In a Free State

by V.S. Naipaul

No writer has rendered our boundariless, post-colonial world more acutely or prophetically than V. S. Naipaul, or given its upheavals such a hauntingly human face. A perfect case in point is this riveting novel, a masterful and stylishly rendered narrative of emigration, dislocation, and dread, accompanied by four supporting narratives.
In the beginning it is just a car trip through Africa. Two English people--Bobby, a civil servant with a guilty appetite for African boys, and Linda, a supercilious compound wife -- are driving back to their enclave after a stay in the capital. But in between lies the landscape of an unnamed country whose squalor and ethnic bloodletting suggest Idi Amin's Uganda. And the farther Naipaul's protagonists travel into it, the more they find themselves crossing the line that separates privileged outsiders from horrified victims. Alongside this Conradian tour de force are four incisive portraits of men seeking liberation far from home. By turns funny and terrifying, sorrowful and unsparing, In A Free State is Naipaul at his best.

Genres: Fiction, Africa, Short Stories, Classics, Nobel Prize, Literature, India

247 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

V. S. Naipaul was a British writer of Indo-Trinidadian descent known for his sharp, often controversial explorations of postcolonial societies, identity, and displacement. His works, which include both fiction and nonfiction, often depict themes of exile, cultural alienation, and the lingering effects of colonialism.
He gained early recognition with A House for Mr Biswas, a novel inspired by his father’s struggles in Trinidad. His later works, such as The Mimic Men, In a Free State, and A Bend in the River, cemented his reputation as a masterful and incisive writer. Beyond fiction, his travelogues and essays, including Among the Believers and India: A Million Mutinies Now, reflected his critical perspective on societies in transition.
Naipaul received numerous accolades throughout his career, including the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded for his ability to blend deep observation with literary artistry. While praised for his prose, his often unsparing portrayals of postcolonial nations and controversial statements sparked both admiration and criticism.

Reviews

[Praveen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bobby Said, “I never learned to drive until I came out here. But during my illness I always consoled myself with the fantasy of driving through a cold and rainy night, driving endless miles, until I came to a cottage and right at the top of a hill. There would be a fire there and it would be warm and I would be perfectly safe.”

Rain outside and fire inside that is always romantic!

In this book, the story gears ahead with the revving of an engine when a burst of blue smoke and squeal of tires are heard and there are a few places in this tale where the skidding and slithering of this story come to a halt very much like when the back of car slaps a mound of earth going back in a cautious reverse gear.

Actually, it is about two expatriates, Bobby and Linda, driving across a nameless African country. The plot is set in Africa during the time when many of its countries were decolonized.

This book can be picked up for two explicit reasons. First, it won’t take much of your time. This is quite small in size. Second, it's a Booker award winner book by Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul. Naipaul said somewhere that this book was conceived and written during a period of intense personal depression that lasted two or three years. And it was his last such period afterward he was to know serenity. This book was probably one of his great works but I can understand how that eternal period of serenity gave us some very fine and even better works of literature later.

This book depicts the chaos and frequent violence in a newly decolonized country; showing how young expatriates were attracted to these countries in search of expanded moral and sexual freedoms.

It also shows how the English effect was persisting there even after their departure.

“The Africans drank shorter, prettier drinks with cocktail sticks and wore English-made Daks suits. Their hair was parted low on the left and piled up on the right, in the style known to city African as the English style.”

What I liked about this book is the precise writing style of Naipaul and the way in which multiple themes can be explored reading this book, especially through the events and conversations during the car trip of Bobby and Linda. First, they found liberation and freedom of desire in this land but later at the time of tribal conflict and rage they were forced to take a long drive to safety!

I will recommend it to those who have not yet read anything from Naipaul. A good book to start with!

[Kiran Dellimore · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well deserved 4⭐️ read!

I can't believe it took me this long to finally read a book by acclaimed Trinidadian author V. S. Naipaul! For some uncanny reason his writing has not come on my reading path until now. In a Free State was therefore my first foray into Naipaul's literary world, and I was pleasantly impressed. His writing is crisp and precise, like a master chef who exerts perfect control over the spices and herbs that he uses to infuse rich flavors into his food. Despite the seemingly simple, fictional narrative - about a road trip made by a British man and woman to a remote (fictional) kingdom in an unnamed Eastern African country in the dying days of colonization - Naipaul manages to paint a intricate portrait of a complex, tumultuous period in African history. An era in which the old colonial relationship between Europeans and Africans is undergoing a drastic shift to which both groups are struggling to adapt. This is illustrated throughout the story in the tense interactions between the (European) protagonist and various African individuals that he encounters during the course of their journey. Oddly, for a European he is subjected, perhaps for the first time, to sexual rejection, thinly veiled threats and even physically assaulted by African soldiers. Yet at the same time there is restraint and grudging deference, on the part of the Africans. They recognize, reluctantly the limits of their new-found, nascent power against their former European colonizers.

What I enjoyed most about In a Free State, was Naipaul's vivid descriptions of the changing landscape of the hinterland of Africa during the road trip. It brought back fond memories of my time in Rwanda and Kenya. Naipaul captures the pulse of East Africa brilliantly.

What I enjoyed least is hard to put a finger on. Somehow the story lacked a coup de grace. There were no surprising plot twists or dramatic denouements. Moreover, the tone of the narrative is somewhat dispassionate and detached. As a reader I didn't feel myself in the story, but rather as if I was a passive observer watching it all unfold. In terms of triggers I would warn potential readers that there is some innuendo and overtones in the book which can be found racially offensive. Admittedly, in the colonial period in Africa this would likely have been the norm. Therefore, I would argue that Naipaul's writing is authentic to the era.

