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A Bend in the River

V.S. Naipaul

Start date: January 1, 2012

Finish date: January 5, 2012

Why we're reading this: Central Africa (country unidentified) or Trinidad (author's place of birth). Nobel prize winner. On 1001 …more
[close] Central Africa (country unidentified) or Trinidad (author's place of birth). Nobel prize winner. On 1001 book list.

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Dec 06, 2020 Kavitha rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, africa

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

A Bend in the River by Nobel Prize winning author V.S.Naipaul begins with these powerful lines. It goes on to tell the story of a post colonial country in central Africa (most likely Congo). The main character, Salim, is an Indian African who leaves his family behind and moves to a small town at the bend of a river in this unnamed country. He buys a shop from his friend Nazruddin for a che "The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it."

A Bend in the River by Nobel Prize winning author V.S.Naipaul begins with these powerful lines. It goes on to tell the story of a post colonial country in central Africa (most likely Congo). The main character, Salim, is an Indian African who leaves his family behind and moves to a small town at the bend of a river in this unnamed country. He buys a shop from his friend Nazruddin for a cheap price there and starts his life again. He finds the town in a half destroyed state when he reaches it. He notices segregation as the Africans live out in the bush and the inhabitants of the town are a few Arabs, Indians and other immigrants. Naipaul has thrown in some really complex thoughts and interesting characters into this story.

This is as much a character study of Salim as it is a study of post colonial Africa and its adjustment to the newly won independence and its journey towards modernism. Among the many complex thoughts presented in the book, the readers get to read about a "domain" being built with all the modern facilities, good schools, hospitals, etc. while the area where Salim lives, which is right outside the domain, stays as it is. They get to read about an authoritarian and self-absorbed president ("The Big Man"), who likes to hang big posters of himself everywhere and invest resources into the domain, more in the interest of building up his own image than for the betterment of the place and its people. Then we get to follow Salim's own stream of consciousness as he tries to adjust to all of these changes. So, there's a lot going on in this little book. Naipaul's narrative is so realistic that it felt like I was reading non-fiction, not fiction.

Salim is a simple man, conservative in his thinking and insecure within. Naipaul's portrayal of Salim is so realistic that inhabiting his mind for the duration of this book felt unsettling. "When we land at a place like London Airport we are concerned only not to appear foolish. It is more beautiful and more complex than anything we could have dreamed of, but we are concerned only to let people see that we can manage and we are not overawed. We might even pretend that we had expected better. That is the nature of our stupidity and incompetence." I could easily say this about all of the characters in this book actually. For example, Salim's friend, Mahesh and his wife Shoba, a couple who fell in love, got married against the wishes of Shoba's family and ran far away from them to escape threats of violence. There is a certain kind of resignation in them towards their circumstances that felt very realistic and disturbing. “It isn't that there's no right and wrong here. There's no right.”

This is my first Naipaul book and while I admit that I still have some unresolved thoughts about it, I can confidently say that his prose is brilliant. Not a single word is wasted in this book. Every sentence has complex thoughts embedded in it. And yet, it all flows so effortlessly that I was simply blown away. This book was as much the study of a flawed character as it was a historical tour of a struggling country and its people, both interspersed with each other in a truly sublime manner. To me, this was the most fascinating part of the experience of reading this book. I was fully absorbed from the beginning and even now, a few days after finishing it, I still can't stop thinking about it. So, yes, this is not a book that you flow through and set aside. It demands effort from the reader, both while reading it and afterwards. Needless to say, I will definitely read more of Naipaul's books in future. ...more

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