All RIGHT. After the third book, which was a bit of a disappointment and which sent me off into a reading crisis of epic proportions, A Division of Spoils was not only a welcome return to the quality of writing and plotting that I had come to expect of Scott, but it was also a bit like I read the last one and then I brushed my teeth and everything's fine now. More than fine. The plot finally moves on past the events that made up two books in a row, Barbie Batchelor's dead, and Guy Perron, most awesome character ever, shows up.
It's clear to see what purpose he serves in the book. He's the stand-in for the reader. He is white, middle class, and liberal (as are, I imagine, most of the readers of these books) and not only does he call bluff on the crazy crap Ronald Merrick represents, he kind of falls for Sarah Layton. All within the first hundred pages. His reader stand-in status means that he summarizes everything we know so far, and he has conversations with other characters that flesh out that information to new and sometimes alarming degrees. Which was helpful, because the amount of information spewed out in this book has got to rival all the information from the previous books combined.
Favorite Scenes:
1) The last bit on the train. I almost cried. And there went The Indian Character.
2) Perron's appearance in that very, very long evening: from his meeting with Purvis to the party to his meeting Merrick and Sarah Layton to the attempt to save Purvis to the meeting with Colonel Layton to Merrick's threat to have him transferred. All excellent.
3) Susan wondering where the arm went. For such a crazy and irritating character, I actually felt for her in that scene, and through her I felt a bit for Merrick too. To which I have to say, Paul Scott, you spin me round like a record baby.