Overall, I would highly recommend In a Free State to anyone looking for a short but intense fictional read about colonialism in Africa.

[Dmitri · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I was a free man. I could do anything I wanted. It didn't matter what I did because I was alone. And I didn't know what I wanted to do."
************
VS Naipaul won the Booker Prize in 1971 for this trilogy of two short stories and one novella. It also includes journal entries on a ferry from Greece and to a tourist site in Egypt, partly autobiographical of his trip to India in 1962. As usual for Naipaul, his writing concerns displaced people. It was interesting to see how the separate stories interrelate. Other than a general theme they are stand alone pieces. Although not written at the same time they are three of a kind.

'The Tramp at Piraeus' is a diary prologue of fellow travelers aboard a dingy Greek steamer bound for Alexandria. Below deck are Egyptians expelled from Greece where they had tried to make a new life. There are young American students, Lebanese businessmen and the tramp. He is a free spirit who has been traveling for thirty five years all over the world. He cuts a shabby figure and has grown old. Having bunked with the Lebanese and an Austrian named Hans the night before troubles brew in the morning. Hans and friends make a plan to ambush the tramp and teach him a lesson.

'One Out of Many' is about an immigrant to America who had worked as a cook in Bombay. He slept on the sidewalk below his employer's house, an Indian diplomat who will transfer to Washington D.C. Accompanying him he has culture shock. He asks to return but owes too much to his boss. In the streets he's afraid of the locals. He hates his master and wants the city burned down. New opportunities arise as he runs away to work in a restaurant. Now a free man spiritual emptiness persists. He considers marrying an African-American woman in order to become a citizen.

'Tell Me Who to Kill' is written in pidgin english of the West Indies. The narrator works to help his younger brother Dayo through college in London where he has gone to study. Their father is poor and from a village, while his uncle is well off and lives in the city. He realizes that his cousin is free to become educated and make good while he has few options. He follows Dayo to England taking menial jobs, saving to open a cafe. Broke, plagued by city regulators and local hoodlums who break and steal things he starts to hate. He finds his brother no longer studying and looks for revenge.

'In a Free State' is likely post-independence Uganda as a PM struggles with the king for power. Helicopters hover above, a portent of Idi Amin. Bobby, an expatriate British government consultant, takes advantage of young African boys. He drives his acquaintance Linda on a long road trip to the capital. Tensions arise as they talk of past status and future safety. They see the sullen expressions of former subjects now free at roadblocks, restaurants and gas stations. At a hotel they meet a colonial owner who is unable to sell. Chased by feral dogs in town they are detained by soldiers on the road.

'The Circus at Luxor' is a diary epilogue to the triptych of tales. The traveler this time is flying from Italy to Egypt. At a Milan hotel he sees a troop of Chinese circus performers. In Cairo the revolution of Nasser had made Arabs free from British control. Onward to Luxor by train he visits Karnak. At lunch Italian tourists throw food at the beggar boys from a terrace while a waiter whisks them away with a camel whip. He becomes increasingly annoyed at the Italians, and the Chinese who followed from Milan, handing out medals of Mao. Two years later Egypt is defeated in the Sinai desert.

Beyond a popular notion that Naipaul was an apologist for colonialism there are anti-colonial messages in his writing. At 250 pages it's a mixed bag of his thoughts on alienation, reflecting experiences in Africa, India, and the Americas. His two journal entries and the Indian immigrant tale were very good, the portrait of post-colonial Africa disturbing and the Carribean story difficult to read. It's strange he republished the title novella without the original bookend material.

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a simple reread - this time I read the whole five part book as originally published whereas the copy I read in 2015 was a reprint that (apparently at Naipaul's request) only contained the core African road trip novella. I was much more impressed this time round - perhaps because I read it in a more concentrated way but also because the other shorter pieces make it clearer what Naipaul was trying to achieve in the core story.

All of the parts centre on people experiencing unfamiliar cultures that fail to meet their ambitions and expectations. The first and last are short extracts from a traveller's journal on visits to Egypt, in both cases as witness to acts of inhumanity. The second relates the experience of a poor servant from Bombay (as Mumbai still was then) who comes to Washington as cook for a diplomat - this is perhaps the lightest in tone and is full of comic misunderstandings. The third tells of a Trinidadian of Asian extraction who follows his brother to London and ends up in jail.

The core fourth part, more than half the book, is narrated by Bobby, a gay Englishman who works for the government of a recently independent East African country which is anonymous but shares many elements of Uganda before Amin. The country is divided and the South is still largely loyal to the old king. Bobby lives in a protected enclave within the king's region, and at the start of the book he is in the capital preparing to drive back. He is persuaded to give a lift to Linda, a colonial wife, and the book follows there two day journey through an increasingly war-torn and anarchic country. Their fractious relationship is part of the story, but Naipaul also recreates the sights, and the threats and fears they face, very vividly. Second time round I found it very powerful, if a little dated.

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must confess that I do not not enjoy reading V.S. Naipaul. I find his fiction overly pessimistic and bitter, his characters unappealing, passive victims whose lives seem exercises in futility. In a sense, like Joseph Conrad, he explores the backwaters of colonialism (or post-colonialism in Naipual´s case), but whereas most of Conrad´s main characters have a spark of courage, or decency or some positive human value, Naipaul´s alienated and displaced characters find it difficult to even sustain petty or mediocre aspirations.

