Scan barcode
A review by j_dyzzle
The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief by V.S. Naipaul
1.0
Right from the get go, I had no idea what was going on in V.S. Naupaul's Masque of Africa. The narration skips around so much that in the beginning I was not sure that it was only one person speaking. People's names are mentioned out of the blue and not explained, leaving readers to wonder who people are and what their importance is.
Bits and pieces were interesting, but I continually felt, while reading it, that things were being repeated. So much so that a few times I went back through to be sure that I hadn't lost my place and was actually rereading something. Passages and cultural stories were repeated, almost verbatim. Making reading it terribly tedious.
The book could have been cut in half and would not have lost anything. It may have even improved it. Even after having read it, I don't know that I could explain what it was about, without just saying that it is made up of sections about different people and locations which the author describes with repetitive language and details. Leaving the reader with a major sense of deja vu.
The snippets of life, for lack of a better term for the short cut scenes the author gives the reader, had moments that were genuinely interesting, but the book as a whole read a lot more like a travel journal than a cohesive narrative. A travel journal of a very nervous and frugal traveler. Every time he began to complain or worry that something was going to cost too much and backed out, was when I felt that things were going to finally start getting interesting.
I wish he hadn't backed out of paying or showed up late to things because he didn't want to hike the distance to get to where the interesting things were happening. It's like going to France and talking about the Louvre, but desciding that you don't actually want to pay the admission fees or walk from your hotel. What's the point of reading it if it never gets far enough to get to the interesting part?
Bits and pieces were interesting, but I continually felt, while reading it, that things were being repeated. So much so that a few times I went back through to be sure that I hadn't lost my place and was actually rereading something. Passages and cultural stories were repeated, almost verbatim. Making reading it terribly tedious.
The book could have been cut in half and would not have lost anything. It may have even improved it. Even after having read it, I don't know that I could explain what it was about, without just saying that it is made up of sections about different people and locations which the author describes with repetitive language and details. Leaving the reader with a major sense of deja vu.
The snippets of life, for lack of a better term for the short cut scenes the author gives the reader, had moments that were genuinely interesting, but the book as a whole read a lot more like a travel journal than a cohesive narrative. A travel journal of a very nervous and frugal traveler. Every time he began to complain or worry that something was going to cost too much and backed out, was when I felt that things were going to finally start getting interesting.
I wish he hadn't backed out of paying or showed up late to things because he didn't want to hike the distance to get to where the interesting things were happening. It's like going to France and talking about the Louvre, but desciding that you don't actually want to pay the admission fees or walk from your hotel. What's the point of reading it if it never gets far enough to get to the interesting part?