The Painted Veil

Maugham's The Painted Veil is one of those novels I picked up on a whim from a used bookstore on the West Coast. Like Razor's Edge, it almost seems to have Orientalist themes (Tao, China, the inscrutable East), but is centered on the life of a frivolous young woman whose ordeal forces her to reconsider her life and relationships. And if one thought it would become a sort of Chinese Love in the Time of Cholera, one is sorely mistaken. There is no magic realism here. Instead, Maugham's short novel exposes the bankruptcy of English social climbing (Kitty Fane's mother) and colonial social hierarchies (British Hong Kong, Charles Townsend). Through Kitty's attempt to find some meaning and sense of freedom, along her own Way, the 1925 novel also addresses some of the fundamental problems of relations between the sexes. 

Yes, women can vote and have made a variety of advances, but the proper English woman was still expected to marry well and remain dependent on a male breadwinner. Kitty's struggle to avoid being a burden after Walter's death illustrates this dilemma quite well. The other major women characters in the novel likewise experience the limitations placed upon their gender, especially Kitty's mother and Dorothy, the wife of Kitty's lover. Both of them are in no small manner largely behind the success of their husbands, but it is only through their men that their status is assured. Maugham appears to have understood this very well, and hints at a future change when Kitty promises to raise her unborn daughter as a free woman. Intriguingly, it is through the selfless French nuns in Mei-Tan-Fu that Kitty begins to see some way out of the rather meaningless life she led before as a young bourgeois woman.  

Now, what is the importance of China in this novel? Empire and colonialism are persistent themes in the novel, and with the exception of Colonel Yu and the owner of a curio shop, none of the Chinese characters are named. Most are "boys," or servants and amahs. Hong Kong, with its vain and unintelligent colonial officials (particularly Charles Townsend, the lover of Kitty), appears to consist of nothing but polo, balls, dinner, and putting on airs. Empire has bred a society at home and abroad lacking in the virtues and larger meaning of life. However, when going to the heart of a cholera epidemic in mainland China, the encounter with death, "traditional civilization," and sacrifice provides an opportunity for Kitty to develop while coming to some degree of peace with Walter. Allusions to the Tao, the ability of Waddington and the French nuns to embrace locals, and think beyond the West seems to inspire Kitty to think of how trivial her infidelity and prior life was. In short, China becomes an opportunity for the protagonist to discover herself, albeit only the first step on that journey. 

Mr. Biswas Is Home

The news of Naipaul's death has me in a strange place, emotionally. A good part of a year of my life was dedicated to exploring his literary works, as well as the novels and short stories of his younger brother, Shiva. Unlike other fans of his work, I prefer the earlier comic fiction of the Caribbean, and Naipaul more so than the usual writer successfully brought the reader into a different time, place, and world. Naipaul, and his brother Shiva, brought countless hours of joy and reflection for a year of my life, and for that, enriched my understanding of myself and the world around me. Nothing could have been a greater gift, and I shall always remember the commitment to the life of intellect, the desire to escape from the periphery, that motivated this great writer. Rest in peace. 

Greene's Orient Express

Although Graham Greene is one of my favorite novelists, Orient Express is so far my least favorite novel of is. As an "entertainment" with a similar title as one of Agatha Christie's classics, I expected something more exciting, granted there are some moments which are written as action film scenes. But I suppose my major problem with the novel is the caricatured main characters and the pervasive anti-Semitism where one is not sure if the author agrees.

The middle-aged lesbian who hates men, the virgin chorus girl, the self-conscious Jew, the thief on the run, and the novelist, Savory, are not as interesting as one would like, in spite of the "exotic" settings on a train bound for Istanbul. However, where the novel does approach the more typical 'Catholic' Greene territory, is in the lapsed Catholic Communist, Dr. Czinner (the name is a clue), who seeks redemption after the failure of an attempted Communist uprising. 

His character and his end, in his search for redemption, bring to mind a point made by a favorite intellectual historian of mine about the similarities between Marxism and Christianity. Furthermore, as Christiopher Hitchens's introduction to the edition I read indicates, Greene was likely drawing on his own sympathies for the Left and Catholicism in the character of Czinner, juxtaposing his fate with the ongoing social inequalities and exploitation of interwar Europe.

In that sense, the train, with its various classed cars and compartments, and the numerous references to the peasants, soldiers, clerks, and porters at the various sites along the way, is a portrait of the world in all its vicious social inequities, the passengers forced to engage with those in a setting in which the class, gender, sexual, and national borders are in flux. As one might expect, it doesn't end well for Czinner, Coral's fate is uncertain, but there are glimpses into which the characters' intersecting lives have unforgettably changed each other.