In spite of my personal dislikes, V.S. Naipaul must be considered an important writer because of his deftness in portraying the loneliness, the unsatisfied, and perhaps unsatisfiable, yearning for belonging of the expatriate, the emigrant, the deraciné, whose roots never quite take hold again, who cannot even romanticize his loss of place in the world and who never shakes off his prejudices.

In these writings, freedom is thrust upon characters and countries, it is unwelcome, a burden and, ultimately, a charade. Freedom is a state of temporary suspension at the tip of a wave about to come crashing down to leave only flotsam and debris in its wake.

In hindsight it can be argued that the novel which gives the book its title is a study for Naipaul´s more accomplished 1989 novel, A Bend in the River, even though the point of view shifts from one work to another.

Tell me who to kill featuring two West Indian inmigrants in the UK, explores pent-up, smouldering rage and resentment as well as the frustration of well-intentioned but ultimately unreal expectations pinned on a son or a brother to escape the trap of poverty and exploitation. It is about what it feels like to be driven to scrabble to overcome an unsurmountable wall. As the narrator puts it: “We all come out of the same pot, but some people move ahead and some people get left behind. Some people get left behind so far they don´t know and they stop caring.” The tragedy for the narrator is that “I know I miss out. I know how much I lose when I have to stop school [...] I feel I see things so much better than the rest of my family; they always tell me I am very touchy. But I feel I become like the head of a family. I get the ambition and the shame for all of them. The ambition is like shame, andthe shame is like a secret, and it is always hurting. Even now, when it is all over, it can start hurting again.”

One out of many is perhaps the best piece of writing in the book and has been deservedly anthologized many times. On a surface level it is about the culture shock that befalls an Indian servant who accompanies his master to Washington, runs away, becomes an illegal alien, discovers an unwelcome and very lonely freedom he doesn´t know what to do with. In this case, the sense of freedom as illusion, is prefigured by a startling intuition about the nature of luck: “I saw then that the victory I had had was not something I had worked for, but luck; and that luck was only fate´s cheating, giving an illusion of power.” On a deeper level it is about what freedom and choice means for those who have freedom thrust upon them, who did not work for it or even attempt to understand their own prejudices and thus for those whom it catches unprepared to exercise it. Naipaul´s pessimistic conclusion is that, in this case, freedom is an illusion, and that the only freedom that can be exercised is the freedom to pick the wave in whose wake to drift along.

The first journal entry simply sets the stage and the pointless, cruel game at its heart reads like something out of Beckett. The only Englishman is an old tramp, bereft of all imperial trappings, incomprehensible in his pretenses to the rest of the motley set of middle eastern, mediterranean and american passengers and uncomprehending of the lives of others, he simply becomes the butt of a joke to fill in time.

The final journal entry provides is a fine story in itself, with its sense of the the impermanence and empty vanities of different, and ultimately meaningless, empires set amongst the tourist-riddled ruins of Luxor: “So many empires had come here. Not far from where we were was the colossus on whose shin the Emperor Hadrian had caused to be carved verses in praise of himself, to conmemorate his visit. On the other bank, not far from the Winter Palace, was a stone with a rougher Roman inscription marking the southern limit of the Empire, defining an area of retreat. Now another, more remote empire [China] was announcing itself. A medal, a postcard; and all that was asked in return was anger and a sense of injustice.” The narrator harks back to the arts of Ancient Egypt and wonders: “Perhaps that vision of the land, in which the Nile was only water, a blue-green chevron, had always been a fabrication, a cause for yearning, something for the tomb” and the story ends in a fit of gloom as the narrator looks forwards to Egypt´s defeat in the Sinai: “Seventeen months later these men, or men like them, were to know total defeat in the desert; and news photographs taken from helicopters flying down low were to show them lost, trying to walk back home, casting long shadows on the sand.”

[randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Facts are facts: Naipaul's prose is extraordinarily exquisite. I caught myself thinking a few times while reading this that reading this is better than being high.

That is some amazing power of prose right there.

Before I picked this up (on the merit of it being a big influence on Kiran Desai's Inheritance of Loss) I knew next to nothing about Naipaul aside that he was considered a great writer. Now, he is on my must read list & went out and got my second book from him today.

But this novel is a set of three stories of three different immigrant experiences. And each is hard to read in their own ways. The first involves a domestic from India traveling to Washington DC and his hesitancy with freedom. It was by far my favorite of the three. His sense of displacement thundered off the page and at times it was hard to breathe as you read his words of self imposed isolation and servitude that he wore like the condemned would wear a noose. His emotions are palpable and echo off the page. This was a great damn story and some of the best writing that I have ever read.

The second story was lackluster in comparison to the first. But it was in no way bad. It was actually hard to read, with some words seeming more than a bit out of place, but with an unreliable narrator who has had the only the most rudimentary of educations, this is totally appropriate.

The third and major story was all sorts of horrifying. It deals with two British Expats in a nameless state in Africa. And neither are what you would call of redeeming characters. They both think of themselves as caring people that are worlds better than their colonizing forefathers.

On the course of their two day car ride back to their gated colony they prove just how awful they are. How they view the natives as savages or worse. They even seem to take joy in berating them, subjecting them to the most awful tasks. They never look upon the natives as equals, yet time after time reject any responsibility for the way things are.

