|
|
33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Word of mouth, 19 Jul 2002
"India" describes Naipaul's anti-clockwise journey around the metropoles of India in 1988, from Bombay to Srinagar via Bangalore, Madras, Calcutta, Delhi and Amritsar. His theme is that India, seen from the distance of his Trinadadian childhood, appeared as a single, unified entity. Close-up in 1988, however, he saw how it decomposes into a collage of religions, castes and classes. That diversity, for Naipaul, is India's strength. He sees each social group's struggle for security as the motor of India economic, political and social advances since the 1960s.Reading between the lines, however, you can tell that Naipaul has mixed feelings about India. Apart from the revulsion at the filth and decay, he can not hide his despair of the Indian character. He sees Indians as self-destructive, always letting unnecessary foibles and squabbles obstruct progress. For Naipaul the class-warriors of the Dravidian movement in Tamil Nadu have replaced a wise culture with a wasteland, the self-regarding idleness of Bengalis has turned Calcutta into a sewer and the Sikhs of Northwest India are persecuted because, deep down, that is their raison d'être. It's a point of view. The format of "India" is almost oral history or anthropology. He lets Indians, mostly middle- and upper-class, tell the stories of their lives. Gradually these tales coalesce in the reader's mind and Naipaul's collage of caste, class and ethnicity emerges. The language is clear and engaging; it is hard to imagine a more entertaining introduction to the social processes at work in modern India. Naipaul's own viewpoint emerges gradually between the lines. And he is honest about his own place in the book, not glamorising his trip with chichi exoticism like your average poncey travel-writer, but just making himself a man who travels from hotel to hotel and talks to Indians.
|
by V. S. Naipaul
by V. S. Naipaul
by V.S. Naipaul
by V S Naipaul
by William Dalrymple