Swing Time

I thoroughly enjoyed Zadie Smith's Swing Time. It is quite hilarious, bringing to mind White Teeth's multiracial working-class through the unnamed narrator's upbringing, mixed heritage, and close friendship rooted in dance with another brown girl. For the addicting prose, wit, and humor, I struggle to agree with some of the mixed reviews this novel received. However, there was something lacking in the narrative structure, particularly regarding some of the relationships (I'm thinking mainly of the narrator and Fern, the latter's love for the former striking me as unrealistic) and plot arcs that do not pay off or seem plausible. Nonetheless, I love Smith's subtle approach and characteristic wit, which appears to capture brilliantly the paranoid worldview of (some) the working-class, the fundamental dishonesty of the "woke" boyfriend of the narrator in her college years, celebrity culture's pitfalls, and the image of Africa (specifically, Gambia). Smith also playfully confronts the "tragic mulatto" trope, the sordid history of exploitation of black bodies (through dance, music, and other avenues), but never loses sight of the universal and the narrator's struggle to not be alone. Furthermore, this novel fits quite well with Smith's recent essay on appropriation as it deals with dance, race, gender, and famous cases of appropriation in dance history. Overall, a successful and engaging read that is more amusing than NW but less interesting than On Beauty or White Teeth. 

The Razor's Edge

One can see immediately the appeal of Maugham's The Razor's Edge. There is much humor through the "arch-snob" Elliot, who I like to see as a Frasier or Niles kind of character. We have a rich spiritual and philosophical discourse through Larry's search for meaning, social mores of the US and French characters, and Maugham's self-insertion into the text for much appreciated commentary and order. Like Greene's The End of the Affair, Maugham's presence within the text makes it more relatable and seemingly "real" to the reader. One cannot help but feel that one is on this journey of Maugham, who also traveled to India and modeled some of the characters and experiences on his own time there. Indeed, Naipaul alludes to this in great later novel, Half a Life, which inspired me to read Maugham. And in contrast to what I was led to believe about this novel's impact on the Beats and the generation of the 1960s, which it certainly hints at, Maugham avoids the romanticized or extremely problematic exoticized Western exploitation of "India" as the fount of spiritual redemption or force.

In fact, Maugham's character, the narrator, is never quite sure if Larry did indeed achieve union with the Absolute (Illumination), and the "mystical Orient" did not answer all of his questions. Does the novel reinforce cultural stereotypes? Yes, but not to the absurd degree future writers accomplished. Since India itself does not become an important part of the novel until much later in the text, I read it as a particularly clever and witty critique of Western society in the interwar years, especially the American obsession with growth and their belief in an infallible future of greatness. The obsession with success, status, and, excess, in the US, London, France, and Germany appears to drive the novel, yet one cannot help but feel that the author's conclusion is a call for a form of tolerance or coexistence of individualized expressions of a "successful life," perhaps a match to the ambiguity surrounding Larry's alleged union with the Absolute.

Brighton Rock

Although Brighton Rock is centered on a teenage gangster in the seaside town of Brighton, thematically this novel fits in quite well with Greene's Catholic novels. Rose, in particular, her ability to stand by and love a man committed to damnation regardless of tragic consequences, stood out to the reader as one of Greene's more memorable characters. Ida, as a socially 'free' women driven by Right and Wrong rather than good and evil (the framework of Rose), is a remarkable character in her sexual freedom and autonomy. The contrast between Right and Wrong versus good and evil also demonstrates the murkiness of ethics in a modern society in which religion does not dictate law. Thus, in her own way, Rose's belief in love and fidelity to Pinkie is arguably 'good' even if the actions of the characters are Wrong. Similarly, Ida's pursuit of what's Right, removed from a Catholic ethics, ignores a larger purpose or calling. These opposing conceptions illustrate part of the conflict between Ida and Rose, who though young and naive in her own way, nonetheless clings to her 'Roman' predilection for damnation and heaven. And the suggestion of a Catholic hope for all, despite it all, figures prominently here as in Greene's best Catholic novels, in spite of the ultimate tragedy that awaits Rose.  