This sounds awful. And it is. But Naipaul writes it so well that you are compelled to read it, cringing at the horror of their lives. This is nasty fiction at its best. And should be required reading for anyone who is thinking about visiting, let alone living in a foreign land. Just to help ensure that this disturbing behavior molts from our collective consciousnesses.

Having been living in foreign lands now for the last year, I am afraid the lessons within are not taking.

This is confronting fiction. This is great fiction. This is why we read.

[Jayakrishnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found the old edition with all the three novellas and the journal entries in a second hand book store. The new edition of In a Free State only has one novella.

Naipaul is at his vicious and terrifying best here. Nobody understands the Indian psyche like Naipaul does. No other Indian writer in English is as uncompromising as Naipaul in his portrayal of characters (mostly immigrants) destroyed by their impotent rage and anxieties. These characters cannot function in a free state. They cannot deal with freedom. Freedom brings out the worst in them. Especially the emptiness. An emptiness nurtured inside them by their third world cultures. These are not pleasant stories to read. Especially when you identify with the traits of some of these characters. But sometimes the truth does have a rather strange pleasantness to it.

Now I know why people hate Naipaul. It is because he writes the terrible truth. Which nobody else is willing to acknowledge.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Five short stories all about displacement with the three longer ones about adapting or failing to adapt to living in a new country.

The first ‘One out of many’ captures Santosh’s confusion about being brought along by his boss from sleeping in the streets on Bombay to an apartment in Washington. In his search for meaning he fines none and instead of freedom finds himself trapped.

The second story set in London is about a Caribbean immigrant who helps his brother by working hard. Then finds out his brother is doing nothing after following him one day. He then goes mad and kills someone in his restaurant. The story is told as he is taken by a prison guard to his brothers wedding. A story of trying to fit in and find happiness but failing.

The last and longest story ‘In a free state’ is set in Uganda or Rhodesia in the 1970s. Bobby gives Linda a ride home to their compound. A road journey fraught with tension and racism in the fear of the changes in the country brought about by independence. An overnight visit to a lodge finds an old colonel living in the past and waiting to be murdered by his staff unwilling to leave. There is also the fear Bobby has of being persecuted for being gay and the future with his beating a wake up call.

All the stories were about expats or immigrants trying to find happiness but instead misery and discontentment. Fear is a driving force with change resulting in uncertainty.

[Raghu Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over the years, there have been many writers from the Indian subcontinent who have written about the ‘immigrant experience’ in English. Invariably, they are about the experience in migrating to the affluent West. Books on the experience of the first and second generation immigrants to the West have a repeating pattern. With the first generation, it is often about the nostalgic memories of the homeland and the communities and families they left behind. More often, it is a fantasized image of the homeland and its communities. Or it is about the difficulties of integration in the West. With the second generation, it is about assimilation in the culture of the land they are born into and the conflicts with the parents as a result of this. Or it is about racism and discrimination in the adopted homeland. In many ways, one can view all these efforts as a portrayal of the need in the immigrant to ‘belong’ in the new homeland. It is a given that ‘a sense of belonging’ in the new home is of paramount importance in the life of the immigrant.

V.S. Naipaul is refreshingly different from all these writers in writing about this same experience. He views it generically as the experience of the displaced person, rather than as an immigrant. Naipaul himself had no sense of belonging anywhere. Though he was a person of Indian origin, India felt like ‘an area of darkness’ for him. His first impressions of India were that it is a ‘wretched country, full of pompous mediocrity, and with no future’. He condemned even contemporary Asia as a primitive manifestation of a long-dead culture. Though he was born in Trinidad and grew up there, he didn’t like the racial tensions around him with Afro-Caribbeans and Europeans. He didn’t like the Calypso music. He wrote about life in Trinidad as ‘looking inwards and inquiring about nothing’. He spent most of his life in England, producing all his creative work there. But England also felt like being in exile. In many of his books, we can see the skepticism about assimilation as a false sentiment.

This book consists of five stories of which the novel ‘In a Free State’ is the main one. It is of a novel’s length. The four other pieces include two short stories, a prologue, and an epilogue. All of them are about people who don’t ‘belong’ where they find themselves. They are expatriates or displaced people or immigrants. A sense of alienation is central to all the main characters.

The main novel, ‘In a Free State’, is situated in an unnamed African country which is on the Great Lakes and is at the cusp of independence and revolution. There is a reference to Asians being deported from the country. Since the book was written in 1969-70, one might think that it refers to Uganda under Idi Amin or Milton Obote. The action takes place just as the power struggle between the King, supported by the British colonials, and the President veers in favor of the President. In the resulting atmosphere of violence, retribution, revenge, and chaos a couple of white civilians are driving towards the security and safety of their compound along a road that is risky in more ways than one. The novel is about what happens on the road between them, to them and to the newly independent native Africans. Bobby and Linda, the English civilians, are often waved through on their path by the new regime’s soldiers, possibly because they are white and hence considered neutral in the power grab between the King and the President. Still, one soldier beats up Bobby badly. The allusion is to the Africans’ need for retribution for decades of colonialism. Along the way, a British Colonel mocks and humiliates one of his African employees with little foreboding of the impending native rule, which is sure to punish him for his arrogance. Linda is prejudiced against the natives but Bobby is sympathetic to native rule. Still, it doesn’t stop him from behaving arrogantly towards Africans when his car gets damaged. The English duo eventually reaches the safety of their colonial compound amidst rising ethnic and tribal violence. However, they realize that in the given situation, there is really no safety and security unless you leave the country altogether. All through the novel, we can sense the fear of the white civilians and the anger of Africans due to previous injustices.

