Word: shiva
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...work has two other major flaws. First, Shiva presents no connecting analysis to link his anecdotes. This approach aggravates the reader's impatience with Naipaul's tone--as he becomes increasingly weary from traveling overland, so the reader becomes more tired of nasty asides...
...Second, Shiva's theoretical point that "the African soul is a blank slate in which anything can be written" is offensive. For Shiva, Pan-Africanism, Tanzania's self-reliance and the rebirth of Swahili mean nothing. He sees only Kenyans worshipping the West's wealth and culture. And Shiva, like his brother, does not give enough credit to the governments and people of these nations who are struggling with the racial and class problems of a colonial past...
...Shiva Naipaul is most weak where his brother is strongest--the ability to empathize with all the people he writes about. He does not try to understand why a nouveau riche black Kenyan has two freezers (which she never uses), whisky at every meal, gold-painted nails, and an expropriated mansion too large for her needs. He simply finds her ludicrous and tasteless...
Where V.S. Naipaul is a universalist, drawing parallels among the people he sees, Shiva Naipaul is a defensive separatist. This sense of separation stems in part from the nature of a travelogue, which forces him to keep a distance from his subjects. For hi, sanity only exists in the industrialized West--i.e., England. The nightmare only begins when one boards the flight to Africa...
Both Naipaul brothers see Africa through Conrad's eyes--as a ruined land where logic is an anomaly and men become corrupted. But for V.S. Naipaul, the entire world is a senseless, despondent morass. For Shiva, civilization and Mistah Kurtz are only dead in Africa...