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Feb 03, 2011

Sunil rated it:

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 More...

2 comments like (14 people liked it)

May 30, 2011

Dave rated it:

This is a lousy boring book. Naipaul seems very interested in telling us How The World Works, or at least how it works in Africa (he does know Africa is a continent and not a country, right?) The problem, though, is that this is ostensibly a novel and not a work of non-fiction, and Naipaul isn't a very good storyteller. He mostly narrates rather than dramatizes. There are long, long passages where there is no dialogue, which would be all right if something interesting actually happened More...

8 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jun 17, 2010

K.D. rated it:

My copy of this book is a POB (previously owned book). There are a lot of scribbles using different colors of highlighters (pink, yellow and green). In one of the pages is a name: Danielle Sidari. I googled her name yesterday and one of these days I will invite her to be my friend in Facebook. Who knows?

Anyway, it is my first time to read a book with a lot of scribbles. Danielle is not a bad reader. Rather her comments and the phrases she underlined seem to indicate that she is smart More...

10 comments like (7 people liked it)

May 14, 2007

Raghu rated it:

This is my most favorite novel from V.S.Naipaul. In fact, the novel's setting and progress is such that when one reads it many years it was written, which is what I did, one can realize how prophetic and perceptive it is about Africa and its future after colonialism ends there. Naipaul is analytical and thoroghly unsentimental and consequently, he is rather pessimistic about Africa's resurgence with the end of colonialism, contrary to what many liberals believed. The story is absorbing, tracing More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 13, 2011

Kate rated it:

I was going to read Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. I really really was. But even though I have really liked most of the recent books I've read I feel like I've become this read-bot just reading all these indie bookstore picks by American authors. I just had to jump out of my rut and read something ELSE. I read Half A Life a few years ago and enjoyed it in that "I like anti-colonialism literature" kind of way and I've had A Bend In the River sitting on my shelf since then. It prom More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Apr 14, 2008

Joe rated it:

Life and times of a shopkeeper in a rural outpost in tumultuous post-colonial central Africa. Naipul provides insights and wisdom about the complexity of race, ethnicity, and nationality in Africa and spins a damn good yarn at the same time.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 31, 2008

Ami rated it:

Naipaul, despite being so highly revered, is quite possibly more of an ass than Ernest Hemingway. Character flaws aside, this book was a bit slow and I didn't see the significance it promised.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 11, 2008

Blair rated it:

I read this book in Central Africa, during my Peace Corps service. I maintain that it is the best, most accurate depiction of Central African society - a broad term, believe me, I know, but still - that I have read.

I found this novel engrossing and moving, and it inspired me to begin collecting Naipaul's other works; all of which are good, albeit not as good as this one.

Naipaul has been criticized for denigrating third world countries and societies. Strange, since he come More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Aug 14, 2008

Daniel rated it:

I read an article somewhere about a man in Africa who made his living as a river guide. He was bemoaning the loss of the colonial days where as brutal as the ruling regimes could be, at least there were factories, schools, roads and hospitals set up by the oppressing foreigners. As his country since has descended into anarchy, war and poverty, it seems that the loss of freedoms was a small price to pay.

When I read A Bend in the River, I got the feeling that there was some of the sam More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 24, 2008

Chris rated it:

Very well written, but a little slow to start. I didn't really get into it until "The New Domain." Up to that point, the book focuses mainly on the town and the events that have (and are) shaping it. I really bogged down in this part because I didn't particularly feel a motivation to keep reading. The narrator seems detached; he describes everything, but he doesn't really seem too concerned about anything. However, once you get to "The New Domain," the focus shifts more More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 02, 2007

Jenny rated it:

I'm so so glad that I'm crystal clear on Naipaul's unwavering, eternal hatred for all colored peoples, all marginalized people around the world. His hatred and disgust for himself and the communities he is loosely tied to truly never ever withers. Yes, Africa's doomed, Asia is doomed, let's bleach our skin and drink tea with the blue eyed Europeans, and thank you Naipaul for writing paragraph long sentences and describing the rivers and trees of Africa with simultaneous greater love, respect, w More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 03, 2008