The two short stories between the Prologue and the novel are about an Indian from Bombay and an Indian (though not explicitly stated) from the West Indies. Santosh, the man from Bombay finds himself in New York City as a servant to his master from India. The story is about his alienation, exploitation and eventual resolution without really addressing his sense of estrangement in the alien city. The other story deals with the Carribean man coming to London to support his brother Dayo, who was supposed to be studying for a degree in aeronautical engineering. However, he gets taken advantage of by his brother, who just squanders the money given to him. Nor does he study the purported aeronautics. Others con him into spending his money on a business about which he knows nothing. As disappointments mount, he kills one of Dayo’s friends. The story ends in him visiting Dayo on his wedding day, accompanied by a white man, called Frank, who probably was a prison official, sent to keep a watch on him.
The two short snippets at either end of the book are not much to ponder about. Suffice to say that they are both about a journey to Egypt or in Egypt and man’s inhumanity to his fellow-man.

In all the stories, we can see Naipaul’s critical and unsentimental view on Humanity. He is not swayed by arguments of white oppressor against black victims or colonial injustice against ‘native rule’ or even capitalist culture against indigenous culture. Naipaul is unsparing in showing that independence from colonialism alone wouldn’t change things for the new nation. The new native rulers will be as capable of cruelty and injustice and violence towards other native tribes in similar ways as the Colonials were towards all of them. It is a given that people who acquire power will exercise them over others in exploitative and cruel ways. Racism, avarice, division or vanity do not vanish with the colonial masters because they are all part of the human condition. This is something I can clearly see in today’s India as well. The British played the Muslims against Hindus in order to break up the Freedom movement. They documented and classified caste hierarchies to bring focus to the historical injustices suffered by lower castes. They used Indians in their police force to unleash violence on fellow-Indians. After independence, Indian politicians play Hindus, Muslims and the various castes against one another in order to win elections and advance various sectional interests. They use it to settle scores against one another and ostensibly to avenge historical injustice. The police in India today retains the same power structures and adopts the same instruments of exploitation and cruelty to deal with contemporary issues of law and order.

I read the book almost fifty years to the date when it was first published. Hence, it is important to read the stories keeping this in mind because the context in which it was written, was quite different. Overall, the book is not an easy read as the storyline itself is quite weak. As always, Naipaul’s prose is lucid, though one story is written fully in pidgin Trinidadian English. Admirers of Naipaul’s work would like the book.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably should have DNFed this but forced myself through. The first story was compelling, the second weirdly intriguing but a slog but the title story was painfully boring, telling the story of two white colonists driving through an African country teetering upon civil war. Potentially a great story bogged down by overly detailed writing and odd dialogue. I know already this will be my least favorite Golden Man Booker finalist.

[dianne b. · Rating 5 out of 5]

We who want to see the world set out with silly certainty that we, yes, we, are traveling with eyes wide open. We deny our grand assumptions, proud of our acceptance and understanding. How fast that all vanishes to pinpoints when we need to self preserve. The problem is, as my Dad would say, “wherever I go, there I am”. If we could just travel, just land in places we don’t fit, without bringing ourselves along.

This book, this extraordinary writing, won the Man Booker prize. Well done. No one quite writes about rootlessness, about the cruelty and humor of attempted cultural overlap, about exile, never finding a place to belong, like V. S Naipaul. Frigging brilliant.

As Mark Twain "learned us":
"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1971, and winner of the Booker Prize, In a Free State is a combination of two short stories, one novella, and two segments of travelogue set in countries around the world. The travelogue provides the introduction and involves a trip by ship from Greece to Egypt. It also provides the conclusion, 25 years later, in Egypt. One Out of Many is about Santosh, a servant living in Bombay, who accompanies his employer to Washington D.C. In Tell Me Who to Kill, a Trinidadian in London desires to fund his brother’s education but finds his brother has been deceitful. In the titular novella, two British bureaucrats take a road trip in an unnamed African country (similar to Uganda) in the midst of political upheaval, where they encounter racial divisions and violence.

This is a book that requires a “big picture” mindset. The stories are not connected except in themes, which include displacement, alienation, and different interpretations of “freedom.” The protagonists are unrelated, but all are outside their home countries. I most enjoyed One Out of Many – the adventures of Santosh as he experiences western version of freedom but is unable to replicate the happiness he found in Bombay. In this story, Santosh is a fully developed character, and the reader can follow his gradual disillusionment.

In the novella, two unpleasant British expats, Bobby and Linda, on the road to a remote compound, exhibit their perceived “superiority” to the African inhabitants. I am sure it is intended for the reader to feel tension and discomfort and it succeeds. I appreciate the themes and Naipaul’s brilliant writing style. It is worth reading for its literary merit and effective in its social commentary, but do not expect anything remotely cheery.

[Jonathan Pool · Rating 4 out of 5]

In A Free State is the Booker winner selection of the 1970’s decade (by Robert McCrum)for the 50th anniversary “Golden Booker” discussion.
That’s why I read this, forty seven years after its publication in 1971.
My image of V.S. Naipaul was that he was regarded as a bit dated, rather ponderous; and while
the colonial (African) subject matter of In A Free State is certainly of it’s time, the writing style is innovative and challenging. V.S. Naipaul expects his readers to work a bit.
Some knowledge of the sub Saharan African independence movement does help the reading experience. This was a time of post World War Two realignment. The French, the Belgians, the Portuguese, and Britain too, were divesting their colonial possessions. African nationalist movements had achieved global notoriety at Suez in 1955, and MacMillans “Winds of Change” speech in South Africa dated back only ten years.

