The Day of the Scorpion
The Raj Quartet, Book 2
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Narrated by:
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Richard Brown
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By:
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Paul Scott
About this listen
The second novel in The Raj Quartet: the arrest by British police of Mohammed Ali Kasim, who is known to sympathise with the Quit India movement, signifies a further deterioration in Anglo-India relations.
For families such as the Laytons, who have lived and served in India for generations, the immediate social and political realities are both disturbing and tragic. With growing confusion and bewilderment, the British are forced to confront the violent and often brutal years that lie ahead.
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It is 1789, and three young provincials have come to Paris to make their way. Georges-Jacques Danton, an ambitious young lawyer, is energetic, pragmatic, debt-ridden - and hugely but erotically ugly. Maximilien Robespierre, also a lawyer, is slight, diligent, and terrified of violence. His dearest friend, Camille Desmoulins, is a conspirator and pamphleteer of genius. A charming gadfly, erratic and untrustworthy, bisexual and beautiful, Camille is obsessed by one woman and engaged to marry another, her daughter.
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Disaster
- By Frank Dudley Berry Jr. on 08-01-13
By: Hilary Mantel
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The Magus
- By: John Fowles
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 26 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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John Fowles’s The Magus was a literary landmark of the 1960s. Nicholas Urfe goes to a Greek island to teach at a private school and becomes enmeshed in curious happenings at the home of a mysterious Greek recluse, Maurice Conchis. Are these events, involving attractive young English sisters, just psychological games, or an elaborate joke, or more? Reality shifts as the story unfolds. The Magus reflected the issues of the 1960s perfectly, and it continues to create tension and concern today.
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One of the best novels that I really think I hate.
- By Darwin8u on 01-29-14
By: John Fowles
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Now, Voyager
- Femmes Fatales
- By: Olive Higgins Prouty
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Boston blueblood Charlotte Vale has led an unhappy, sheltered life. Lonely, dowdy, repressed, and pushing 40, Charlotte finds salvation at a sanitarium, where she undergoes an emotional and physical transformation. After her extreme makeover, the new Charlotte tests her mettle by embarking on a cruise and finds herself in a torrid love affair with a married man which ends at the conclusion of the voyage. But only then can the real journey begin, as Charlotte is forced to navigate a new life for herself.
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The Inspiration for The Movie Classic
- By Susie on 12-17-12
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A Test of Wills
- By: Charles Todd
- Narrated by: Samuel Giles
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Ian Rutledge returns to his career at Scotland Yard after years fighting in the First World War. Unknown to his colleagues he is still suffering from shell shock, and is burdened with the guilt of having had executed a young soldier on the battlefield for refusing to fight. A jealous colleague has learned of his secret and has managed to have Rutledge assigned to a difficult case which could spell disaster for Rutledge whatever the outcome. A retired officer has been murdered, and Rutledge goes to investigate.
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Difficult to follow the narrator
- By Carol on 01-02-13
By: Charles Todd
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Cold Hand in Mine
- By: Robert Aickman
- Narrated by: Reece Shearsmith
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Cold Hand in Mine stands as one of Aickman's best collections and contains eight stories that show off his powers as a 'strange story' writer to the full. The listener is introduced to a variety of characters, from a man who spends the night in a Hospice to a German aristocrat and a woman who sees an image of her own soul. There is also a nod to the conventional vampire story ("Pages from a Young Girl's Journal") but all the stories remain unconventional and inconclusive, which perhaps makes them all the more startling and intriguing.
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Aickman is unique
- By Stark on 08-19-23
By: Robert Aickman
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In the Light of What We Know
- By: Zia Haider Rahman
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 21 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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One September morning in 2008, an investment banker approaching forty, his career in collapse and his marriage unraveling, receives a surprise visitor at his West London townhouse. In the disheveled figure of a South Asian male carrying a backpack the banker recognizes a long-lost friend, a mathematics prodigy who disappeared years earlier under mysterious circumstances. The friend has resurfaced to make a confession of unsettling power.
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dreadful
- By sam on 06-05-15
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The Unsettled Dust
- By: Robert Aickman
- Narrated by: Reece Shearsmith
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Robert Aickman, the supreme master of the supernatural, brings together eight stories in which strange things happen that the reader is unable to predict. His characters are often lonely and middle-aged, but all have the same thing in common: they are brought to the brink of an abyss that shows how terrifyingly fragile our piece of mind actually is. 'The Unsettled Dust', 'The House of the Russians', 'No Stronger Than a Flower', 'The Cicerones' and 'Ravissante' first appeared in the Sub Rosa collection in 1968, but the stories were published together as The Unsettled Dust in 1990.
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Perfectly read, sheds new light on this work
- By James Townsend on 04-10-17
By: Robert Aickman
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Resurrection
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Alastair Cameron
- Length: 16 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In Tolstoy's final novel, a privileged nobleman by the name of Dmitri Nekhlyudov seeks to make amends for a bad deed he committed in the past. In the process, he discovers that he has been living in a world far removed from the reality of the average person.
By: Leo Tolstoy
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The Man in the Brown Suit & They Came to Baghdad
- Two Bestselling Agatha Christie Novels in One Great Audiobook
- By: Agatha Christie
- Narrated by: Emilia Fox
- Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The Man in the Brown Suit is Agatha Christie at her best, as a young woman makes a dangerous decision to investigate a shocking “accidental” death she witnesses at a London tube station. In Agatha Christie’s classic crime adventure novel, They Came to Baghdad, a bright young adventure seeker in the Middle East finds more excitement than she bargained for when a wounded spy expires in her hotel room.
