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Reparto de despojos (1975)

por Paul Scott

Series: The Raj Quartet (4)

MiembrosReseñasPopularidadValoración promediaConversaciones / Menciones
7981727,473 (4.24)1 / 74
Esta novela narra una conmovedora historia de amor que revela los dispares sentimientos que la India provoca en los ingleses.
  1. 00
    Los Rezagados (The Raj Quartet 5) por Paul Scott (Cecrow)
    Cecrow: As a sort of coda to the Raj Quartet, you'll learn what happened afterwards in Pankot and to several of the characters.
  2. 00
    Bhowani Junction por John Masters (Cecrow)
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Mostrando 1-5 de 17 (siguiente | mostrar todos)
Scott spent time in the army in the 1940s as a commissioned officer in British India. This is how he came by the material he used to write The Raj Quartet. I so far have only read the last two volumes of this work, and I want to complete the Quartet and also read "Staying On," his book about those English who stayed on in India after the British took their (bloody) hands off the Indian affairs they had so mucked up.

Before England colonized India, it was a rich country. England raped it, and had the nerve to suppose that the "savages" were better off under English rule. I cringe at their hubris--and am glad for only having a fraction of my mutt-ness made up of English descent. ( )
  burritapal | Oct 23, 2022 |
The fourth and final installment in Paul Scott’s inimitable Raj Quartet, A Division of the Spoils left me breathless and shaken. Scott has done for the struggle for Indian independence what Tolstoy did for Russia’s Napoleonic War: it has brought it to life, given it flesh and substance, and shown its effect on the people it touched and the world at large. If there was anything worse than the dominion The British Empire exercised over the Indian continent, it was the abrupt and heartless manner in which they carved up and deserted it to its own rule after some 200 years of having every decision handed down as an edict.

After building slowly a complex tale of personalities and interlocking fates, Scott did not disappoint in painting this shattering end. A historian greater than myself has told me that the writing of these books literally killed the author; that he put so much of himself into them and gave them so much of his time and energy that he neglected his deteriorating health and hastened his end. What a sad fact to contemplate, but I can surely see that there was a soul poured into their making; in fact, I feel as if a bit of my own soul was stolen in the reading. I will certainly never look at India in the same way again. I feel as if a journey I began with Forster’s Passage to India, and filled in with Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, has been completed with The Raj Quartet. The India I carried in my mind has been shattered and replaced with a sadder but more human image, peppered with a huge respect for the Indian people who have pushed forward with dignity through such a tumultuous history.

I cannot close without mentioning the central characters of this drama, who have become so real for me. Ronald Merrick is the consummate evil man who believes that he is a wise and heroic savior. He buys his own PR, the image of efficiency and capability that he sells to his superiors, while using the most vile of means to punish others for his own shortcomings. Part of what makes him so frightening is his humanity, the way he verges on the edge of being something better, his lack of understanding of himself or others and his unwillingness to attribute any responsibility to his own failings. It is observed of him,

He had a talent, one that amounted to genius, for seeing the key or combination of keys that would open a situation up so that he could twist it to suit his purpose.

And, he does that over and over again, aided and abetted by the system that has made him and left him in charge of the lives of others who are hated for the basest of reasons.

In contrast to Merrick, Hari Kumar is the epitome of a good soul and wasted potential, a man who has so much to offer society but who is deprived of giving that by the ridiculous racial prejudices of the society itself and the inexplicable hatred he incurs from Merrick for being too British, too educated, and too promising. In their company we find a dozen other breathing beings, Daphne Manners who dares to love outside the artificial lines; Barbie Bachelor a rare British citizens who comes to see the Indian population as persons, instead of servants; Sarah Layton, who belongs to India more than to England, but struggles to find her place in a world that no longer has order and soon will not even exist; Ahmed Kasim; Guy Perron; Nigel Rowan; Dmitri Boronowsky.

I agree wholly with Paul Scott when he has his character, Guy Perron, say,

The deeply subjective feelings, like joy, fear, love, are the most difficult to convey. One has to make do, more often than not, with the crutch of the words themselves.

I can assure you, the words are more than a crutch in Scott's hands. He conveys every feeling that is dearest to the heart and hardest to face or identify. He covers all the human emotions: hate, fear, jealousy, intimidation, insecurity, love, passion, desire, regret, pride, despair, horror; and he conveys them with so much feeling that you are reduced to tears or tighten with anxiety.

It is my fondest wish that I live long enough to read this set of novels again someday. I would like to come at them armed with all the foreknowledge of the first read so that I can process the details and clever hints sprinkled throughout. There are books that make me grateful to be a reader and extremely grateful that God blessed some men with the talents to write significantly--the Raj Quartet is a perfect example of writing that stirs those emotions. ( )
  mattorsara | Aug 11, 2022 |
"An emigration is possibly the loneliest experience a man can suffer. In a way it is not a country he has lost but a home, or even just a part of a home, a room perhaps, or something in that room that he has had to leave behind, and which haunts him."

This novel is the concluding part to Paul Scott's 'Raj Quartet'. This book is largely written in two parts. The first set in 1945 just as WWII is coming to an end, the latter in 1947 just before India gains independence. Both English and Indians alike must ask themselves what place there is for them in a new India.