Howards End

I only know Foster's classic through Zadie Smith's On Beauty, but I felt it was necessary to read Howards End. After reading Forster's "The Machine Stops," my interest in Forster only grew. However, Howards End is achingly slow, albeit quite philosophical, and perhaps is too optimistic about the future of English class relations and a synthesis of the English practical character and German idealism. Nonetheless, it is rewarding to see where Smith's fascinating novel comes from, despite their radical differences in setting and the racial themes of Smith's work. However, Foster, in his own way, was quite critical of Empire and the ascendant commercial classes, which leaves him relevant to posterity, though the characaters of Howards End are by no means radicals. It's a shame that such an optimistic novel of the future would be broken by World War I and renewed German-British conflict. For the urban/rural character of the novel (London versus the provinces) and the hybrid German-English protagonist, Margaret, one sees how this novel influenced Zadie Smith.

Naipaul at Dhaka

VS Naipaul discusses his life and being a writer in this precious segment from the Dhaka Lit Fest 2016. Naipaul's point about anxiety and the desire to become that lovely thing, a writer, hits home. Lady Naipaul's story about the manuscript for A House for Mr. Biswas being left on the kitchen table while Vidia went on vacation adds a nice personal touch. One would also love to hear more about Augustus, Naipaul's adored cat.

The End of the Affair

Graham Greene's The End of the Affair is Catholic guilt somersaults for a lapse Catholic reader. Much like his novels set in more exotic locales, infidelity, guilt, love, relationships, and events of a more momentous impact such as World War II figure prominently, but this is perhaps, the most intimate account of doomed lovers struggling with love, faith, and morality in a bourgeois setting, with both God's love (agape) and human interpersonal notions of love battling it out. Although I prefer Greene's non-Britain settings, it was refreshing to see his somewhat expected character types in London during the War as the backdrop for a conflict of epic scale (God's existence, what does it mean to love another person or experience the love of God) just as the humor and autobiographical elements of the novel reveal more of Greene's comic sensibilities and willingness to perhaps mock himself however lightly. Even someone writing about romance and the search for human connection knew how to use humor effectively in this carefully and richly worded novel, imbued with so much meaning that even some of the superstitious Catholic 'miracle' hints can be forgiven. 

Kureishi's Last Word

"Literature was a killing field; no decent person ever picked up a pen." 

Hanif Kureishi's postmodern novel, ostensibly based on Patrick French's biography of V.S. Naipaul, is a worthwhile read for all devotees of Naipaul. However, those expecting Mamoon and his biographer, Harry, to overwhelmingly resemble their "real-life" inspiration, will be a little disappointed. What is fascinating about Kureishi's novel is how he suspends judgment, focusing on the thin line between fact and fiction, not to mention fact and reality (yes, that's a thing, not just a reference to a time I mispoke at a dinner). As a work full of humor and numerous references to allegedly factual occurrences in Naipaul's life, especially regarding his infamous relationship with women in his life and his troubling position as a brown colonial often perceived as adopting racist positions, Kureishi's prose is surprisingly dull and almost uninspired, but the novel's successful for revealing how, like that famous Naipaul quotation indicates, fiction never lies. Perhaps a film adaptation should be attempted for Kureishi's novel, which strikes me as an excellent idea given that Kureishi's fiction writing always struck me as better fit for film, much like The Buddha of Suburbia movie. 

The Last Word

Hanif Kureishi discusses his novel, The Last Word. Although I'm only about halfway through, I find some of prose and dialogue uninspired and dull, but fascinating for fictionalizing Patrick French's biography of V.S. Naipaul. As someone who appreciates Kureishi's screenplays more than his novels, it's refreshing to see him tackle postmodern biography. All fans of Naipaul should read this book. 

The Quiet American

What I love about Graham Greene is his perceptive nature and penchant for being in 'hotspots' before they blow up. Sure, one doesn't have to be a prophet to have foreseen some of the conflicts of the Cold War and colonialism, but Greene's The Quite American shares with Our Man in Havana an intuitive understanding of imminent political and social change. Sure, American intervention in Vietnam long before the Gulf of Tonkin incident was probably predicted by others as early as the mid-1950s, but Greene saw the wasteful Vietnam War in postwar American hegemonic foreign policy, even when masked by American "innocence" (or, perhaps, naivete, as embodied by Pyle). This concern with US foreign policy was self-evident in The Comedians and Our Man in Havana, but this highly cinematic novel littered with references to America's eternal adolescence, articulate this particular postwar British perspective better than The Comedians.