Hashi rated it:

Just as reading "A Fine Balance" made me glad I wasn't born in India, this novel made me grateful that I don't live in Africa. The rise and fall of various power groups -- Presidents, armies, tribal groups -- makes it impossible to have a life one can hold onto. The insecurity, while described calmly and precisely, is palpable in the pages. How can one move forward when it could all be taken away at any time? Millions upon millions of people in the world live this way; it is good to ha More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 19, 2011

Simon rated it:

I'd long wanted to read this book, and the expectation did nothing to diminish the pleasure. It's utterly compelling. Naipaul shows us real human beings, acting out against historical and social circumstance, often revealing their ugliness. The very people we might be tempted to romanticize, Naipaul shows to be imposters.

Line to line, the book is rich with detail and insight. We are transported to Uganda (we don't actually know which African country is the setting), we come away k More...

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Feb 10, 2011

Deb rated it:

The setting for this novel is post-colonial central Africa. Salim, the Indian/Muslim shopkeeper, was born and raised in coastal Africa, but his new business venture has brought him to a small city where he must find his place between the villagers who are his customers, the other non-African business owners, the Europeans who inhabit a nearby modern enclave, and the changing political landscape under an increasingly-nationalist African president. This is an unsettling novel; the reader can see More...

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Dec 10, 2010

Monthly Book Group rated it:

As is usual when a writer undertakes first person narration, there was speculation about the degree to which Salim was a self-portrait. Elements of his behaviour – misogyny in particular – were compared with aspects of Naipaul’s own personal biography. The view was expressed that Salim was in many respects an ‘empty’ character – an observer of events rather than an active protagonist. He seems predominantly passive, awaiting events or developments that will show him how to lead his life. In this More...

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Oct 06, 2010

Brad rated it:

The news that V.S. Naipal had won the Nobel Prize for Literature came shortly after the shocking events of 9-11. The Wall Street Journal hailed the news and editorialized that Naipal was especially worthy as a third world author who embraced the values of the west. Quoting A BEND IN THE RIVER, the Journal argued that Naipal's message is that men in the third world should be judged by the same standards as men in the industrialized west.

For some reason, the Journal's assessment of A More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 20, 2010

Valentina rated it:

By personal upbringing and sheer talent, Naipaul can talk about far-away lands and people of mixed origins and nomadic lifestyles like nobody else. Here, with his typically honest and sometime ruthless eye, Naipaul takes the reader to the heart of Africa, to a town that sits by a bend in an unnamed river (which is thought to be the Congo). He zooms on the life of Salim, the narrator, an Africa-born Indian Muslim who moves from the east coast to the interior in the hope of finding fortune and, in More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 04, 2010

Becca rated it:

I don't have a lot to say about this book since I did not enjoy it very much. It was alright, but getting to the end felt kind of like a chore. It reminded me of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter because it seemed a lot like something you would read in school. I don't know why they always think these kinds of books are so great. I suppose it did a good job of depicting a certain place and time (i.e. Africa in the 1970's), but all the characters seemed depressed, sad, and kind of nihilistically ho More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 13, 2010

Andy rated it:

"The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it."

This aphorism part of which serves as the title for Patrick French's biography of Naipaul sums up both Naipaul's understanding of the Congo, and his own relationship to the wider world beyond Trinidad.

His horrific personal life and the way he related to others, including his first wife, his mistress and Paul Theroux, as well as his incredibly withering v More...

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Sep 12, 2009

Allison rated it:

I am finding that Africa has become a theme in my life as of late. Africa is not something that I’m intentionally seeking out, but for whatever reason I’m finding out more and more about the landscape, culture, and political history (is that any different than culture?), of this continent. I picked up A Bend in the River because I was visiting a friend in NYC who had a book club that was reading it, and she wanted me to join them. The meeting eventually got canceled, but I couldn’t have picked More...

