Book Rec of the Day 2/2/2007

EPICS

Paul Scott held a commission in the Indian army during World War II, and when the war was over, he turned to fiction, writing the critically acclaimed and much beloved Raj Quartet. Start with the first, The Jewel in the Crown, which is about a pair of culture-crossed lovers in India at the outbreak of the war. Everyone raved: “dazzling” (The New York Times Book Review) and “a triumph” (The New Yorker); but perhaps the highest praise came from Life magazine, which said that “far more than even E. M. Forester...Scott is successful in exploring the provinces of the human heart.”

THE JEWEL IN THE CROWN, by Paul Scott (1966; University of Chicago Press, 1998)