September Group Read: The Raj Quartet 4 : A Division of the Spoils

Welcome to the group read of the final book of the Raj Quartet, A Division of the Spoils by Paul Scott.

  

World War II is ending, and Indian Independence seems inevitable- to most.

I hope there are still a few of us reading/re-reading the series.

I'll be joining in later in the month.

I got horribly out of sync, what with starting the first one late, but I am not just about ready to start book 4 of the quartet. And I'm quite looking forward to returning the single volume they were bound in. Can't relax when reading that in bed - it'd knock me out! I find myself hoping for something in the way of resolution, but doubt it will happen.

I started early with this one and am three-quarters of the way through. A great ending to the quartet.

Breathing a great big sigh of relief, the quartet ended very satisfactorily, I have really enjoyed reading these four books this year.

Good to hear! I haven't started my reading of it yet, but soon!

I finished this about a week ago and am still processing it all. I think I have to read Staying On just so I feel as if I have the whole story.

So, Jean, do you feel that A Division of the Spoils didn't finish everything up or do you just want to continue on with some of these characters?

Well, I think the quartet wound up most of the threads, but I'd like to see how they feel once the shock of so many changes wears off.

Yes, I think I will have to add Staying On to my list, probably won't get to it for awhile though. That's the number one reason I loved having a Group Read of this quartet. It made it easy to pull these books down from the shelf in a timely manner. I liked the every other month approach, gave me a chance to savour the book and I got to read the next one while the previous one was still pretty fresh in my mind.

I've finished this now. I think book 4 was possibly the best of the quartet, although book 1 runs it close. I liked the way that we had moved on in time, it's not just the same timeframe, this is now a couple of years later and quite a lot has happened. I liked that you got to fill in a lot more of the blanks, and from the perspective of those that featured more on the sidelines in the earlier books.I felt that you got a more rounded version of events from them than from the key characters. A lot of loose ends were tied up, and those that weren't at least gave you hope that they did have a future, be that in the newly independent sub continent or elsewhere. There are a lot of characters to care about in this, and the forth book does allow them space to breathe and be themselves.
As a picture of a decline of empire, it puts me in mind of something that started out as being for the best of intentions, but at some point it lost sight of those intentions, and became something self serving, with the good intentions lying dead at the core of the fiction that came to be believed. I think that the book represents the failure of a generation to godfather modernity by self interest, and their gradual displacement by a generation that chose a different path.

Thanks to whoever suggested this as a read, I can now return by 2000 page brick to the library and cease worrying about drpping it on my nose while reading in bed.

Well, I have finished it. I'm sure I have missed a lot of the suptle things, but I'd have to read the whole series again ... I guess they'll stay missed.