 

 And Vietnam was perhaps the best setting for this shift to decolonisation and US hegemony, especially as the Americans were prepared to ascend as Britain and France lost their empires. This is why Ishiguro's Remains of the Day came to mind while reading this, despite their vast differences in setting and characters. Nonetheless, Ishiguro's novel captured that withering might of the British Empire, whose sun finally began to set, within the metropole. As Robert Stone's explanatory introduction states, Greene came from such a family that was invested in the Empire, and hence the ambivalence on the US and its encroachment in the colonies, or, to be even more direct, Pyle taking away Fowler's "native" woman, Phuong. Naturally, it being Greene, Catholicism is a consistent undercurrent in the novel's portrayal of war, crime, guilt, and redemption, as well as a witty sense of humor and bitter barbs against the US. I loved it all. 

Graham Greene's Diamonds From Sierra Leone

Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter is another masterpiece of his Catholic novels, all of which I hope to finish. Much like James Wood's useful introduction to the brilliant novel indicates, Greene's Catholicism was often of an anti-institutional kind that can appeal to Protestant tastes or people of all faiths. The Heart of the Matter accomplishes this just as well as The Power and the Glory, and the Freetown, Sierra Leone setting is used quite well here. While Greene's depictions of the local population, especially the Africans and Syrians, could be seen in a 21st century light as racist or questionable, there is a genuine love and concern for all residents of that "Tower of Babel" in Scobie, and, by extension, Greene himself. 

Whilst hardly an anti-colonial novel and lacking the socialism of Camus, whose The Plague is compared to Greene's novel by Wood, Greene is a better writer with a magical combination of humor, accessible prose, subtle and unsubtle phrasing and metaphors, and a deep commitment to Christian values in ways a secular leftist would approve. A tale of love, loyalty, faith, and humanity's struggle to know humankind is a universal struggle, and Greene's setting during World War II in a "white man's grave" colony bring this to the fore. Naturally, some may object to the image of Africa in Greene's imagination (sometimes reminscient of Conrad, perhaps), but with a closer look, Greene's story could just as easily be set in postwar London or Northampton, especially in the battle for love, intimacy, selflessness and pity between men and women, white and black, Allies and  Axis, neutrals and colonials. Scobie's own Christ-like action at the end and good intentions bring to mind the unnamed whisky priest of his other famous Catholic novel, as both must confront guilt and the consequences of their actions, hoping to find some redemption. 

I only wish Ali, Scobie's "boy," and other African characters were given equal consideration or focus for a inclusive narrative on Freetown during World War II. As indicated in the novel and Greene's real-life experience during the War, obviously espionage, smuggling, submarine attacks, local unrest, and a corrupt colonial police and bureaucracy existed, yet we see nothing of the "wharf rats" or the numerous "mammies" who populate the city, only offered rare glimpses into their thoughts and world. And what of the West Indians, the Indian fortuneteller, or Tallit, the Syrian Chrsitian rival of Yusef, who disappears from the novel rather abruptly? Perhaps what Greene's novel needs is a response or counternarrative, maybe along the lines of Kamel Daoud's The Meursault Investigation, for a fuller picture of Freetown during that time. 

The Power and the Glory

Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory is one of those rare novels with such spiritual import one is left breathless after finishing. Reminding me of Philip K. Dick's masterpiece, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, Greene's thoroughly Catholic tale of a Mexican priest on the run is essentially Christian, just like Dick's late work. Both also share a devotion to agape as the reservoir (and goal?) of Christian meaning and faith, done to excellent effect in both works. Just as one character chooses compassion over enlightenment in Dick's novel, here the unnamed Mexican priest, returns to certain death to fulfill his duty and try to love everyone as he loves his grave sin. Greene's novel also brings to mind the problematic ways in which leftist insurgents and governments, pursuing the same goals, in the end, as the Catholic Church, can also harm or exploit the population in which they claim to be fighting for. No one is left unscathed in this touching tale, and much like the life of the saints or Christ himself, there is always redemption or redeemable aspects of the unfavorable characters, including the lieutenant hell-bent on killing the unnamed priest, the last Catholic cleric left in a state whose socialist government banned Catholicism.  Furthermore, the ambiguous loose ends of the novel, which another novelist may not have succeeded in pulling off, contribute to the text's core themes of the community, aided by the novel's shift in characters, as the decisions made by a few reverberate throughout the province as the "whiskey priest" lives on the run. In short, a brilliant novel that Catholics and non-Catholics alike can enjoy, be mesmerized by, and appreciate the Mexican setting. 

Remembering Shiva Naipaul

V.S. Naipaul and Shiva Naipaul, together with their father in the background. 