In this book we are introduced to a new character, Sergeant Guy Perron. Perron is not really made to be a soldier or an intelligence officer rather he is an academic interested in Indian history and culture. Despite coming from a privileged background and having attended the same boy's school as most of the central male characters Perron has resisted all attempts to make him an officer. He is trying to keep a low profile, hoping to pass the war years quietly and resume civilian life as soon as possible thereafter. Perron attends a party hosted by a maharanee as part of his investigation into possible security leaks where he meets Ronald Merrick (the policemen, now a soldier, at the centre of the incident in The Jewel in the Crown), Sarah Layton and Count Bronowsky (both of whom we first met in The Day of the Scorpion). When Perron's senior officer commits suicide Merrick decides to get Perron transferred to his own staff.

Merrick, now a Major, remains eager to achieve a rise in social standing despite his hatred for those born into privilege. Merrick represents the worst characteristics of the English in India, where greedy, unremarkable Englishmen have carved something out for themselves, simply because of the colour of their skin.

The Layton family have their issues as well. Susan, is clearly still struggling to cope with the death of her husband whilst their father, Lt Col Layton, has returned from a German prisoner of war camp a different man; uncertain of himself as his family are of him. Sarah works diligently to be the glue that keeps the family together, sacrificing herself to do so.

With Indian independence inevitable the future of princely states such as Mirat, ruled by the Nawab assisted by his chief-advisor Count Bronowsky, is increasingly uncertain, whilst the growth in power of the Muslim League has made the formation of Pakistan almost inevitable. Meanwhile the Indian National Army (INA) – a rebel army composed of Indian soldiers captured by the Japanese and released on the condition that they now serve Japan are now returning to their homes. Are they freedom fighters or traitors?

As Perron reluctantly works for Merrick, befriends the Layton family, enjoys the hospitality of the Nawab, he becomes the reader's main witness to unfolding events. Though he remains enchanted with India, shocking events as independence nears, means that, like the English, his time there too must come to an end.

Being the final book in the series this review inevitably also becomes one of the quartet, largely because the two seem to neatly dovetail one another. Despite the whole series stretching over roughly 2000 pages there is remarkably little action but when there is it is often explosive.I found some parts genuinely engrossing, often when characters discuss events in India at the time, cultural and racial divides, and the roles of colonist and colonised. However, frustratingly, there were also a lot of dull passages. Parts that are slow, uninteresting or seemingly unnecessary, whilst his penchant for repetition and long convoluted sentences, (often consisting of brackets) continued to annoy me. In this book, a long section was taken up by a near repetition of the interview between Hari Kumar and Rowan whilst the former was still in prison. In the earlier book this was compelling reading but here it was just plain annoying and a touch patronising.

Having now read the entire quartet, I think this final novel is symptomatic of the whole. There is much to admire and despite my issues with some of his writing style, his knowledge and appreciation of a complex and controversial time in history, his exploration of them through a disparate set of characters caught up in events much larger than themselves is quite astounding, making this quartet: a true epic. ( )
  PilgrimJess | Nov 29, 2020 |
(30) The last of the Raj Quartet. Fortunately, I still have most of the episodes of the BBC series to watch so I don't have to say goodbye quite yet. This last installment introduced us to two British soldiers, Nigel Rowan, and Guy Perron - both had gone to the posh private school with Hari Kumar back in England. They are satellites to the Laytons whose patriarch returns from captivity. The Laytons lives are still intertwined with the Kasims, the Nawab and Count Bronofsky, and of course Merrick who continues to be the ultimate enigma right up until the end. . . Britain relinquishes power, the partition off of Pakistan occurs, and the book ends shockingly in the midst of the Hindu-Muslim riots on 1947.

Scott's writing is sublime - dense, but sublime. As usual, there are parts, in particular dealing with the politics, that are dull and require I think some knowledge of the time that I didn't seem to possess despite reading these novels. That is mostly why I've taken 1/2 star off of the preceding novels, but despite this the whole reading experience has been unparalleled.

Scott weaves magic with characterization, realistic dialogue, different mediums for telling the story through all optics - letters, newspaper articles, reminisces, direct narration. You really feel as if you are in those close, moldy, haunted bungalows having a brandy. Or in a train compartment watching the cows, and Indian peasants roll by, reading the Mayapore Gazette and contemplating tiffin.

Some things that haunt -- Merrick's 'accident', Hari's home, Ahmed's last smile. I will miss the experience of reading these novels. Definitely one of the best experiences of my reading life. ( )
  jhowell | Jun 23, 2019 |
There is much written of this series, so I don't think I have much to add.

I was very aware that there were many allusions to events in the history of the British in India that I think would be obvious to someone who is British, but of which I am more vaguely aware. None the less, I've read and heard enough to feel like I get the point.

It was also interesting to me to see how the personal relationships unfold in the writing. I had watched the mini-series based on the book. In the book the relationships and resolutions are more ambiguous, leaving more for the reader to decide.

I did think that the unfolding of character Merrick was even better done in the mini-series, more forceful. The book was possibly a bit more sympathetic to this flawed character.

At any rate, I'm glad I read the book. I enjoyed the mini-series and the two complement each other well. ( )
  yhgail | Feb 20, 2019 |
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Esta novela narra una conmovedora historia de amor que revela los dispares sentimientos que la India provoca en los ingleses.

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