WEEK TWELVE - THE TOWERS OF SILENCE- March 2nd - March 8th > PART FIVE - THE TENNIS COURT - Chapter Five (pg. 362 - 386) - Appendix (pg. 387)

[Jill]

Hello Everyone,

For the week of March 2nd - March 8th, we are reading PART FIVE - The Tennis Court - The Towers of Silence -Book III, PART FIVE - The Tennis Court - Chapter Five (pg. 362 - 386) - Appendix (pg. 387).

The first week's reading assignment is:

WEEK TWELVE- March 2nd - March 15th ~ PART FIVE - The Tennis Court - Chapter Five (pg. 362 - 386) - Appendix - (pg.387)/

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 March 2nd.

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:

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Introduction Thread:

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Table of Contents and Syllabus

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Glossary

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Book as a Whole and Final Thoughts - SPOILER THREAD

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

by Paul Scott

[Jill]

Chapter Summary and Overview

Barbie goes to Rose Cottage to pick up her trunk and finds it sitting outside in the weather along the road. She sees a man and demands to know what he is doing there. It turns out to be Captain Merrick who thought he might find the Laytons there...but they were not. They speak of old times, the Daphne/Hari situation and of Teddie. She asks about Miss Crane and the letter that she left after her suttee. He says that people thought she was out of her mind since the letter said", There is no God. Not even on the road from Dibrapur".

They walk around to the garden and Barbie is horrified to see that all the rose bushes have been dug up. When she asks the servant what is happening, she is told that Mildred is putting in a tennis court.

Merrick is worried that the horse pulling the tonga is not strong enough to take the trunk down the steep hill to the church. He is correct and Barbie and the driver survive the crash but the horse must be put down.

In the Coda, we learn that Barbie is now an inmate of the Mission hospital and has put herself under a vow of silence, living in her own world of thoughts and memories. Sarah comes to visit but Barbie does not know her. Barbie passes on August 6, 1945.

[Jill]

Question/Discussion

When I read the first few pages of this last chapter, I thought that Mildred had got in her last jab at Barbie by putting her trunk by the side of the road in the weather. It is indicative of Mildred's opinion that Barbie is just a "throw away" person. But of course, the final blow to both Barbie and Mabel is the tennis court. Mildred is ridding herself of the reminders of the two women she hated, don't you think?

[Jill]

I was surprised that we heard to little of Susan during this last chapter, except for the party she attended. Does Dr. Simon have some hold over her, is he interested in her as a woman, or was he worried that she would cause some type of an incident at the party? I couldn't get a handle on her state of mind except that she appeared meek. What do you think?

[Katy]

I hadn't even thought about Susan much. But I see what you are saying. What is she thinking. We see just a glimpse of her at the party and then .. she disappears from our story. Oh I wonder what Scott has in store for us in the next book... (don't tell me, I like just wondering for a bit)

[Kressel]

I choose to view him as a psychiatrist taking care of his patient, but who knows?

One of my favorite lines in the book came at the party. The gossipers wondered what Susan can possibly be talking about with Dr. Simon since she seems more empty-headed than ever. Barbie responds that perhaps she's become more of herself than she's ever been. Brilliant line, especially in light of Barbie's own end.

So, the end. Is Barbie senile or is she knowing and in silence? She said at the beginning that if she lost the trunk, she'd lose everything. It was full of her memories.

[Katy]

Kressel you are the best at remembering those lines! These books are so full of nuances -- the trunk, the memories.

[Jill]

@Kressel............You are probably right about Dr. Simon, although physicians (psychiatrists) don't usually have time to follow their patients around to social events. But I would imagine that Mildred insisted since this was Susan's first public appearance since the incident.

I don't think Barbie is senile. The note that Miss Crane left had a strong effect on her....the rose garden is destroyed, thus wiping out Mabel's presence.....the trunk is destroyed. What is left for her? Rather than taking her life in the manner of Miss Crane, I think she withdrew into her own mind with her vow of silence and shut out the world that was crumbling around her (including the Raj).

[Martin]

A couple of thoughts: In an exchange with the author Bruce Olds about transcendent literature, he posed the question: "How does an author write about nothing?"

