged by the throwing of the stone and the barring of the club doors to the Nawab, there was the curious incident of the woman in the white saree who appeared from out of the crowd..."
At this point, we don't yet know the woman's identity. "'A mad woman,'" according to the man in charge of reservations.
"That she was a madwoman seemed unquestionable, but to hear her so described by this particular man was like having official confirmmation of the fact."
But, despite official pronouncements and assurances, the scene ends in great uncertainty in that metaphor of seeming certainty that is the scene of much uncertainty: on a train, going from they know not where, into uncertainty. The transformed Susan is whisked off with her clueless husband, and Sarah is left on the platform:
"All I can do as well, Sarah said silently, is wish you happiness.
"And that seemed to be enough."
Only problem is that that which seems in the Quartet frequently turns out to be an illusion.
Great comments, Martin. I think you are correct about the shedding of the dresses as it applies to the shedding of the exoskeleton of the scorpion. I think we are going to continue to see that comparison throughout the book, some more subtle than others. I think the changes for Susan are self-evident.....she is now a wife, a part of the military milieu, and her responsibilities will change.And her illusion of her little world of happiness may not be quite what she thinks it will be. But what of Sarah? What changes do we see in her future as she passes to another chapter in her life?
Well, having read the Quartet, I decline to answer those questions on the advice of my spoiler attorney.
LOL, Martin. I wasn't going to play "spoiler police" with that question.......just wondered if from what we have read, you saw something in Sarah changing. I can't tell if she is a very complicated person, a dreamer, an independent soul, progressive for her time, or someone suffering from a bi-polar condition!!!
She's complex, as has been noted. I think the whole wedding and events around it signal Sarah coming out of her past into the rest of her life. She has changed in that she is cognizant of Daphne's presence and that at the end of the section sheds her old relationships in the Raj's circle and is on the threshold of striking out, if not on her own as Daphne did, at least in new directions; maybe more like Lady Manners.
Kressel wrote: "Sarah is such a smart cookie. She sees right through Merrick. If I had met him in the context of the wedding, I probably would have liked him, which is why he's such a brilliantly portrayed charact..."I too was thinking that about Bronowski!
I have to confess, when first start to read this book I was a little disappointed in our book selection. I was excited to join a history book club, because most don’t like history; they find it too boring. But not me! So when I read the first chapter I thought, “where is my boring stuff?” But this book has been a pleasant surprise: not only have I learned about early 20th century social interaction between the British and the Indian, but I have to a juicy book! ;-)
Jill - I should have added that one important thing that should be apparent by this time is that in this narrative characters are developed in spacial terms as they move through the linear. Take the wedding scene. The events advance the story linearly, but the characters essentially have been defined. So what we see is how characters expand around their basic natures. It seems to me the reverse of peeling an onion. Scott is building an onion as he develops these characters.Sarah, for instance, is the insightful, questioning one who senses Daphne's voice across time; but where D threw herself into events, consequences be damned, Sarah's shedding of her old skin is not a rejection of the Raj. She is still a creature of the Raj, more akin to Lady Manners.
Martin wrote: ""Scorpions will live anywhere from 4 to 8 years. During the first few years of its life, it is growing into adulthood. After the exoskeleton is produced by the scorpion, it cannot grow with the res..."Eeew! Martin! That's such a creepily powerful image of the two Scorpio women shedding their exoskeletons after the wedding. It actually gave me cold chills.
Ha. My first impression was that Scott was alluding to snakes shedding their skins, but that's not so, I think. It's also telling that it's Susan who loses the button off her dress. Buttons hold garments (appearances?) together.
Anthony wrote: "Kressel wrote: "Sarah is such a smart cookie. She sees right through Merrick....I too was thinking that about Bronowski! "
Anthony, I agree Bronowsky has taken Merrick's measure very astutely and may know more about what really happened at Mayapore than we do.
Sarah's knowing is different--a kind of clairvoyance that lets her sense the essence of what's wrong with him: 'His eyes, his whole physical presence, struck her as those of a man chilled by an implacable desire to be approached, accepted.'
chilled by implacable desire. What an interesting choice of words!