How sinful of me to forget Trinidadian Shiva Naipaul, whose birthday was on the 25th of last month. Shiva Naipaul, trapped in his older brother's shadow, is one of my favorite writers. Some of his short stories are even funnier than Vidia's. Indeed, my favorite story by Shiva is the tale of a Hindu thief who exploits a children's choir on Christmas to make money, making for the best humorous Christmas story one could ever need. Shiva Naipaul's novels are also tragicomedies of the most gravity, imbuing meaning to 'small islands' in a way most would choose to ignore. Christopher Hitchens also thought highly of Shiva, praising "Fireflies," a masterpiece, which I believe surpasses A House For Mr. Biswas. Unlike his famous big brother, Shiva Naipaul could write fully developed female characters and avoid some of the more Negrophobic tendencies of Vidia's fiction and travel writing. In fact, according to Paul Theroux, Vidia used to mock his younger brother, who went to Oxford and studied Chinese, as believing in the liberal talk of racial equality and interracial unions. 

As for his travel writings, I have only read here and there, but Shiva offered, through his nonfiction, similarly dark musings that fans of Vidia will appreciate. Who could forget Shiva's daytrip between Africa and Europe, Islam and Christianity, ending so sourly? Shiva's experience with an English woman who could not fathom an East Indian from the West Indies? Or his potent observation on the function of Bollywood as the opium den of Bombay? Of course, anything the Naipauls ever wrote in their travel writing should be taken with a grain of salt, but Shiva struck me as less devoted to the imperialist gaze. 

Shiva Naipaul's Fireflies

"Having from early on, confused religion with magic, they had come to hold the majority of religions in a superstitious dread, genuinely afraid of the vengeance rival gods might let fall on the clan should they be offended."

Shiva Naipaul, younger brother of V.S. Naipaul, wrote an epic comedy which possibly surpasses A House for Mr. Biswas. An alternative title could have been A House for Mrs. Lutchman given the shared style, themes, and content, but Shiva Naipaul's Mrs. Lutchman is a far more compelling female character than anyone in his brother's work. The hilarious Hindu clan, the Khojas, the gradual dissolution of the patriarchal nucleus binding the family together, the various marriages and dispossessions Mrs. Lutchman experiences, and last, but certainly not least, the hilarity which ensues in what is truly a tragic set of circumstances for the protagonist manage to make for a successful novel. Shiva Naipaul's Khoja family not only entertains, but imports many lessons on family, social change, religion, culture, and the shifts in Trinidadian life. Like fireflies caught in a jar by the brother Khoja, the sisters and Vimla gradually escape, but Mrs. Lutchman loses the most with the loss of her independence, husband, and son.  

When it comes to compelling female characters, Shiva Naipaul's Mrs. Lutchman is a more likable, nuanced character than most of V.S. Naipaul's fictional women. Both share similar comic sensibilities, but one wonders if Shiva's more sympathetic female protagonist is the result of his father dying when Shiva was rather young, whereas their father lived long enough to see Vidia reach adulthood and shape his work? We know Mr. Biswas is based on their father, but maybe Shiva looked more to their mother as a model for Fireflies, which could explain a more nuanced, female protagonist for what Christopher Hitchens described as a masterpiece in tragicomedy. Regardless of his inspiration, Fireflies is one of those rare reads which transport one to another time, place, and culture during a period of rapid change. Timeless, humorous, informative, and, in its own way, potentially feminist, if one looks to the Khoja sisters and the next generation. 

Magic Seeds

"In spite of all the killings, the movement was becoming more and more a matter of these abstract words."

Naipaul's sequel to Half a Life, Magic Seeds, his most recent work of fiction, is underwhelming compared to the interesting plot and earlier life of the protagonist, Willie Chandran. In this sequel, Willie decides to follow his sister's advice and joins the guerrillas in the Indian countryside, drifting for several more years until being imprisoned as a political prisoner, his early 1950s "postcolonial literature" saving his hide as Roger, still in London, is able to get Willie released. Back in London, Willie continues to drift. This is essentially the entirety of the story, with the "meat" set in India amongst a dangerous group of "revolutionaries" who are not aligned with the Kandapalli's group, which his sister Sarojini, had meant for Willie to join. 

The only character from the prequel who actually succeeds in meeting his goals is Marcus, the West African who finally achieves success by having a white grandchild, while Roger is on the path to perdition and Willie reaches a typical Naipaulian conclusion: "It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world." Similar themes abound: the disconnect between the Indian guerrillas and the peasants they exploit in the name of revolution, the unreality of human connection, intimate or otherwise, decay in the postcolonial areas, decline in London (council estate houses, the alleged dependency they breed, according to Roger), a general state of unraveling, of unreality.

