Under the Jewelled Sky

(Note: This is not a recent title. The book was first published in 2013.)

I am often drawn to stories that would have been contemporary with my own childhood in a far-flung part of the fading British Empire as I have an appreciation of what those societies were like. This novel about India has two narratives, one at the time of partition in the late 1940s and the second ten years later in 1957.

In 1947, Sophie is the only daughter of Dr George Schofield and his wife, Veronica. Aged just seventeen she finds herself largely left to her own devices in the palace of a Maharajah where her father is one of the medical officers. Her mother is a bitter and twisted woman who often makes Sophie’s life hell, whereas her father is a gentle, kind man and is Sophie’s rock. By chance, while wandering the marble halls she meets Jag, the son of one of the palace servants and a friendship ensues, eventually turning into a love affair. There are the inevitable results when the scandalous cross-racial romance is discovered and Sophie must pay a high price for her actions.

By 1957, Sophie is married to Lucien Grainger whom she met while working in the Foreign Office in London. With much trepidation on Sophie’s part, he is posted to Delhi. The marriage is unhappy but Sophie has a position to uphold and she is forced into the supporting role of a “diplomatic wife” with all the superficiality, gossip and mind-numbing entertaining that entails. Unbeknownst to her, Jag has discovered her whereabouts.

The first two-thirds of this novel are excellent, certainly as regards the smooth flow of narrative and the accurate capturing of historical events and social mores of the 1940s/50s. But towards the conclusion, some editorial chaos creeps in with flashbacks that should have been part of the earlier narrative. The shocking, pivotal climax is written in such an abrupt manner that I had to read it twice to grasp what had occurred.

Although it is easy to be irritated by her naivety, one must also have sympathy for Sophie. Her father George has positive qualities but knowing what his wife was like and how she treated their daughter makes you wonder why he didn’t have the courage to kick her out years before. Jag’s character is likeable but remains shadowy in many ways. Lucien has no redeeming features.

Otherwise, the lush descriptions of landscape, the perceptive observations of pre- and post-independent India and life among the British ex-pat society still make this worth reading.


Three stars

PS   The sharp-eyed reader with knowledge of India during this era may well pick up on anachronisms but, if there are any, they are beyond my scope of knowledge. However, I did note the erroneous use of “British Embassy” instead of “High Commission”. All Commonwealth of Nations countries represent one another via High Commissions, not Embassies. To be pedantic and/or technical, Lucien most likely would have been seconded from the 1950s successor to the India Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office. The Foreign Office deals with all non-Commonwealth countries.

 
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