In a Free State

"He will never in a hundred years understand how ordinary the world was for me, with nothing good in it, nothing to see except sugarcane and the pitch road, and how from small I know I had no life."

V.S. Naipaul's In a Free State won the Booker in 1971, and consists of 5 different stories, the longest being a novella. Bringing together the metropole (London, Washington) with recently decolonized countries (India, Egypt, Trinidad, Uganda), the prize-winning book explores the contours of freedom, in both a personal sense as an immigrant, a settler in Africa, and a traveler who sounds suspiciously like Naipaul himself in the prologue and epilogue, both centered on Egypt. All stories share movement as a theme, whether occurring through planes, automobiles, cruisers, trains, or ships in the Mediterranean, Egyptian desert, London, 

The most interesting of the stories was the first, a short story about Santosh, a domestic from Bombay, who accompanies his boss to Washington and enters into his own 'free state' as he moves away from tradition forms surprising relationships with a hubshi woman, an African-American woman. Despite the stereotypes and low opinion Indians held of blacks, even those of the servant class who were comfortable sleeping in the pavement of Bombay's streets, Santosh, in his own way, experiences his rupture from his Bombay roots through parallel developments with African-Americans in the US capital. Like the other tales in the book, Naipaul includes shrewd social commentary on the absence of real or authentic experiences, how everybody lies. For its fascinating take on Indian class and the Indians uprooted, so to speak, this stands out as one of the more interesting short stories penned by Naipaul. One wonders if this tale possibly influenced Aravind Adiga's White Tiger, which shares a similar interest or influence from African-American literature.

The other fascinating story was "Tell Me Who to Kill," which is recounted in first person by an unnamed brother. Born in poverty in an island that sounds just like Naipaul's Trinidad, the narrator places his hopes into helping his younger brother, Dayo, pursue an education and become more than what their island represents, in London. In a surprising twist for Naipaul, this narrative actually alludes to racial discrimination and the harshness of life for West Indian immigrants in the 'Mother Country.' Written in a kind of dialect, one almost feels as if this story was written by a Samuel Selvon rather than Naipaul. However, like the rest of this book, the brother deceives himself and the free state of escape from the West Indies does not work out well for him, as he becomes reliant on his only friend, a white Frank, whose liberal impulse to protect the narrator carries the stench of condescension. 

The novella, "In a Free State," is also an intriguing read, but too similar to A Bend in the River. The novella, however, is centered on an English homosexual administrative official in a country that sounds eerily similar to Uganda, which is in a state of political unrest due to timeless "tribal" conflict. Told through a third person narrator, "In a Free State" moves chronologically and physically from the 'English-Indian' capital to the Collectorate in the South, across valleys, along rivers, and the dark forests. Much like A Bend in the River, a Conradian image of Africa is pervasive, as well as the old mimicry of England or European ways in the former English colony (English hairstyles, resorts, towns, and buildings that resemble England). 

Depending on how one reads Conrad, Heart of Darkness can be either a pro-colonialist or anti-imperialist text, and much like his literary forebear, Naipaul falls somewhere in between, as someone who highlights the casual racism of the Europeans while never truly including an African character who is not more than stereotypes. Naipaul also hints at the protagonist character in A Bend in the River by attributing much of the cities and maintenance of businesses to the Indian community, a community in danger of deportations. Like the other stories, again one finds characters who are in a 'free state' of deception and fabrication, the Europeans lying to themselves about why they are in Africa in the first place and their role. Lots of postcolonial theory here, for those interested in Naipaul's take.

As for the prologue and epilogue, they are tied in thematically with the rest of the text. The prologue shares with "In a Free State" a similar critique of deportations, from Egypt sending the Greeks of Alexandria packing to Uganda expelling Indians. The future failure of Egyptian soldiers, of peasant origins, in the Sinai against Israel, also pertains to the Israeli military men training African soldiers in the novella. In both cases, the Africans (Ugandans, Egyptians) were hopeless when it came to matching the Israelis military, and one can see how the foreigners in both stories (Italians, Lebanese, Germans, Chinese) come to Africa with their own interests, economic or political. The Chinese 'circus,' impressing Egyptians in a hut, with their 'Red' dogma or the Lebanese merchants plotting how to enrich themselves in Egypt, for example, depict a postcolonial world in which deception is truly international. The 'desert children' outside the rest-house in Luxor are another 'circus,' performers for the Italian tourists who enjoy watching the 'sand animals.'

Overall, an interesting story suite here, but lacking the humor of his strictly Caribbean fiction or depth of A Bend in the River. Naipaul's masque of Africa is better illustrated in that subsequent work than what we have here, although he manages to impressively weave together the lives of so many distinct groups of people, across borders. For all fans of his fiction after A House for Mr. Biswas, this is essential reading.