The Towers of Silence

Written by Paul Scott

Narrated by Richard Brown

This volume follows the fates of the Laytons and a retired missionary teacher, all of whom can foresee the end of the Raj--and both welcome and lament its passing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio
• Release date: May 11, 2010
• ISBN: 9780307751485

Paul Scott

Paul Scott is a recognised expert on Robbie Williams and Take That. His 2003 biography, Robbie Williams: Angels and Demons, was a Sunday Times bestseller and has been translated into eleven languages. He is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail.

Reviews for The Towers of Silence

[milti_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I didn't like this as much as the previous one. I guess it's because the point of view was from someone who was a relatively minor character before. But I saw a beauty in the way Barbie Batchelor's inner voice - much louder than her actual voice - was shown to analyse situations around her, especially towards the end of the book. A sadness descends upon the reader after it is over - the events described are, for the most part, a repeat of the previous book, and the reader knows of most if not all the happenings. But only with this book does the full extent of those changes upon everyone's lives become clear.

[overthemoon_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The events are mostly seen through the eyes of Barbara Batchelor, the retired missionary who becomes companion to the old Mabel Layton in Rose Cottage, Pankor. It is perhaps the saddest of the Raj quartet so far (I don't want to give spoilers, for the story see the account of each book on wiki), and most of the Brits are really insufferable, especially the ghastly Mildred. Sometimes the style is OK, at others I really want to send a bag of commas to Paul Scott with instructions on how to use them. The illustrations in this edition are by Finn Campbell-Notman, and I like most of them (though would have liked more), they are spare and very quiet. However one is very annoying; it shows Mildred reflected in a mirror where her reflected hair is all wrong, and Barbie in a baggy brown skirt - when we know she is wearing her heliotrope suit which has a straight skirt with back pleat (Scott goes into incredible detail). And at the precise moment quoted, Barbie has grabbed Mildred's arm.

[yhgail · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Brilliant series. This one completed the quartet for me. Of the four it is the least enjoyable for me, but still the within the framework of the quartet it is masterful.

[brenzi_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

”A Dakhma, also called a Tower of Silence, is a circular, raised structure built by Zoroastrians for excarnation---that is, for dead bodies to be exposed to carrion birds, usually vultures.” ----From Wikipedia.This third book of The Raj Quartet begins in 1939 when Barbie Batchelor’s shortcomings catch up with her and she is retired from the Mission that she has given her entire life to. She finds a place to live when Mildred Layton runs an ad in the Pankot paper advertising for a housemate. We have met both of these characters previously and really many of the events in the book are just a retelling of incidents that have been reported earlier. Most of the narrative takes place through Barbie’s point of view. And although this volume may be considered by some to be a rehash of what has already transpired, I found it to be just as compelling as the first two books.Barbie is consumed by two deaths in particular; her friend Edwina Crane, who burned herself alive in 1942 in the first book and Mabel Layton’s eventual death in 1944. But really what Scott wants us to consider is the eventual death he is leading us up to: the death of The Raj. I cannot wait so see how he handles that in the fourth volume.A great deal of the book is taken up by the doings of the women who are left behind in Pankot while their husbands are at the front. They are trying desperately to hang on to the world that they have become accustomed to. The most unusual tidbit I took away from their conversations is the length of time they would be away from their children. It would be unheard of today to go for four or five years without seeing your offspring but it was just an accepted part of this life.But it’s death, both real and literal that this novel is concerned with. When we get to the end of the novel and Barbie has been consumed with watching the vultures gathered over the Dakhma for the Parsees she is asked by Sarah Layton if she doesn’t remember anything and Barbie thinks, ‘She remembered a great deal. But was unable to say what it was. The birds had picked the words clean.’To say I’m blown away by Scott’s writing would be a complete understatement. His passages flow so beautifully that I caught myself holding my breath at times. I wish I hadn’t come to this series so late in life. I wonder how many times I would have reread it. Very highly recommended.

[helenliz_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

So, once more we circle the events of the first two books. In this case the tale is told primarily from the perspective of Barbara Batchelor, the companion to Mable Layton. And this one is particularly sad. There is a great deal of discussion of faith, knowledge and certainty; the finding, loosing and discovery of all three. And positions change multiple times. All the while the Raj is apparently disintegrating before the eyes of those with wit to see it happening - and the contrast between those that d and those that can;t or wont is most marked. Sanity and state of mind also plays a large part in this, with various people appearing to be somewhat irrational or actually insane at various points in the book. It managed to be, in a way, the most personally moving of all the books so far, but I don;t think it would make any sense at all if you'd not read the preceding two books. I find myself hoping for some form of resolution for at least some of the characters in the forth book, as they seem to be left dangling at the conclusion of this one.