"a kind of clairvoyance"I like that. Her's is more of an intuitive (gnostic) insight. She sees Merrick's qualities.
Martin wrote: ""a kind of clairvoyance" I like that. Her's is more of an intuitive (gnostic) insight..."Come to think of it, Susan has those kind of intuitive flashes as well, but they are focused laser-like on how people are reacting to her.
Uh oh. We're back to the two Scorpios :D
Jill wrote: "To be honest, I didn't think that Merrick was well acquainted enough with Sarah to admit to some of his inner feelings..."Exactly! That was part of the weird inappropriateness of the moment. It was as if he felt compelled to talk; perhaps that once he started talking about Mayapore with the Count, he found he couldn't stop. Sarah 'understood that he had carried a burden a long way for a long time, had suddenly put it down and was intent on showing her--and himself--what it was before he shouldered it again....'
"Come to think of it, Susan has those kind of intuitive flashes as well, but they are focused laser-like on how people are reacting to her."Yes. Good point.
Sorry, I'm a bit delayed getting to this. ...but it seems to me that Scott's description of Susan and Sarah peeling off their dresses is not unlike the transformation of scorpions shedding their skins.
Great observation, Martin. And maybe not so much a transformation as a revealing of the true person underneath the trappings or the "social skin."
To give a little added dimension, Scott's father, Tom, earned a living as an artist, illustrating women's fashions for clothing catalogs. He worked in a studio that was separate from their home - a place that both fascinated Scott and provided a refuge for him. According to Scott's biographer: "He learned how to observe accurately, how to analyse and record, how to pick out the salient detail, how to use colour and highlights, how to block out an overall composition before attempting to fill in the outline" (p. 17). These attributes certainly seem to be applied to his writing.
by
Hilary Spurling
Sarah's knowing is different--a kind of clairvoyance...This is great, Hana. It really helps explain Sarah's seeming inconsistencies - she doesn't just think and analyze, she also "sees beyond". She may have recognized this same quality in Miss Manners, which is why she called her "wise."
Donna.....thanks for that background on Scott. It helps to explain his style and how he builds his major characters......as Martin noted "the reverse of peeling an onion". I saw some of Sarah's inner self near the surface on her ride with Ahmed in the previous chapter. There were moments when she wanted to make a connection with him beyond that of a English woman who must ride ahead of the Indian man. But Ahmed discouraged any interaction between them due to cultural and social constraints. In contrast Merrick "opens the bag" and tells her much more that we would expect from a man that she hardly knows. I see him as a needy man and that Sarah would have much rather had an in-depth conversation with Ahmed rather than Merrick.
And Sarah didn't push it either. She isn't Daphne. She might not be comfortable with conventional wisdom, but she also is a creature of the Raj.
Donna wrote: "it helps explain Sarah's seeming inconsistencies - she doesn't just think and analyze, she also "sees beyond". She may have recognized this same quality in Miss Manners, which is why she called her "wise." ..."Thanks Donna--I like that thought about Miss Manners.
Martin wrote: "....she also is a creature of the Raj."Maybe. But I think she's more a creature of her family; they are the focus of her life, the work of her life, her 'circle of safety'. The Raj can come or go, but if Sarah is inside that 'pattern of light', she can feel boundaries that she seems to need to be secure.
Ummm...I think Manner matters are getting a little mixed. Miss Manners, otherwise known as Daphne, is many things, but wise she is not. Lady Manners is a different matter. Seen through Sarah's eyes, LM is wise, but what do those of you willing to take Sarah at her word make of LM's disavowal of Miss Layton's assessment as the illusion of a young person looking upon the accumulated experiences of an older person?Is that accumulation wisdom?
If LM is wise, as Sarah seems to think (remember that Miss Layton's assessment is seen through LM's eyes) then should the reader not take into account LM's distinction between accumulated experience and any special knowledge?
Martin wrote: "Well, having read the Quartet, I decline to answer those questions on the advice of my spoiler attorney.":)
Thanks. This is one of those series where a spoiler really is a spoiler and an innocent remark can also accidentally give things away. I finished this book early and it is hard to comment because I don't want to give out spoilers either. I'll try to read the next book with the group schedule.