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Jul 08, 2009

Stephen rated it:

This novel from the hand of 2001 Nobel Prize laureate V.S. Naipaul is more about time and place than action. The time is the 1960s, the place an unspecified country that is probably the Congo (or "Zaire" as it was called then). And one of the major "off screen" characters, "The Big Man," is likely modeled on the totalitarian ruler Joseph Mobutu. The novel is narrated by an Indian, whose family has been settled in Eastern African for generations, and who moves to More...

6 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 22, 2009

Lostinanovel rated it:

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Apr 30, 2009

Holly rated it:

I want to give this 4.5 stars - and what keeps it from perfection is what I read to be a hint of racism (?) that may in fact just be Naipaul's modernism: there are no answers, time is a dodgey thing, the narrator is not alway to be trusted. If modernism is the answer to my qualms, then Salim is perfectly realized...both Naipaul and Salim are displaced by colonialism; Salim is not to the indigenous peoples of Africa a "true" African, which explains his rootlessness and his search for pl More...

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Jun 21, 2011

David rated it:

I suppose it's inevitable that readers will compare Naipaul's view of the bush to Joseph Conrad's. Naipaul portrays an ancient African civilization coming to grips with the intrusion of modern society thrust by economic boom into its midst. So the merchants and business traders take the steamer up the river to a bend where the New Africa is emerging. However, deep and primitive aggressions always seem to surface perhaps because they are so imbedded into man's warrior instincts. And the New Afric More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 17, 2011

Pete rated it:

A worthy subject to spend a few hundred pages reading, but told through the eyes of a passive character, Salim. As a young man, Salim moves off the coast of Africa to an interior country, to a village in the bush at a bend in the river. He sets up a small shop in his village, and then watches life go by, wondering if he should do something. Friends travel the world, open businesses, capitalize on opportunities, and engage in life, all against the backdrop of an unstable post-colonial politica More...

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Feb 22, 2011

Julie at All Ears rated it:

This is a book that I really wanted to enjoy. Listed on the 1001 list, Nobel prize winning author, a book that takes place in another country, audiobook read by Simon Vance and an ebook version to read along with. But this story never drew me in and I think I attribute it to Naipaul's style. The book is about Salim, an Indian Muslim who lives in a small town at the 'bend of the river' in Africa and owns a sundry shop that sells everyday supplies. Salim is an outcast. He is not African and t More...

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Feb 03, 2010

Erin rated it:

I had to read this for a class and as I had previously had to read some very applicable theory on postcolonial Africa, my reading was undoubtedly somewhat colored by a critical perspective. Apt political messages aside, however, I still was much more intrigued by this book than I thought I would be. My hesitation had nothing to do with any notions about the author (after all, how could I have a negative notion about a author whose only biographical information I know is "He won the Nobel More...

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Jan 02, 2010

Bettie rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

4 comments like

Jun 21, 2010

Tom rated it:

I just can't finish this book.
I've had it for almost 10 years; it was on the syllabus in an English class I took, but we ran out of time to discuss it. I suspect I would have liked it much more then.

Strikes me as the sort of book that's hailed as a classic much more so because it has Big Ideas and Important Things To Say than because it's actually interesting or entertaining to read. I like Big Ideas too, but not when that results in every other sentence saying something like More...

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Jul 13, 2009

Sabra rated it:

Don't let the page number fool you, this book is long! But after you resign yourself to the fact that anything of real interest that happens in the character's life will only be briefly mentioned in passing during long descriptions of where and with whom he had lunch on any given day, it's interesting enough. Another reviewer said they were told to read it as if the book itself was a river. I guess that's a good description of my reading this book. Just drifting through Salim's life in the b More...

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