"That illumination I held on to, about the unity of experience and the illusion of pain, was part of the same way of feeling. We fell into it—people like Indar and myself—because it was the basis of our old way of life. But I had rejected that way of life—and just in time. In spite of the girls in the cigarette kiosks, that way of life no longer existed, in London or Africa. There could be no going back; there was nothing to go back to. We had become what the world outside had made us; we had to live in the world as it existed. The younger Indar was wiser. Use the airplane; trample on the past, as Indar had said he had trampled on the past. Get rid of that idea of the past; make the dream-like scenes of loss ordinary."Naipaul, premio Nobel nel 2001, è stato largamente criticato da molti dei suoi colleghi post-coloniali. L'accusa, dopo aver letto questo romanzo, a me suona assurda. Gli si critica di essere troppo "inglese", troppo pessimista e cupo nei confronti del futuro dell'Africa. La verità è che io ho trovato questo romanzo tra i più realistici letti durante questo corso su colonialismo e post-colonialismo. Non mi sono mai immaginato l'Africa come un luogo dove il futuro riserba speranze e gioie, ma come un luogo devastato dal sangue e dalle guerre, che altro non sono che l'eredità del passato coloniale. Senza mai nominarlo direttamente, Naipaul parla del Congo di Mobutu, dell'aria pesante e tesa che si respirava durante la dittatura del "Big Man", come viene a volte definito. I personaggi del romanzo, a partire dalla bellissima narrazione in prima persona di Salim, il pratogonista, sono alla ricerca di un luogo dove poter mettere radici, di una casa, di un riferimento solido. Non lo troveranno mai. L'Africa si evolve sempre, e anche quando sembra che la situazione stia per stabilizzarsi, ecco che tornano le lotte intestine, i massacri, il sangue. Tutta la narrazione è pervasa dalla presenza di Mobutu, un'immagine costante che tappezza qualsiasi casa e negozio, il volto onnipresente in ogni angolo della città "alla curva del fiume". The President vuole che la sua immagine sia enorme e sproporzionata rispetto a quelle degli ufficiali del suo esercito, vuole che chiunque si avvicini a un livello alto nella società venga tolto di mezzo. Mobutu incarna, nella sua persona, sia le speranze che le delusioni dei giovani africani. Mobutu dà e Mobutu toglie. E il futuro africano è solo aria."I was homesick, had been homesick for months. But home was hardly a place I could return to. Home was something in my head. It was something I had lost."La frenesia continua dei personaggi, che arrancano giorno dopo giorno attraverso le strade delle loro vite, sempre alla ricerca di qualcosa e sempre insoddisfatti, delusi, senza speranze, è rappresentata da una bellissima metafora che paragona l'umanità africana a una colonia di formiche:"If you look at a column of ants on the march you will see that there are some who are stragglers or have lost their way. The column has no time for them; it goes on. Sometimes the stragglers die. But even this has no effect on the column, There is little disturbance around the corpse, which is eventually carried off – and then it appears so light. And all the time the great busyness continues, and that apparent sociability, that rite of meeting and greeting which ants travelling in opposite directions, to and from their nest, perform without fail."
