The Birds of Paradise

By Paul Scott

Book Overview

Paul Scott is most famous for his much-beloved tetralogy The Raj Quartet , an epic that chronicles the end of the British rule in India with a cast of vividly and memorably drawn characters. Inspired by Scott's own time spent in India during World War II, this powerful novel provides valuable insight into how foreign lands changed the British who worked and fought in them, hated and loved them. A coming of age tale, The Birds of Paradise is the story of a boy and his childhood friendship with the daughter of a British diplomat and the son of the Raja. Scott artfully brings his young narrator's voice to life with evocative language and an eye for detail, capturing the pangs of childhood and the bittersweet fog of memory with nostalgic yet immediate prose

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 088184232X
• ISBN13: 9780881842326
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.8" x 0.8" x 4.3"

Customer Reviews

Hypnotic

This earlier novel by the author of the Raj Quartet has a strange, hypnotic charm. The story, told only from the main character's point of view (unlike the multiples in The Raj Quartet) is a very intense rendering of one man coming to terms with the fabric and textures of his Indian boyhood and his painful experiences in adulthood. Scott deftly weaves details of life in the tropics into this narrative.

Paul Scott is an evocative, brilliant author

This is the memory story of the Anglo-Indian William Conway who attempts to rediscover from his childhood in India, his school years in England, the nightmare of his stay in a Japanese prison camp, and the abandoned territory of his heart. Here the author of The Raj Quartet hauntingly recounts a man's lifetime with a masterful blend of exotic excitement and emotional clarity. Paul Scott is also the author of The Jewel in the Crown, The Love Pavillion, and The Mark of the Warrior.