nomadjg 's review for:

A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul

3.0

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I am still not sure what I think about this book. The most interesting part of it to me was the main character, Salim's, identity of being from Africa, but not defining himself or defined by others as African. This complication added needed complexity to a book with so much foreshadowing and allusion to The Heart of Darkness, but it also allowed for the narrator to remain an outsider and an observer. The river has to be the Congo although it is never identified officially. Salim reminds the reader of Marlowe when he is traveling across Africa or to London, but especially on the steamer at the end of the book. There are quite a few characters that resemble Kurtz in some ways, including the president. Naipaul shows how colonization has deeply damaged Africa and in its aftermath the question of which way the civilization will go arises. There are decidedly different factions and answers to that question: development on African terms for Africans but using what colonizers left and not shutting out non-African people, continue to sell it off as was done during colonization, go back to before colonization, or continued conflict. This is of course as interpreted through Salim's eyes and there is a point in the book when he begins to believe that the first idea can actually work. Naipaul, in delving into these questions, still portrays the mysterious home of a great river. The town and the fancy foreigner settlement are contrasted with the river in terms of security and clarity. The biggest problem with the book is that he ends up focusing more on what he and other foreigners think of the place, and he espouses some really essentialist views of Africans. This is the same problem with H of D - African characters don't have a voice. However, in the end, Naipaul does allow one African voice, that of Ferdinand, to speak out clearly and poignantly about how the main question of the novel is being answered at that moment.