Scott was born in 1920 when England ruled 1/4 of the globe. When WWII broke out, and he was in his early twenties, England conscripted him and sent him to fight the Japanese. He served three years in Southeast Asia, much of that time in India. He returned home after the war and began a writing career that did not florish. As he had an accountant's training, he became a writer's agent--handing the financial arrangements of many authors including Murial Spark who wrote THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE and M.M. Kaye who wrote THE FAR PAVILLIONS (long after he wrote his first book in the Raj Quartet).

Scott continued to write in the evenings, but after several mediocre novels, he realized he would never be a first class author unless he took the giant step and quit his job and began writing full time. His novels during this second phase of his career were modestly successful, enough to pay the rent, but not enough to keep the wolf completely away from the door. After writing several less-then-successful books set in India, he decided he needed to travel to India again.

He wasn't sure what he would find on his second trip, but once in India he met many individuals, English and Indian, who shared stories of their lives during the last days of the Raj. Inspired by these stories, he returned to England and began to compose the four novels that became the Raj Quartet.

Spurling's description of Scott's creative process--how the frustrations of his life, his perseverance in the belief he was supposed to write even after nine failed novels, and his of love of India finally coalesced into a masterpiece--is well-written. I recommend it to anyone who aspires to write.

The first book JEWEL IN THE CROWN was published in the mid-60s and set off a storm of controversy. Many of the English were not ready to "visit" the reality of their colonial past. The loss of India was not unlike the "permanently open, stinking, supporating, unhealed wound" of Philoctetes, the Greek archer who killed Paris in the taking of Troy--whose name became Hari Kumar's pseudonym. Scott died in 1978 before the Raj Quartet became an international hit. In the early 1980s the BBC dramatized the stories and the rest is history.

This is a fine book. Spurling does not pull any punches and she's done her homework. She used letters, diaries, jounals, personal interviews and many historical documents to compile an excellent story. She apparently admired her subject, but she seems to have written about him honestly. It may surprise anyone familiar with these stories to know that Scott acknowledged he could be found in all his characters, and like Wilde's Dorian Grey who had a public and a hidden side, Scott was a divided man who discoverd he was both Hari Kumar and Ronald Merrick.

If you love Strand's later work, this book, at the very least, will be meaningful to you by showing you a glimpse of the development of this great photographer. Beyond that, you may love his early work and find it compelling and inspirational, as I do.

I must say that this book really impressed me. The author uses sound reasoning to draw the conclusions he makes, and succeeds in presenting them in a very convincing manner. Also, his writing succeeded in making me care about where he was going, keeping me from putting the book down!

I must say that if you are looking for any earth-shattering new revelations (secret codes, new theology, etc.), you won't find it here. What is here, though, is a fascinating look at the New Testament, and what it means. I loved this book, finding it totally engrossing, and I highly recommend it to you.

[By coincidence, lately I was reading the Apocryphal book, The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to Seneca, with Seneca's to Paul. Near the beginning, Seneca is quoted as saying, "We were much delighted with your book of many Epistles, which you have wrote to some cities and chief towns of provinces..." Professor Trobisch's book suggests that Paul may indeed have had a "book of many Epistles."]

The essential message is this... The law was not inherently "bad" or oppression to the people of Israel. The problem resided with the people themselves. Only a remnant were true followers of Yahweh. For this faithful remnant, who had the Spirit operating in their lives, the law was good (cf. Psalm 119, et al). But for those without the Spirit (the majority of Israel), the law was simply "letter", and a burden. They did not want to keep it, nor could they. Seeing this helps us to understand both "good" and "bad" statements about the law in the NT writings.

Hats off to Hafemann!