Since Naipaul has previously explored guerrillas in a novel with the same name, based on the Black Power movement in the West Indies, this novel, which focuses on a more explicitly Marxist-Leninist group of revolutionaries, brings to mind some critiques of Sendero Luminoso. The revolutionaries Willie joins in the Indian countryside cling to the fiction of fighting for the peasants, for a revolution inspired by Marx, Lenin, and Mao, but the reality of the peasants and their different aspirations contradict them at every turn. 

In the end, the guerrillas become another exploitative force, taking advantage of the countryside's populace without meeting any success. How can one ever launch a successful revolution when one's forces are killing and exploiting the very group one claims to fight for? It is this contradiction, the elusive goal or "unreality" of revolution which plagues the Indian movement Willie joins. In typical Naipaul fashion, Africa is, though acknowledged as a site of colonialism, is portrayed as better off than India because the Africans "know who they are" while India remembers its ancient past yet lost meaning. Both are "wounded civilizations" nonetheless.   

The Enigma of Arrival

Naipaul on grounds of Wiltshire home, 1978 (Source)

"I had given myself a past, and a romance of the past. One of the loose ends in my mind had vanished; a little chasm filled. And though something like Haitian anarchy seemed to threaten my little island, and though physically I no longer belonged to the place, yet the romance by which I had attached it to the rest of the world continued to be possessed by me as much as the imaginative worlds of my other, fictional books."

Naipaul's The Enigma of Arrival is an autobiographical tome on the cycle of life, migration, and change. Set in the English countryside, while the narrator, representing Naipaul, is renting a cottage, walking, and writing, the text comments on the seasons, the gradual changes or decline of the manor, life and social relations in England, and explorations of the narrator's journey, a process of returns or flights, both literal and metaphorical. 

The novel reminds one of The Enigma of the Return  by Dany Laferrière in that both feature a shared fixation on movement to and from the Caribbean. While Trinidad is only of many areas in which Naipaul returns to in his fiction, here his childhood and "second childhood" in his Wiltshire cottage leave room for thought on Naipaul's shifting identity, self-perception as an international or "metropolitan" writer, and the Trinidad which has become more imaginary than real for him. Just as his time in the countryside, appreciating the history and natural splendor of the area, eventually comes to an end, Naipaul's journey continues in interesting ways as we are introduced to the infirm landlord, the Phillipses, who manage, the gardener, and other characters in the book progress, age, die. 

There is no such thing as an immutable world, and the decay of the landlord's estate in England is mirrored by the shocking changes in Naipaul's Trinidad, where the old Indian villages of the countryside have disappeared while Caribbean immigrants, shantytowns, an oil boom, independence, and racial politics transform Naipaul. The enigma of arrival, indeed! Whether traveling to New York and England for the first time, ruminating on his experiences in other Caribbean locales, or describing his image of Africa and India, the mysteries of the world evolve, and the greatest of mysteries, humanity, changes with generations. Naipaul's return to Trinidad for his younger sister's cremation rituals, provides an excellent conclusion to this theme. 

One of the more intriguing aspects of this novel is the image of Trinidad and the Caribbean, a region in which Naipaul begins to understand its greater role in world history just as he loses it due to no longer being part of the changed Trinidad. When first leaving it in 1950 for Oxford, he describes in great detail seeing the island from the sky for the first time, seeing it as much more than a small colonial outpost where his half-education through abstraction was something to escape. He even feels some connection with an Afro-Trinidadian man on the plane, and an African-American en route to Europe on the ship from New York. His colonial roots, his uprooting from India and the Caribbean, connects him with the African-American on the ship who refuses to be placed in Naipaul's quarters to avoid being ghettoized or segregated based on race. One sees from incidents like these, a shared desire on Naipaul's part to escape being pigeonholed or segregated because of his race, in his desire to become a metropolitan writer. 

Yet, one also detects some regional kinship with the Trinidadian, with the travels in Belize, his stops in Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Barbados, and Anguilla. By connecting the history of Trinidad to the early European conquest of the region, the French fleeing the Haitian and French Revolutions to Trinidad in the 19th century. Here, one finds a troubling view of the Haitian Revolution as an example of black revolt or revolution rooted in anger and turning away from the world, not trying to improve it. He compares this complex, 19th century event with Black Power in Trinidad, two distinct historical events, yet sees it all as part of the general 'plantation colony' heritage of the Caribbean. Its an interesting perspective, but not exactly historically accurate, though one sees where Naipaul is going with that assertion. The Trinidad of his youth, the one he returns to by the novel's end, is no longer for him. Much like Ralph Singh in The Mimic Men or other characters in Naipaul's fiction, the narrator is uprooted from his Asiatic or Hindu origins as well as the Caribbean, while England is also a site of change or rootlessness in its own ways, as exemplified by the gradual decay of the manor.

