Word: naipaul
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...problem of writing history dominates the book. Imperialism robbed all the countries Naipaul writes about of histories uniquely their own. That's important, but for Naipaul to focus on it displays an unspoken Western faith in the ability of history to clarify present problems. The conditions of colonization shaped the identity, the problems of each country. It puzzles Naipaul that he finds no analysis of these conditions. Why is there no mention of the Arab slave trade in Zaire? Where are accounts of the genocide which wiped the Argentine pampas clear of Indians...
...speaks to terrorists, to businessmen and government officials to find an acceptable history. But even Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina's man of letters, fails him. Borges' writing is a series of intellectual games that strip away, rather than analyze, the meaning of words. "There is no history in Argentina," Naipaul concludes. "There are no archives; there are only graffiti, polemics and school lessons." He goes on to find history "less an attempt to record and understand than a habit of reordering inconvenient facts; it is a process of forgetting." Naipaul understands that Eva Peron, the brunette who dyed her hair...
Joseph Conrad is the only accurate historian Naipaul finds, and his fiction is the subject of the fourth essay, "Conrad's Darkness." He offers Naipaul solidity: well-considered ideas that have been tested, conclusions which Naipaul can trace to their roots. His writing is a welcome change from the rhetorical fantasies of Generals Mobutu of Zaire and Peron of Argentina. "Nothing is rigged in Conrad. He doesn't remake countries. He chose, as we now know, incidents from real life; and he meditated on them...
...Naipaul himself meditates in these essays, providing vivid observations, adept analysis, and a command of detail. He brings us in to the ghost town of Montevideo's stopped clocks and neglected monuments, and he makes us weary of the endless muddy river of Zaire. Details in Naipaul's hands naturally, effortlessly fill out his pictures. He uses them to emphasize the very large difference between what he sees in each country and what he hears from their leaders...
Malik, the power behind the bizarre killings in Trinidad, is Naipaul's symbol for this "deep corruption" of language. "Michael X and the Black Killings in Trinidad" tells the story of an immigrant from Trinidad who discovers Black liberation while living in London and brings a rhetoric of revolution back home. He speaks of revolution without plans or programs, and it wins him power, money and followers. When the money runs out he needs a new way to hold his followers together. The murders of two devotees provide a solution...