Karl's Reviews > The Raj Quartet

The Raj Quartet is a huge investment in time - it's four novels - but it's worth it. It's the kind of fiction project that most of us don't carve out space for, but large, complex works (think Proust or Joyce) have sublime rewards when done well, as here.

You don't have to have a particular interest in almost-post-colonial India to enjoy Scott; I don't. What you get is a carefully wrought story, with many strands, told from shifting points of view (mainly but not exclusively British). Scott does multiple narrators more cleanly than any other author I know, and, in my humble opinion, he's particularly good with the female narrators.

For those of you who get through the first book and are worried about the mixture of sadistic evil and latent homosexuality in one of the main characters, don't worry - look for Count Bronowsky, my favorite character, to appear later.

Make time to read this, but don't let too much time lapse between the pieces. It's the best fiction I've read in a long time.