I can fully understand why this was a Booker winner, though the eponymous “In a Free State” runs to only 138 pages, and this is accompanied by four other short stories in the collection.

The central characters are not easily pigeon- holed, though they are, for the most part, unattractive, defeatist and embittered.
Each story revolves around social misfits, outsiders, people hiding their pasts and who are fearful of further unravelling of precarious existences.
Overall the reader is confronted with loners struggling to do their duty, but seemingly with little joy.

As a postscript I attended the Booker 50 celebrations at The Royal Festival Hall at which V.S. (Vidia) Naipaul was in attendance. He was brought to the stage by his wife who gave an address while he looked on. It was moving; one felt the presence of a literary giant, and erstwhile Nobel Literature Laureate.
Robert McCrum and Jude Kelly both brought well chosen, deferential, and laudatory introductions: “greatest living writer”; “could have been written yesterday”; “ limpid prose”)
*Madura, Lady Naipaul, gave a passionate, almost defiant speech on Vidia’s behalf as he looked on
* the shallow attempts to trivialise accounts of colonial Africa are contemptible.
* there was no political prism in V.S. Naipaul’s writing
* they were hard years of penury and racial intolerance
* he uses words with the utmost care
*he has a ‘dread’ for jargon.

Madura, and Jude Kelly both referenced A Bend in the River- as his finest. I will read this next with great anticipation.

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing is superb, which is why I enjoyed this book, and which no doubt contributed to winning the Booker Prize in 1971. I found that the characters evoked strong emotions in me, which I always appreciate, as it means that the author has made the characters real to the reader. Some of the words / attitudes are offensive, and have to be taken in context...

[ns510reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

I wonder what this would have been like to read at the time it was published. Surely, it would have been even more of an inventive use of form and theme at the time.

I’m not sure if the win was purely, or mainly, meant for the titular story ‘In A Free State’, or if it was meant for the entire book. My copy is an older copy that includes two other stories, and two journal entries bookending the entire collection. So I will assume the prize was won by this collection of stories as a whole. Certainly, it would be more impressive in terms of form, and also make more sense thematically that way. I have also seen versions of the book without the other accompanying pieces.

The stories in this book all tell of displacement, that migrant feeling of rootlessness and not really belonging anywhere. The characters also grapple with what it means to have freedom, especially when you are an outsider and the balance of power is not in your favour. These themes are brought home when reading all of these stories collectively. They make sense, if rather poignantly so, given that Naipaul is a migrant himself.

On its own, the titular story might seem to be just a wartime novella. A road trip is shared by Bobby, a white government officer, and Linda, a ‘compound wife’ from the Collectorate where Bobby works. Their journey becomes ever more tense as the unnamed, freshly post-colonial African state they are in seems headed towards civil war. This was a novella that packed in a lot, painting the African landscape, and again discussing displacement, but also within the context of colonialism and post-colonialism; what happens to a fractured country as colonialists leave? For Bobby, Africa was at first a place of “empty spaces, the safe adventure of long fatiguing drives on open roads”. This sense of freedom turns on its head as the balance of power shifts towards the end of the novella. The latter message is even more pronounced when considered with the other stories in the book or ‘novel’.

Overall, I did enjoy the book but didn’t completely love it, even as I very much admired it. My level of engagement varied between each piece, but on the whole, I would recommend reading this version of the book, which includes the extra chapters. Considered that way, it might well have been a unique take on form at the time. The themes of displacement and global immigration in contemporary literature is much more prevalent now, but possibly may not have been as common then.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a Free State by V.S. Naipaul

This collection of three short stories won Naipaul the Booker Prize in 1971.

Naipaul is simply a master of prose. His descriptions of landscapes (Africa) and cityscapes (Bombay, London) are memorable. But his stories are slow burns.

He writes here of post colonial places in Africa and India. England is the past colonial power but looms large economically and a central role. For most of the characters in this book life in England is a stable future.

The title story ‘In a Free State’ is the most descriptive story. It takes place entirely on the road when a government official named Bobby travels by car from one end of the country to another in order to attend a conference. He has passengers on the trip but the country is very young and politically unstable. Along the way it becomes apparent through the increased presence of soldiers that the country is in the early throes of a revolution. There is also discussion of Bobby’s homosexuality and mental illness in various episodes. I liked the story but I thought it could have been more dramatic. Alas that is not Naipaul’s style.

My favorite story was ‘One Out of Many’. It tells the story of a young servant who moves to the United States to make something of himself. It is told in the first person and is an excellent piece of writing.

The other story ‘Tell Me Who to Kill’ started out really strong. There is a jealous brother who feels greatly marginalized and the angry young man follows his “more successful” brother to London. We find that the older brother is not successful but the rage does not subside. I felt the ending to this story was not so satisfying.

I think if there were just a little more drama in the stories it would have been a five star book for me. Nevertheless Naipaul remains one of my favorite writers and this is a fine example of great literature.

