A Turn in the South [Paperback]

Globetrotting author V.S. Naipaul turns his eye to the American South in this fascinating, multifarious examination of culture and attitudes prevalent among blacks and whites from Tallahassee to Charlestown to Nashville.

The title is a bit misleading. "A Turn In The South" suggests a change or culture shift Naipaul is tracking, for better or worse, in the Southland. In fact, the story here can be summarized as more of the same, a region so steeped in tradition it's almost choking from it like kudzu. Naipaul is not particularly critical; in fact his book is remarkably even in tone and light in judgment. But if there's one message in this book, it's that the South remains the same, for good and ill.

Unlike the better-known Southern guidebook "Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil," Naipaul doesn't focus on just one city, He moves around, and you don't get a strong sense of place much of the time. People and ideas interest Naipaul more, and there are some wonderful portraits like the Forsyth County sheriff who says a racial crisis in his county is now "dead" because everyone involved got their 15 minutes in front of the camera and the black activist who promotes his civil disobedience arrest record to the point of carrying a toothbrush in his jacket pocket.

Writer Anne Seddons notes Americans are born protesters, "It's what we know how to do." Many talk raptly about their religious faith, which leaves the non-religious Naipaul respectfully puzzled. Naipaul makes clear that there is intelligence in the devout, and that even the more doctrinaire and conservative sects allow room for questioning and self-expression. This is something many Americans have a hard time picking up on.

When I told a relative I read this book, he recalled it was the one with the redneck in it. That's probably what "Turn In The South" is best known for, the account Naipaul gives of a zesty conversation with a self-styled "neck" named Campbell which provides a great deal of comedy and insight as he describes the men and women who make up the South's best-known subculture (though perhaps counterculture is a better word.)

"He's probably thinking, with that hair and beard, that he's God's gift to the world," Campbell tells Naipaul after spying a fellow redneck in a hotel lobby. "But he's just a neck. He's as lost as a goose. He's never been on a tiled floor in his life."

"Turn In The South" is not always so zippy. Naipaul moves carefully, and while he's great at relating dialogue, he's not as certain about what makes Southerners tick. He often pulls back and likens the Southern experience to that of his native Caribbean, which gets repetitive after a while and adds little. He's justly famous for describing cultures in India, Africa, and Trinidad, and this feels more like an attempt to broaden his palette than say something new.

But what's here has value and readability. Many of the characters stay with you, and since Naipaul doesn't linger on anyone for more than a few pages, often much less, there's a lot of narrative churn to keep your interest even when individual characters don't.

"Turn In The South" is a good, solid, refreshingly humble, and non-P.C. account of what makes the South tick, how, as Naipaul puts it, it is a place of "optimism in the foreground, irrationality in the background," and why, for all its faults, crimes, and travails, it is still a place people are proud to call home.

Naipaul went on a brief trip to the South of the US and wrote a travellogue on it. While I do not believe it is as good as the ones he has written on India and Islam, it was well worth the read. What he concentrates on is the struggle of people to realise themselves, to find an identity in the chaos of modern life. As he sees it, the plight of American blacks is very moving indeed, and beautifully written as always.

I think that where a lot of people get critical of this book is that they expect it to be academic and somehow definitive, rather than so personal. Naipaul is a novelist, so what you get is anecdote and impression, rather than a comprehensive approach. If that is what you expect, this is a very fulfilling reading experience.

REcommended.

V. S. Naipaul went to visit the American South with the intention of writing a book about race relations, but as he traveled from state to state, or rather from community to community, he found that racism was less the defining episteme of southern culture than a pervasive devotion to mythology--the core myths of fundamentalism, the myths of ante-bellum splendor and gallantry, the myths of special southern providence. Elvis, tobacco, and fatness are all integrated into Naipaul's perception of a South wallowing in self-mythology, a culture that abounds in self-consciousness without ever achieving relativism. Nonetheless, Naipaul finds, he likes traveling in the South, and in the end he writes a book which is as gentle and sympathetic to his subject as could reasonably be desired.
Not an American, neither White nor Black, certainly not a man of religion, Naipaul credits the comforts and strengths that religiosity brings to Southerners of both races, while he also identifies the stifling consequences. This is easily the most accurate and insightful portrayal of the South that I've ever read, not even excluding literary giants like Faulkner and Welty.
The writing style is remarkably casual, almost off-hand, not at all high-brow, yet the reader will find that Naipaul knows exactly what he wants to say and where he thinks the "turn in the south" will take us.