There is much more to be said about this work, which I shall return to in future posts about the author. A stronger comparative work on its commonalities with "The Enigma of the Return" for instance, would be fascinating reading for how both authors approach their respective origins, or the Caribbean. Impressively, it manages to, while delving into great detail about the estates, the colors, shapes, seasonal variety, and inhabitants of the English countryside, connect history, colonialism, identity, travel, and blur the lines between fact and fiction. The description of the Hindu rituals, pundit cousin, and death of Sati are quite moving, too. 

Favorite Quotes

"That final trip to the pub served no cause except that of life; yet he made it appear an act of heroism; poetical." (48)

"These ideas of a world in decay, a world subject to constant change, and of the shortness of human life, made many things bearable." (23)

"I had thought that because of my insecure past--peasant India, colonial Trinidad, my own family circumstances, the colonial smallness that didn't consort with the grandeur of my ambition, my uprooting of myself for a writing career, my coming to England with so little, and the very little I still had to fall back on--I had thought that because of this I had been given an especially tender or raw sense of an unaccommodating world" (92).

"Yet I was also ashamed that, with all my aspirations, and all that I had put into this adventure, this was all that people saw in me---so far from the way I thought of myself, so far from what I wanted for myself. And it was shame, too, that made me keep my eyes closed while they were in the cabin" (126).

"Two hundred years on, another Haiti was preparing, I thought: a wish to destroy a world judged corrupt and too full of pain, to turn one's back on it, rather than to improve it" (161).

"The story had become more personal: my journey, the writer's journey, the writer defined by his writing discoveries, his ways of seeing, rather than by his personal adventures, writer and man separate at the beginning of the journey and coming together again in a second life just before the end" (344).

"Men need history; it helps them to have an idea of who they are. But history, like sanctity, can reside in the heart; it is enough that there is something there" (353).

Mr. Stone and the Knights Companion

"All action, all creation was a betrayal of feeling and truth."

Naipaul's Mr. Stone and the Knights Companion is a strange little novel. No characters of color, old age, search for meaning, possible Hindu symbolism (Shiva), and London. The novel's themes are consistent with some of Naipaul's earlier work, and perhaps part of his attempt to not be pigeonholed as a West Indian or Caribbean writer, even though all his early work draws on Trinidad and the Caribbean. The protagonist, an aging Mr. Stone who is about to retire, struggles to find meaning in his life, fights to have something pure or stand the test of time. In this regard, Mr. Stone is not too different from other protagonists of Naipaul's novels. 

For those seeking an amusing and short read, give this one a chance. There is a rich and almost condescending humor throughout the text, as well as social commentary on marriage, family, the 'changes' of London as more immigrant communities of color establish themselves, as well a deceptively thin overview of one man's attempt to establish himself in a world, beyond the seasons or routine.

The Mimic Men

"We pretended to be real, to be learning, to be preparing ourselves for life, we mimic men of the New World, one unknown corner of it, with all its reminders of the corruption that came so quickly to the new."

Harsh and somewhat unfair characterization of the Caribbean from Naipaul, although there was and is an undeniable mimicry of Europe and North America among some West Indians of Naipaul's generation. The Mimic Men seems like Naipaul's harsher way to distance himself from Trinidad and the postcolonial government through Ralph Singh as a deracinated Indian, uprooted from his ancient Hindu past by the sea, shipwrecked in the Caribbean or London. I think Patrick French's biography is right to emphasize Naipaul's personal life as shaping novels like The Mimic Men or A Bend in the River, which clearly draw from the author's personal frustrations and identity crisis as an "East Indian of the West Indies."

Moreover, one sees here, in The Mimic Men, the shift in Naipaul's writing from the comic satire of his previous Trinidad novels. There are a few good jokes interspersed here (sheet paper pronounced by a Maltese in London, Eden being so black out of spite that Spite becomes his nickname at school), but The Mimic Men represents a shift to sexually frustrated, anxious, protagonists of displaced Indian descent. Like Saleem, Ralph Singh is an East Indian shipwrecked in the Caribbean island of Isabella, modelled on Naipaul's origins in Trinidad. Much like the trees carried away by ocean and river currents which arrive on Isabella's beaches, Ralph Singh is displaced and caught as an 'intermediate' Asiatic in a slave island of blacks and whites. Like other people of the 'transplantation,' Singh is a mimic men in many ways, becoming what others see of him and, like the decolonized world, operating through borrowed expressions, ideas, and civilizations. 