This volume strike's me as Scott's answer to that question, except substitute silence for nothing.

India is portrayed as emerging from the vast and silent landscape of India. Remember the Hindu origin myth has Brahman emerging from the void (nothing/silence) before dreaming this world into existence.

I don't need to remind that this volume is entitled The Towers of Silence and that both Mabel and Barbie are tied to that metaphor.

At one point, Barbie's chatter is referred to as her silence, which will strike many readers as counterintuitive, but it makes sense from a couple of perspectives (don't have time right now to expand).

Her vow of silence is a progression from her chatty silence. The cover of words has been stripped away as she has entered into silence. Her final image burned into the wall of the sanitarium brings to mind many of the metaphysical exits of adepts in Eastern philosophy.

The towers of silence emerged from the Brahman's dream and receded into the silence from which it came. This can be related to the Raj's fall and decline, and also Siva's fires of destruction.

Put another way, Barbie's trunk at one point in the narrative is related directly to her self (sic). In the end, she is sloughing the self like a snake skin, to transcend the limits of herself and the illusory world.

[Jill]

Great comment, Martin.

[Jill]

I knew the job offer at the mission was going to be too good to be true for Barbie. The fates (Martin will know a more appropriate word since he is a reader of eastern religions) had other plans for her. But had she become a martyr and if so to what?....an old way of life, the emerging way of life, the death of the Raj, the loss of friends and faith? Or am I reading more there than the author intended?

[Martin]

"job offer at the mission was going to be too good to be true for Barbie."

Only from the perspective of backing into the future, as the Greeks used to put it, back when they were the font of wisdom. That's because Barbie's progression, as we know by this point in the story, is forward, not looking back.

At this point in the story, she is unsettled in place in the traditional sense. She's also sloughing her trunk, which is her history. There is an old aphorism about reaching a threshold where we throw the book away.

And that's where Barbie is headed. In effect, she's throwing the trunk away - her history, but also the history of the Scorpio twins, Mabel and all the rest of history.

Who needs a job at this point?

This is Barbie's natural course, closer to the chain of events Scott reveals in this volume than the the intercession of some crazed god interjecting some personal whim known only to him/her. At least, that's my take on Barbie's trajectory.

There's nothing too singular to it in its path. Think of Siva, again. Fire of destruction, and creation, inseparable. If that doesn't work, think of a newly conceived being in the womb. Early cells, the basic unit of life, die so that new cells can be born and grow. Like the fires of destruction and creation, they are not separate processes. We don't die suddenly. It started in the womb. There just comes a point in life (history?) where the dying quality of the process (life?) gains the upper hand over the regeneration.

Yes, on a level that I think can be defended, we can see the demise of Barbie, but also other characters including Mabel, but also Mildred, Lady Manners, and even Sarah and Susan, as part and parcel of the Raj's decline. Afterall, Emerson's notion of the individual serving as threshold to history is very much in play in this volume.

Speaking of Sarah, Jill and other fair readers might benefit from paying particular attention to your favorite character Sarah's musings on the boys of the Raj with whom she went dancing on the night she was seduced. In her mind (during her discussion with Barbie about the trunk and what Barbie will do going forward), they are home. They are the England that she and Susan were connecting with when they "came out" to India. They are the England with which Sarah can connect.

[Jill]

Note:

We have opened the Book as a Whole and Final Thoughts thread where you may add your impressions of the book and other comments. It can be found at:

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

[Jill]

Barbi didn't want to become an old woman who boarded with others and I think she saw the offer of the job at the mission as an opportunity to continue being useful. Are you saying, Martin, that she really didn't care about it and was consciously throwing away her old life?

[Martin]

No. At the end, Barbie cuts her attachment to her trunk, which metaphorically speaking is her history, including her relationship to the other characters (the Raj). Not throwing a life away.

[Jill]

I didn't think so. She didn't cut her attachment to her trunk (her history)consciously, or at least it doesn't appear to me that she did but once it was cut, her new life at the mission was out of the question.

[Jill]

Thanks to all who participated. The threads of course will be staying open as there are several folks still reading. So it is never too late to join in.

Don't forget to go to the Book As A Whole link below if you have completed the book.

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