Paul Scott: A Life of the Author of the Raj Quartet

The author offers a portrait of the enigmatic Paul Scott, detailing his youth, his years in India and the Far East, his career as a literary agent, the development of his writing, and his strange private life

In this fine biography Spurling is equally at home in the literary, social and psychological worlds of a talented novelist who died of cancer in 1978 after winning Britain's prestigious Booker literary award but several years before TV's The Jewel in the Crown , based on the four novels in his Raj Quartet, brought him world renown. Spurling, author of a biography of Ivy Compton Burnett, examines in scrupulous, sympathetic detail Scott's difficult early years; his several stays in India which inspired him to explore with relentless honesty the declining years of the British Raj; the repressed homosexuality that put a disastrous strain on his marriage; and his stint as an unorthodox but extremely popular university teacher. Not a historical novelist in the accepted sense ("One is not ruled by the past . . . one simply is it," he insisted), Scott was fascinated by people. As Spurling subtly shows, Hari Kumar, the psychologically displaced Indian, and Ronald Merrick, the homosexual army officer who torments him, probably Scott's most memorable characters, reflect aspects of his own personality. Photos.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Scott, author of "The Raj Quartet" series, received little acclaim in his lifetime; the novels were not televised (as The Jewel in the Crown ) and consequently not popularized until five years after his death in 1978. This detailed biography of Scott is rather intriguing because of the very drabness of his British suburban life. He worked as an accountant, then as a literary agent; he spent only a few wartime years in India. Spurling, author of Invitation To Dance ( LJ 2/1/78) and Ivy: The Life of I. Compton-Burnett ( LJ 2/1/85), writes an impeccably researched and crafted biography. However, despite the current popularity of Scott's India novels, this work will be of interest to only a limited number of American readers.
- Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, Ore.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.