I always find it difficult to talk about the books I really like. Especially so if it is a Naipaul book. I read The Bend again this year and found it much more ensorcelling than first time around . I guess what is so appealing about the book is its sense of diligence, a discipline which attempts to faithfully reflect the emerging world in Africa, as it is. No more no less. Perhaps, this is why, even after half a century and million more theses written on Africa, it still reflects the essence of Africa as none of them do.I suppose most paperback readers find it inane or even boring. But, bear in mind it's not a transit read. It's not a fiction of plot or story. It is a narrative of reality. And like all realities that are known to man, has no beginning or ending. It is a snapshot of a typical third world problem ie a recently independent state or culture desparately trying to hold onto something as its own in the wake of emerging post-modernism. But it never has or had anything of its own, anything that would give it an identity in the contemporary world apart from the history of having been a colony. Therefore it tries to manufacture a past – leaders, tribes, dances, cameraderie. Oh! the vanities, the denials, the insecurities, amidst all that is forming and unforming, changing choices, conflicting values. But it is what it is. Then there is the beauty of Naipaul prose. God! How it flows. Delicate, sublime, perfect yet letting the reader to make his own mind without patronizing or simplifying the sentiment. What I found most incredible in the book is the style used to pastiche the complex reality, so unhurriedly, so gracefully; as the book moves forward, it feels like a wave slowly falling and receding on a shore – adding something to the before, yet taking away something after; letting all the voices to speak on their own terms, to express their own realities to ultimately add up a grand reality that none of them can access in toto. Here is a wonderful instance – Indar is so ashamed of his third world identity that he desparately wants to trample his own past… ‘It isn’t easy to turn your back on the past. It isn’t something you can decide to do just like that. It is something you arm yourself for, or grief will ambush and destroy you. And Raymond with his first world citizenship, so much yearns for the True Africa that his own past has no bearing on his personal life. This leads to his wife's discontent and her confusion. Here's Raymond musing on Africa.. I was sitting in my room and thinking with sadness about all the things that have gone unrecorded. Do you think we can ever get to know the truth about what has happened in Africa in the last hundred or even fifty years? All the wars, all the rebellions, all the leaders, all the defeats?It doesn’t occur to you when you are reading it but as you move along, as the impressions of their characters are better formed , suddenly, somewhere in the next chapter perhaps, it occurs to you , that these two completely different men from completely different worlds are so unknowingly seeking each other’s past. They are only allowed to seek, ...Indar seducing Yvette or Raymond wanting to be Mommsen of Africa .., but never find. But they cant give up. Hence the world is what it is, always in movement.
What do You think about A Bend In The River (2002)?
A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul - This is a memoir of a shopkeeper of Indian descent in an town with no name on a bend in the river in a fictional post-colonial country in central Africa. The writing is dull; the story, what little there is of it, drags. I continually was thinking about abandoning this book, as not being worth the effort to read, but I persevered and finished it. Finally, at the very end of the book, the level of interest improves. Things become politically dangerous for the shopkeeper, so he leaves. V.S. Naipaul won a Nobel prize. Unbelievable. This book surely had nothing to with that.
—Buck Ward
And I'll add that in this book VSN states a great truth: "Non-fiction can distort...but fiction never lies." I used to tell my classes a practical application of this in film: If a film says is "based on a true story," of course it's all made up; on the other hand, if it claims it is fictional, You know the director and writers want to avoid lawsuits because it really is based...
—Riku Sayuj
The book examines the post-colonial turmoil that occurs in an unnamed African country soon after it's independence. However, this isn't a political thriller. Naipaul takes his time with the story and the pace is fairly leasurely as the both the setting and the characters are introduced and then developed in great detail. The main character is Salim, a man of ethnic Indian descent who relocates to a small town in the central African country. There he buys a small shop, makes friends with other expatriates, and observes the birth pains of his newly adopted country. A minor rebellion is quickly crushed and the newly elected President begins to consolidate his power and become more and more dictatorial as time passes. The tension does ratchet up towards the end of the bookThe leasurely pace allows Naipaul to paint a complex picture of this slice of Africa. The culture is described in great detail and you get a feel for the town and it's people. The uneasy mix of modernality and traditional ways stands out quite often: a BigBurger franchise sits near market stalls where caterpillars, grubs, and monkeys can be bought for food. Throughout it all, the vestiges of the colonial past are still apparent. The town is dotted with the burned out ruins of the homes of the European masters who were tossed out when independence was achieved and their statues have been torn down or defaced.Naipaul has been accused of being pro-colonialism because it's not a happy picture he paints. Corruption is rampant and bribes become the only way to get things done. The number of Government officials seems to increase almost daily and many of them often have little to do except to think of new ways to shake the foreign residents down for bribes. Through it all, the President's rhetoric takes on more and more the trappings of demagoguery. It's not a happy picture, but it's a scenario that has played out in real life a few too many times.
—Jon