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Agatha Christie and Emilia Fox are Fantastic!
- By Jane Ross on 05-13-23
By: Agatha Christie
What listeners say about The Day of the Scorpion
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- DFK
- 09-22-23
We need a remake with a different narrator
I read the Raj Quartet about 40 years ago, and I loved it then. I felt that enough time passed for me to “read” it again, and see how it holds up for me - is it still enthralling? Yes, it is. But I agree with all those who pan Richard Brown. I don’t know what the publisher was thinking. Perhaps this is a recording from the days when audiobooks were not as popular and there weren’t really good readers. I don’t know. That’s all I do know is that it is only the quality of the story and the writing that permitted me to listen in spite of the narrator. I sped it up a bit (I think 1.1), which made it a bit more tolerable. The worst parts are when he does this sing-song attempt at imitating an Indian accent. It is actually quite embarrassing, kind of insulting to Indians, I would think, like a tacky parody. I actually listen to a lot of books that are set in India, or have Indian characters - many of these books are written by Indians or Indian-Americans, and there are so many good narrators out there who can speak both Indian English (to me delightful to listen to) and either a British English (there are so many different accents) or an American English. This guy is awful. These books deserve a remake with a good narrator. (The first volume does have a good narrator - please do the rest. I’ll wait a while.)
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- A. D. Howland
- 12-09-21
Excellent book, terrible narration
A remarkable depiction of India at the end of British rule, circling around one central event that encompasses people representing many of the layers of whites and natives.
Terrible, terrible narrator, which is an insult to the beautiful writing of this book.
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- JK
- 08-16-22
EXCELLENT BOOK
After the narration of Sam Dastor of the first book in the series, it takes a little getting used to the narration of Richard Brown. My advise is “stick with him”, you get used to his voice and enjoy this excellent book, the second in the series. In the beginning it was also difficult to get into this book, but soon it turns out as well and interesting as his first book. There are a lot of names and characters to remember. I made a list of the different characters, with a short note, to refer to.
I am looking forward to starting the third book in the series.
As always my thanks to Audible and all involved to make this series available to us, JK
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- Everard (Desert Islander)
- 03-02-17
It gets better!
Richard Brown's narration took some getting used to, I have been so taken with Sam Dastor"s rendition of Jewel in the Crown. However, I'm very glad to have persevered because this book gets better and better. It's not just a story, but also an insight into the latter days of the British Raj. This book is well worth listening to. Now onto #3.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Timothy
- 12-10-12
Timeless classic, disastrous narrator choice
Paul Scott's Raj Quartet series is a timeless classic about the British rule in India and its ignominious end. I enjoyed listening to the first volume so much that I bought the second without listening to a sample. Big mistake.
I have experienced my share of poor narrators on Audible but never ever anything as bad as this. The problem is not the narrator's ability but his voice, and the emotion it conveys. No matter what the narrator is saying, he always sounds snotty, arrogant and condescending. Even the most simple, factual sentences sound like scathing insults. What is even worse for this book is the fact that this narrator's voice is the epitome of everything that Paul Scott criticizes about the British rule in India. It is the voice of the narrow-minded, pig-headed, racist British upper class who despise everything and everyone that does not belong to their tiny elite club. It is the exact opposite of everything for which Paul Scott's wonderful work stands and speaks out. It is like having a production of the Diary of Anne Frank narrated by the voice of a German World War II radio newscaster.
Choosing Richard Brown to narrate this book is probably the most egregiously inappropriate decision in the entire history of audio book publishing. He manages to completely destroy it and its message.
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14 people found this helpful
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- J. Miner
- 12-04-20
Don't let the poor narration reviews
I held off listening to volume 2 of The Raj quartet based upon the reviews mentioning the awful narration. This was a mistake. Granted, while the narrator has a high pitched British nasal voice which is grating at the least, this can be compensated for by listening with sound equalization. By increasing the bass level and toning down the treble, the narration is far less annoying and actually quite good and enjoyable.
If you are interested in the genre, this with the other three in the series are by far the best.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Holly
- 07-12-12
Enthralling story of the British Raj in India
What made the experience of listening to The Day of the Scorpion the most enjoyable?
While I love all four volumes of The Raj Quartet, the introduction of the Layton's in this second volume adds enormously to the breadth and depth of the saga. Paul Scott's writing is exquisite and Richard Brown brings it to life...I truly feel in the midst of the story as I listen.
Who was your favorite character and why?
In particular I find Sarah Layton to be one of the most compelling figures of English literature. She is uncomfortable with the aristocratic role of her family and the British ruling class and questions the role of Britain in India, just as the life of the British Raj is winding down. She is ever bit as thoughtful as Daphne Manners in the first volume (The Jewel in the Crown), but elects to be more conventional at times. Yet I admire her inner life and feel her frustrations in dealing with her sister and mother.
What does Richard Brown bring to the story that you wouldn???t experience if you just read the book?
I can only say that I have re-listened to this book and the other three in the Raj Quartet too many times to count. I will keep coming back to the narration of this gem of a novel.
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1 person found this helpful