The Jewel in the Crown (1966)

What a wonderful book - I'm still on the Jewel on the Crown. I'd expected it to be mostly narrative, and expected it, God knows why, to be frankly sentimental. Instead of which a far more complex book with some excellent characterization and very well written. A few lumpy lines, fragments of prose that don't quite come off, that just underline the excellence of the rest. Theres an obvious linkage to Forster's A Passage to India, but Scott seems the more impressive writer to me. Very impressed so far. ( )

well, this book is intense.with the colonial backdrop,this book harbours a love story.this book is all about daphne and hari.although the protagonist arrives late in the story,the way in which story builds is fabulous.there are lots of character in this story and every one is described in detail.

this book is all about the incident at bibighar gardens and the whole story revolves around it.right from the beginning till to the end.

also this book has a slow pace but a interesting read for contemporary arts lovers. ( )

The opening of the book plunges you into the atmosphere of India and the start of an epic journey through the dying days of India under British rule. Tension is already mounting in the country with increasing support for Ghandi and his supporters against the establishment. When Daphne Manners, a young English girl, begins a well-meaning but niaive, relationship with an Indian boy Hari Kumar, the status quo is further disrupted. But no-one in the town of Mayapore could have predicted the disastrous consequences that follow. On a dark monsoon night amid an outbreak of anti-British rioting, Daphne is raped by a gang of Indian men. It's a complex story of love across the cultural divide and of jealousy that seeks its revenge through physical and mental torture. ( )

It took a while to get through, but what an amazing and detailed portrayal of life in India in the days of the Raj! ( )

I read this novel for comparison with "A Passage to India," which I tackled earlier this year and thought was fantastic. The Wikipedia entry for "Jewel" described it as a rewriting of "Passage," but that's an exaggeration. True, the setting is India in the descending phase of the Raj's grandeur, and much of the plot centers around the assault of an English woman. But the differences are also significant. "Passage" was written in the 1920s when eventual Indian independence was expected but had not yet arrived. "Jewel" covers the 1940s period as that independence moved at last towards realization, and with a 1960s knowledge of the outcome.

The writing often feels laboured, and in many places I was buried in descriptive passages and detail that slowed me to a crawl. I worried it might all be like this, but other reviews led me to anticipate the variety in approach that relieves the story: standard 3rd person telling, followed by a mysterious male character's viewpoint as he investigates and looks back on events from several years later; and then also the letters that are exchanged between characters which make up a significant portion. The author takes just about the longest route imaginable to tell the story of what's essentially one simple event, but at least some of the interim is spent on adding new revelations to previously visited scenes, creating small "aha" moments. The rest of the time, you are learning enormous amounts about the setting and situation.

There's a peculiar aspect of this novel that could be considered either its greatest strength or its weakness: its very direct analysis of English-Indian relations. "Passage" is the more literate work, building on delicate metaphor and what's to be read between the lines. "Jewel" by contrast offers a very matter-of-fact study. I was sometimes wondering if Scott should have tried his hand at a non-fiction piece instead. The points being made are still intriguing of course. For example there's the straight line drawn between the alien feeling a British person would encounter on arrival in India and the effect of the escape he or she turned to: the clubs, the facilities, etc that catered to the British as priority citizens and began to rub off on them. New arrivals shortly began finding themselves looking down upon Indians, however open-minded they were prepared to be. On reflection, "Passage" demonstrated this in action through its showing technique. "Jewel" simply tells you.

"Jewel" lacks the lyricism and immortality of "Passage", but it makes for fine supplementary reading and comes with the bonus of sequels. I still enjoyed it and I'll recommend it, but with the caution that it's a needlessly sticky read in one respect while being blatantly clear in another. I'll also suggest reading "A Passage to India" first for the chronology, and for being the better novel of the two. ( )