[donna828 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I can't believe this book has only six reviews on LibraryThing. Why aren't more people reading and talking about it? This is the third book in The Raj Quartet. It doesn't so much move the story along as it provides more details of the same story through the eyes of the impulsive Miss Barbara Batchelor, an English missionary teacher in India. Facing a lonely retirement, she accepts the challenge of moving to a different region and sharing a cottage with another woman. Mabel Layton welcomes her new boarder in her usual calm manner, but her step-daughter-in-law, Mildred, is not happy with the arrangement. Huh, kind of like the way the Indian population is not thrilled with the way the Raj takes over more and more of their country.I really like the way Paul Scott uses the intimate stories of Colonial India to give a personalized look at what was happening in India in the 1940s. He throws in elements of spirituality, philosophy, and mysticism to further shroud the political situation only to slowly reveal the levels of mistrust. This is the slowest volume so far but I so enjoyed the characterization of the Cruella-DeVil-type villain Mildred, the female counterpart to the jealousy and cruelty of Robert Merrick, and the constant gossip and grasping for power among the military wives, that I didn't mind the rehashing of plot. There was a wedding, a birth, several deaths of major characters, insanity, and the constant worry of WWII in the background to hold the reader's attention. Scott details the incidentals of daily life while keeping an eye on the big picture. I am eager to see how he wraps up this complex package in the fourth and final installment.

[iansales_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the third instalment of Scott’s Raj Quartet. I must admit to a little confusion when I started the book. I was pretty sure I’d not read it, but the story seemed very familiar. At least, it sort of did. And when the narrative referred to something I remembered clearly from an earlier book in the quartet, but here it all happened off-stage, I realised that Scott was covering ground previously described but this time from different characters’ viewpoints. So, for example, when Sarah Layton goes off to Calcutta and has her adventures there, The Towers Of Silence remains behind in Pankot and, in the person of Barbie Batchelor, we get to witness Mabel Layton’s death at first hand. Barbie, incidentally, is a superb creation, an ex-Mission teacher who has retired to Pankot and shares Rose Cottage with Mabel as her companion. She’s played in the television series by Peggy Ashcroft, who is the best thing in the programme, and captures Barbie perfectly; although the rest of the series is a little disappointing as it misses so much interiority out that most of the characters comes across as unrepentant racists. The books, however, are built on cleverly-nuanced character studies, so they’re vastly superior to the TV series.

[cecrow · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Paul Scott's series continues to provide me with succour for the miserable fact that there are no sequels to A Passage to India. I've stopped trying to look as hard as I would with Forster for something below the surface. Scott can be read and enjoyed pretty much as-is, but that's good enough for me. I like these portraits of social entanglements and cultural politics in this setting and the depth of character, even while the pacing lacks momentum and we've seen most of this before.I don't know if I'll remember, looking back, why I marked this novel as above average. I don't think it will be especially memorable except in a vague sort of way, but the grade will be to remind me of the sheer pleasure I took in the reading. I very much like this author's style: the slow way he unrolls a scene or reveals a secret, a kind of langour luxuriated in like one would feel in the exhausting heat of India. The setting is brought into sharper focus through the style, and this atmosphere I experience as a reader makes the motivations of the characters feel perfectly clear and logical. They are a world, an era and a culture apart from me, yet I'm made to readily understand all that they do and be intrigued or even excited by their resolutions and slightest actions.This is all to the good since three quarters of the novel is spent on covering old ground from new perspectives. It's been a while since I read "Day of the Scorpion", which led to a mixed situation: helpful reminders of what had gone before, but not always seeing what information was new. Barbara is a great central character for being so different on the inside from her exterior, and I fully sided with her in contrast to Mildred's airs and self-centered intolerance. Teddy's was a less inspired choice of perspective but his section is relatively short.There's many references to death in this novel, as implied by the title, all of which seem a metaphor for the passing of the Raj into antiquity that everyone in this story senses coming. I wouldn't rank the entertainment value as better than average in standalone form, but within the Quartet's context this third piece ties together and summarizes all that has come before and definitively sets the tone for the imminent passing of an age.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Author Paul Scott rewinds the clock a bit and starts The Towers of Silence in 1939, at the beginning of the war. Set in the hill station of Pankot, the main character is Barbie Batchelor, retired missionary, who, as a paying guest of Mabel Layton, is living at Rose Cottage with her. Although Barbie is proud of her middle class roots, she is not entirely able to fit in to the upper Raj society and is treated much like an outsider, however, she is a unique position to observe the actions that flow around her. This is mainly a book about women and the impact of the war upon them, once again we come into contact with some familiar faces from the previous books. Mildred Layton and her daughters Sarah and Susan are dealing with the interment of their husband and father as a prisoner of war. We learn more about Susan’s marriage, and both the attacks on Daphne Manners and Edwina Crane are again brought into focus and we once again meet Captain Ronald Merrick. The character of Barbie Batchelor was very life-like with her ability to be both naive and innocent but then at other times she could also be very astute at reading people and their motives. Though after three books now, I am a little tired of the rehashing of these events, I do find the author’s style of repeating certain occurrences and recording them through the perspective of different people very interesting. Each time a little more is revealed, a little like peeling back the layers of an onion. I did find this a much slower read than the previous two books. I also felt this one had a darker overview as these women struggle to keep up their illusion of gentility, one can sense that their way of life is slipping away. I am in awe of the author’s vision and look forward to seeing how he ends this monumental saga.