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jschwe 's review for:
A Bend in the River
by V.S. Naipaul
Salim is an incredibly frustrating narrator. He is constantly judging others for disconnecting, for being dishonest to themselves about their lives and futures, for having no passion or emotion. And yet, he seems unable to muster any emotion himself, and is listlessly drifting from point to point, with no motive. He seems to only ever judge, mistrust, and criticize what passes for his friends, and yet he is always complaining about being lonely.
His voice as narrator made this book difficult for me to connect with, I think because it is so passive and emotionally distant, despite being written in first person. It almost gave me the feeling that the whole book was some sort of long introduction or setup for a story that never came. I had to treat this almost like homework in order to get through the whole book, nearly every other page I found my thought straying and had to force myself to focus. I felt there was potential to be interesting, it was a true look into a world unknown to me, but something about how it was written made it uninteresting. It was not an enjoyable read for me personally, and I don't feel like I got much out of it.
His voice as narrator made this book difficult for me to connect with, I think because it is so passive and emotionally distant, despite being written in first person. It almost gave me the feeling that the whole book was some sort of long introduction or setup for a story that never came. I had to treat this almost like homework in order to get through the whole book, nearly every other page I found my thought straying and had to force myself to focus. I felt there was potential to be interesting, it was a true look into a world unknown to me, but something about how it was written made it uninteresting. It was not an enjoyable read for me personally, and I don't feel like I got much out of it.