Thursday, April 5, 2018

Booker Book #11: Staying On, by Paul Scott


Paul Scott's Staying On is the bittersweet story of Tusker and Lucy Smalley, the third Booker winner about British India. Tusker is an army career man, moving from post to post in India, until the transition of power to native authorities (one of the most touching scenes in the novel). This changing of the guard seems to provoke his own personal “debacle,” whose details Lucy hints at, but does not reveal, until the end.

This novel is all about endings. It begins with an end: “When Tusker Smalley died of a massive coronary…” and spends the rest of the novel setting up the intricate ballet that leads to this climax in a crescendo of circumstances. Through the flashbacks, we get to know Lucy (née, ironically, Little, of a mother née, even more ironically, Large), her sweet patience, and her iron-solid core. We explore the relationships between Ownership and Management (and employees) of the hotel where the Smalleys have been living for decades. And we laugh.

The Indian hotel manager is my favorite character, his observations always spot on:

“Mr. Bhoolabhoy had often heard it said that one of the troubles with the British in the days of the raj was that they had taken themselves too seriously…if it was true about the British in those days it was equally true of the Indians now; which would mean that it was being responsible for running things that shortened the temper and destroyed the sense of humour.”

This is the funniest Booker winner so far, but the humor is gradually replaced by a sobering sympathy for a couple growing old abroad, with little hope of – or desire for – returning to the U.K. They have chosen to “stay on,” at first for financial reasons, but also because they have little to return to. They become almost a tourist attraction, a museum exhibit of the old regime.

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