Yes, Donna and I both meant Lady Manners. How American of us to forget her title ;)Martin, are you implying that Sarah is an unreliable narrator? I haven't seem much evidence of faulty judgement yet.
In the context of our earlier discussion of Sarah's intuitive leaps, she probably senses something in Lady Manners that goes beyond accumulated wisdom.
Anthony wrote: "I have to confess, when first start to read this book I was a little disappointed in our book selection. I was excited to join a history book club, because most don’t like history; they find it too...":)
These books have come as a good surprise reading for me too. I am really enjoying them.
There is lots of ground between taking a character at their word and the unreliable character.Remember, it' the wise Lady Manner's assessment, not mine. I only bring it up because to accept at face value that LM is wise is to fly in the face of the wise woman's own understanding.
If you accept Sarah at her word, then you are denying LM's word, no?
No, they could easily both be right. Sarah might just not have been saying or reacting to what LM thought she was.
Ummm...I think Manner matters are getting a little mixed.Indeed!
Hana wrote: "No, they could easily both be right. Sarah might just not have been saying or reacting to what LM thought she was."I don't see any evidence for this in the text. Am I missing something?
No. We are just speculating, or at least I am. I do get the sense that Lady Manners has a deep wisdom that is more than just the accumulation of years of knowledge, but that seems to come from a sort of intuitive empathy.
There are many definitions of "wise"...having or showing good judgement.....insight....a sound attitude or course of action....knowledge. Does Lady Manners fit into these categories? In the main, I think she does. But one does not achieve wisdom without accumulated experience which rather moots the question for me.
What is your understanding of wisdom?
In very basic terms and in the context of our discussion, wisdom is the ability to use life experiences and knowledge to form opinions and actions that will be beneficial to one's self or others. (I'm afraid to see what the dictionary says but that is my take on "wisdom"). When I say "beneficial", that is the hoped for result of one's wisdom but situations sometimes dictate that actions may not be beneficial in the positive sense but are the correct path to take.
If that's the case, Jill, then why does LM offer such an insightful rejection of any claim to wisdom?
Don't you think that many wise people don't realize that they have that enviable trait? Or maybe she was just being self-effacing.We could go in circles discussing Lady Manner's wisdom or lack thereof but we should move on to the incident of the lady in the white sari at the train station. Was she being used to call attention to Merrick or was she truly begging for his help on her own?.....or a combination of both?
Scott went to the trouble to write the passage following Sarah ' s visit to portray Lady M as self effacing?
@Jill 96 The lady in white is probably Hari's Aunt Shalini. Her emotions were no doubt genuine, but she was clearly being used by Pandit Baba. Merrick is right about that. Bronowsky told Merrick that Hari Kumar's aunt was staying with Pandit Baba in Merit, so Merrick must have been correct that that the whole thing was staged as a way to humiliate him. What deeper game Pandit Baba might be playing is less clear.
Good point, Martin but people often revert to self-effacement in uncomfortable situations. That is why Scott's writing is so enjoyable, it allows us to have varying opinions as to meanings and nuances.
Hana wrote: "@Jill 96 The lady in white is probably Hari's Aunt Shalini. Her emotions were no doubt genuine, but she was clearly being used by Pandit Baba. Merrick is right about that. Bronowsky told Merrick ..."
I agree that Merrick is being targeted and his actions against Hari Kumar in the Daphne Manners incident appear to be more well known than I first imagined.
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Books mentioned in this topic
Paul Scott: A Life of the Author of the Raj Quartet (other topics)Rogue Elephant: Harnessing the Power of India's Unruly Democracy (other topics)
The Jewel in the Crown (other topics)
The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia (other topics)
The Guns of August (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Hilary Spurling (other topics)Simon Denyer (other topics)
Peter Hopkirk (other topics)
Barbara W. Tuchman (other topics)
Paul Scott (other topics)
One more thing about Susan and we will leave her for awhile. I liked your thoughts in this post, Donna. She does surrounds herself with a "happy world" which is not a negative trait, but I feel that it may not serve her well in the future......her marriage, the changes coming to India which will change her role to name a few. Or is there steel under that outer vulnerability?