The problem with Naipaul is one of imposing the center's view of the periphery, the Caribbean. Instead of seeing the region as transplantations and focusing on his displacement from his Indian roots, Naipaul does not engage the Caribbean as a region of History, not solely European colonies for profit. Naipaul should have spent more time reading J.J. Thomas instead of Froude, more time understanding the Haitian Revolution instead of falling into the trap of racial theory and obsession with the Metropole. Much like his Middle Passage, a travelogue whose casual racism was too much for me to complete it, The Mimic Men shares a similarly dismal view of the early postcolonial Caribbean. 

While there were certainly deep contradictions and a problem of 'mimicry' in the West Indies, and an issue of racial divisions which plagued Trinidad & Tobago, Naipaul's perspective as a postcolonial Mandarin who could not return for good to Trinidad, but accepts a sort of stasis in a London hotel through the fictional character of Ralph Singh, is quite disturbing and ignores how the societies of the Caribbean were only copies of the allegedly superior West. I could rant endlessly about this novel and its complexities, its memoir structure, how it moves back and forth chronologically or even its universal implications of mimicry and identity (Sandra, perhaps one of the most interesting female characters in Naipaul's corpus, or the university students at the School in London, for example, all are 'playing' in their own ways that mirror or differ from that of the 'half-societies' of the West Indies), but I shall leave that for future posts.

On another disturbing note, the colonial politicians (Browne, Singh, etc.) and the experiments at satisfying distress while ensnared in mimicry, actually reminded me of Idi Amin Dada. The Mimic Men was written in Uganda, where Naipaul met Theroux, and actually contains a reference to colonial politicians 'turning' the tables and having whites serve them, in a troubling portent of Idi Amin's photographs of whites carrying him. These kinds of token symbolic decolonisation did not work for the fictional Caribbean island of Isabella. They most definitely did little for Uganda under Idi Amin, who took power a few years after The Mimic Men was published.

Note: The Kindle Edition is full of grammatical or formatting errors, which made this a harder read than necessary. Fortunately, those formatting or editing mistakes for the Kindle edition were not as numerous as they could have been.

Some Favorite Quotes

"The career of the colonial politician is short and ends brutally. We lack order. Above all, we lack power. We mistake words and the acclamation of words for power; as soon as our bluff is called we are lost."

"Flight to the greater disorder, the final emptiness: London and the home counties."

"They talk of the pessimism of the young as they talk of atheism and revolt: it is something to be grown out of."

"I no longer seek to find beauty in the lives of the mean and the oppressed. Hate oppression; fear the oppressed."

"How right our Aryan ancestors were to create gods. We seek sex, and are left with two private bodies on a stained bed. The larger erotic dream, the god, has eluded us. It is so whenever, moving out of ourselves, we look for extensions of ourselves. It is with cities as it is with sex. We seek the physical city and find only a conglomeration of private cells. In the city as nowhere else, we are reminded that we are individuals, units. Yet the idea of the city remains, it is the god of the city that we pursue in vain."

"He was like me: he needed the guidance of other men's eyes."

"In London I had no guide. There was no one to link my present with my past, no one to note my consistencies or inconsistencies."

"We become what we see of ourselves in the eyes of others."

"For there is no such thing as history nowadays; there are only manifestos and antiquarian research."

"Politicians are people who truly make something out of nothing. They have few concrete gifts to offer. They are not engineers or artists or makers. They are manipulators; they offer themselves as manipulators."

"Those student associations! Playing at being students, playing at being questioning and iconoclastic, playing at being young and licensed, playing at being in preparation for the world! The dishonesty of the young!"

"To be born on an island like Isabella, an obscure  New World transplantation, second-hand and barbarous, was to be born to disorder."

"We came out into the Indian areas, the flat lands where rice and sugarcane grew. My father spoke of the voyage, so recent but already in our strange hemisphere so remote, which the fathers and indeed some of the people we saw had made from another continent, to complete our own little bastard world."

"But in our slogans, we assumed the role of metropolitan party-givers. We did so easily; at Isabella Imperial, we were natural impersonators."

"Eden was something of a buffoon. He was the blackest boy in the school and for some time was known as Spite because some boys said he was black for spite."