4.5 stars

[Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes when I rate a book three stars, it is because the book is good but doesn’t make it to very good or great. But on a positive note, it is consistently good. In other cases, a book gets three stars because it is great in places and in other places, I really struggle with it. This book falls into the second category. The book is made up of two “short” short stories or vignettes, the Prologue and Epilogue, two short stories of decent length, One Out of Many and Tell Me Who to Kill, and finally a short novel, In a Free State. Each of these pieces describes one or more individuals residing, sometimes temporarily sometimes permanently, in a foreign culture, their adaptation or failure to adapt to that culture and their conflicts and the conflicts they encounter within the culture. What was truly impressive to me about the writing, and this was my first by V.S. Naipaul, was that each described a different part of the world, a different culture and different conflicts.

The Prologue and Epilogue, although they didn’t feel like true short stories, were very good. The Prologue focuses on a boat trip to Egypt; the Epilogue describes a short tourist visit in Egypt. One Out of Many, the first of the true short stories, was the gem. It was a precursor, at least based on when it was written, to some of the stories I have read of immigrants adapting to a new culture, particularly the United States. The Namesake by Jhumpi Lahari and A Free Life by Ha Jin come to mind. In One Out of Many, I often found myself laughing but then realizing it was no laughing matter for Santosh, an Indian domestic who travels to Washington D.C. with his boss. This story also brings to the forefront racial prejudice in ways with which I was not familiar. Tell Me Who to Kill is the story of an older brother who sacrifices his future to help his younger brother. While it has strong points, it felt like it lost its way to me. Finally, the novel In a Free State provides an excellent description of an African nation struggling with its recent freedom and the attendant clashes of various races and nationalities, but the two main characters generated no strong feelings in me and I found most of the story tedious.

Overall, I was disappointed in the inconsistency of what I read, but this was my first V.S. Naipaul and given some of the high points, I intend to try something else of his.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are three novellas with a very short piece at the beginning and end. The focus is on being in a foreign/strange land. The longest novella deals with Africa at the end of empire; two white colonials travelling across an African state (possibly Uganda) at a time of change. It highlights their fears, prejudices and feelings about the future. There is a strong sense of threat (real or imagined; you decide) as they travel and a sense of something ending. The story about an Indian in Wshington DC and his adjustment to a new culture and a foreign land is moving. Tell Me Who To Kill with its brooding sense of alienation is also very good.I know Naipaul is not really in vogue at the moment, but I enjoyed this.

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories that explore the sense of fundamental disorientation by individuals relocated to a dramatically different culture. I appreciated Naipaul’s subtlety.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably one of the most disturbing road trips in literature. A white governmental administrator and the white wife of another member of the British colonial apparatus cross an unnamed African country while around them the army hunts down the nation's king at the behest of its president, who is moving to consolidate power.

This feels like a book that probably causes a lot of controversy. The main characters, Bobby and Linda, are full of racial prejudice - prejudice that they struggle with and attempt to understand, to justify, perhaps to overcome, but prejudice nonetheless. Bobby, who sets himself up as sympathetic to the black lives around him, and in opposition to the more conventionally minded 'someone should take a whip to them' Linda, simultaneously exploits his position as a white man to fuck black boys - luring them in with the temptation of 5 shillings, nothing to him but a great deal to them.

Africa is painted as a place Brits can escape the social mores of strait-laced society back home, allowing them to have affairs, to be gay. But as the situation is on the cusp of change with the ascendancy of the president, the characters are forced to confront whether they truly wish to advance Africa - the old colonial marketing spiel - or if they are just using it as a playground for their sexual liberation.

Both Linda and Bobby seem helpless to come to terms with what would truly be best for Africa and Africans, throwing out lines that they dont really mean and using cliche and repeating the colonial lines to mask their fear - the fear that they dont really have answers to the big questions, that they may become victims of black retribution against the white hand.

[Yoni Weil · Rating 4 out of 5]

First book I ever read after learning how to read as my new year's resolution. Not bad, I thought, but I don't have anything to compare it to. Looking forward to reading more books and seeing what they're about.

[Julie]

8.5/10

[Nika Meleksishvili · Rating 3 out of 5]

ხომ არის წიგნები, ქვევიდან ზევით რომ მიდის, თავიდან თავს აძალებ და მერე მოგეწონება. ამ შემთხვევაში პირიქით მოხდა - თავიდან მომეწონა და მერე, ნელ-ნელა ქვევით დაეშვა, მესამე მოთხრობის შუიდან კიდევ ერთიანად დაეცა და თავი მომაბეზრა, თუმცა მაინც ღირდა წაკითხვად პირველი ორი მოთხრობის გამო.

ნაწარმოები პროლოგის, 3 მოთხრობისა და ეპილოგისგან შედგება. პერსონაჟები, სიუჟეტები, იდეები განსხვავებულია. ხუთივე ნაწილში მოგზაურობა, ერთი ქვეყნიდან მეორეში ემიგრირებულის ამბავია აღწერილი.
პროლოგით დიდად არ აღვფრთოვანდი, ეპილოგი ოდნავ უკეთესი იყო.

ყველაზე მეტად პირველი მოთხრობა - "ერთი მრავალთაგანი" - მომეწონა. ამბავი ინდოელ მსახურზე, რომელიც ბომბეიდან ვაშინგტონში მიჰყვება ბატონს. სანტოში ემონება ხან შიშებს, ხან საზოგადოებრივ ნორმებს, ხან გარემოებებს, ხანაც საკუთარი იდეებს. ის ეძებს ადგილს, დესტრუქციის ღმერთის - შივას - მსგავსად ცდილობს გაანადგუროს ყოველი ბორკილი, გაექცეს ყველანაირ დამოკიდებულებას, გათავისუფლდეს. აი თავისუფლებას კი თავისი ფასი აქვს და თითქოს მსხვერპლის გაღებით სანტოში ჩაკეტილ წრეს ქმნის, რომელიც ისევ ავიწროებს და ახალ მსხვერპლს მოითხოვს. კულტურული შოკის მომენტებიც არის, ახალი კულტურის შეცნობა.

მეორე მოთხრობაც საინტერესო იყო, თუმცა პირველზე ნაკლებად. ადვილად წავიკითხე. შურზე, შეხედულებებზე, წარუმატებლობაზე, იმედგაცურებაზე დავფიქრდი კიდეც.
რაც შეეხება მესამეს - "თავისუფალ ქვეყანაში" ისეთივე გაწელილი მეჩვენა, როგორც მთავარი პერსონაჟების გზა. კოლონიალიზმი, აფრიკა, ანტიკოლონიალიზმი, რასიზმი, არეული ქვეყანა, პეიზაჟები... თუ ამ თემებით ხართ დაინტერესებული, შეიძლება მოგეწონოთ, მე არ მოვიხიბლე.

[Oto Bakradze · Rating 2 out of 5]

იდეაში ყველა მოთხრობა სხვა ქვეყანაში გადახვეწის დროს გაჩენილ ნოსტალგიასა და სევდაზეა, მაგრამ არც ერთ მათგანს ემპათიის გრძნობა არ გამოუწვევია ჩემთვის. აშკარად არ უნდა იყოს მწერლის საუკეთესო წიგნი.

[Fatima Alammar · Rating 4 out of 5]

يصحب بوبي وليندا القاريء عبر السيارة التي تقطع مساحات شاسعة في بلد افريقي، في وقتٍ عصيب يشهد صراعا بين قوم الملك وقوم الرئيس.
في الطريق الطويل نحو "المجمع" أو ما يمكن وصفه بالملاذ الآمن، الكثير من الحوارات العميقة، الساخرة أحيانا، أو تلك التي تكشف مكنونات النفس بشفافية وخفة ودقة.

لم تقتصر الرحلة على الأحاديث، ثمة عقبات وأحداث وغضب وخوف وعنف وتوتر. كل ذلك ممزوجا بثراء التفاصيل (سماء، غيوم، صحراء، مطر، غابة، سرب فراشات) وثمة اعتناء خاص، لدرجة الإلحاح، أولاه الكاتب بالإشارة للملابس والألوان والروائح.


"في بلاد حرة" يمكن وصفها بالقصة الطويلة، وهناك ثلاث قصص أخرى أيضا. أعجبت بالرهافة التي كتبت بها قصة "واحد من كثيرين". وفي قصة "قل لي من أقتل" يقول السارد "أنا لا أهتم بنفسي. أنا ليست لي حياة" فهو يبدو معنيا فقط بشقيقه الصغير ، وكما حُفرت في ذاكرته صورته وهو يرتجف بالحمى متمددا على الأرضية في إحدى الغرف، ستُحفر أيضا في ذهن القاريء حين يُستدعى المشهد ببراعة، بين الحين والآخر، وهو يكبر. سنتابع شريط حياته المثير إلى أن نصحو على صوت السارد الذي يبقى وحيدا بعد زواج شقيقه "فارقني أخي إلى غير رجعة". "أنا صرت الشخص الميت". لكن، قل لي، لماذا كان عليه أن يقتل؟

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is one that will stay with me for a long time.
I tried to write an actual review, but I'm struggling to put how I feel afterwards into words.
I would, however, recommend this to absolutely anybody. There is wisdom and compassion and rage and a sense of lucid detachment that make the book very difficult reading, but make you think very deeply and clearly.
I think great literature should transport you to a time and place and you should come away having lived an experience, and in this you get five.

[Shabbeer Hassan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A hodge-podge collection of stories all sharing the same world of utter bleakness, filled with uninspiring characters for whom bitterness is the only salve and death the only inevitability to aspire to.

If I wanted death, mayhem and a situation of no hope in a post-colonial world, I would rather watch Game of Thrones!

My Rating - 2/5

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing tale of two people living in Africa. Can see why he won the Booker. Excellent read.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

V. S. Naipaul's In a Free State is a set of four sketches on the subject of colonialism from the points of view of the colonizers and the colonized. The sketch after which the book is named, "In a Free State," is about a long ride through a troubled African country (probably the former Belgian Congo) in which the king is in the process of being unseated by the president. Bob is a gay colonial administrator giving a ride to Linda, the wife of a distant associate.

The points of view of the other four stories are of an African and his brother in London, a (presumably European) traveler on an old Greek steamship headed for Egypt, an Indian houseboy in Washington DC, and a European traveler touring in Egypt.

In all of them, Naipaul is spot on in showing the unnatural relationship between native denizens of the Third World and their European overseers. The title story is particularly good and takes up more than 50% of the text.

[Girish · Rating 2 out of 5]

It almost makes me feel sad to rate this book so low, but then it is like reading something from a forgotten past. I couldn't connect with the characters or the story lines.

Narrated as stories of displacement and price of freedom the three stories (and some) happen across Washington, London and Africa. All the three stories had the black and white sad story vibes that I wasn't prepared for.

The third story was the closest to an exciting narrative like a road trip set in Africa where the King has vanished. It has a man and woman talking to each other while driving and slowly we get to know the full picture of what is happening.

Maybe not the book I would like in my current frame of mind.