Naipaul is a writer of British Indian descent and a Nobel Prize winner in literature, along with Kazuo Ishiguro and Rushdie, known as the "Three Heroes of British Literary Immigration".
Naipaul's works have typical immigrant literary characteristics, and their themes express their disgust for war and their yearning for peace.
Having said that, Naipaul's works are not easy to read, nor how esoteric they are, but the protagonists in his works do not conform to the character of the mainstream aesthetic, and their performance behavior cannot be felt by the reader.
01、
In "Big River Bend", the protagonist Salim chooses to come to Big River Bay in order to escape from his hometown and escape his future "fiancée".
By conventional logic, he'll make a difference here.
However, Salim only opened a small shop in The Great River Bay, and when lust came, he spent money to find prostitutes to solve it. Until the appearance of a married woman, the situation changed.
Salim fell in love with the writer Raymond's wife, Coconut Reed, with whom he maintained an extramarital sexual relationship.
Until this point, I was expecting Salim to complete his mysterious mission as a male protagonist.
As a result, Salim and Coconut Reed separated after a few years, and the way they broke off the relationship was disgusting!
After a sexual encounter, Salim punches and kicks her lover and spits between her legs, ending their relationship.
Salim turned his head and flew to another city to be formally engaged to his former future "fiancée".
And when he returned to the Great River Bay, Salim's shop was "occupied"...
It feels like Salim White has come for a trip...
It's even a bit like playing dumb kids in the game world.
Salim can get on a plane and leave the Grand River Bay and see modern civilization in the blink of an eye, while his servants can only stay in the Great River Bay...
Moreover, thousands of people who have no choice remain in the Great River Bay.
Salim is like a passer-by, leading people to witness the sudden change of the great river bend...
02、
"Big River Bend" is Naipaul's most satisfying work, and it is also a subversive work of his fictional creations.
The media hailed the book as "the last great epic of modernism" and "the greatest representation of English literature".
Set against the backdrop of congolese history, Grand RiverBend calmly tells the truth in the tone of an Indian-American grocer who makes a living in Africa:
After colonial independence, the african people suffered far more disasters than during the colonial period.
The great man of the Great River Bay Territory has the story of the new King of the Congo, Mobutu, the son of an ordinary man, who took the stage in a military coup.
From the descriptions in the book, it can be seen that the great man is in the position of the people of The Great River Bay as a savior.
But the big man did not lead the people of The Great River Bend to the Bright Avenue, he jumped over the history of the colonists in a fractured way, trying to return Africa to Africa.
As a result, what was thought to be a place of gold has become a hell on earth.
Once again, the rickety Great River Bay faces political turmoil, and it is the ordinary people who are involved.
In May, I didn't have a particularly strong feeling after reading "Big River Bend". Until recent political changes in Afghanistan, I had to revisit the book.
I thought that "Big River Bay" had become history, but I didn't expect that history would continue.
When Naipaul was once asked "what is the future of Africa," he replied, "There is no future for Africa." ”
Is there a future for Afghanistan? Will it follow the path of the Great River Bay, or will it have a brilliant tomorrow?
No one can predict and look at the time to give the answer.
03、
In 2019, when I first read Naipaul's "The Devil's Seed", I had a lot of dissatisfaction with this writer.
In life, Naipaul was selfish and stingy, prostituted and cheated, tortured his wife, enslaved his lover, and was called a "villain".
The author of sexual immorality in his private life is not much better in his literary works.
Therefore, I used to understand Naipaul very much, and even now I can't understand his concept of women and marriage, and I don't intend to try to understand him in the future.
However, there is no denying Naipaul's place in the history of literature.
His works are not light, the topic is very heavy, but Naipaul writes stories at a first-class level, so it does not affect the reader's reading.
In 2001, the Nobel Prize in Literature awarded to Naipaul read, "Naipaul is a drifter in the literary world, and it is only in his own heart, in his unique words, that he has truly found his home." ”
As a Writer of British Indian Descent, it was his mission to write about the history of the colony.
And the history of the colony should not only remain in the history books, but also deserve to be remembered in the history of literature and in the history of mankind.
Opening "Great River Bend", the beginning of the book reads:
"The world is the way it is. Those who are insignificant, those who allow themselves to become insignificant, have no place in this world. "
I used to think it was a satire on people who don't want to make progress, and I'm now ashamed of the ideas I once had.
Who wants to be proactive and insignificant?
And who makes people insignificant?
Who doesn't want to live well? But if even the most basic dignity of being a human being is lost, if even survival becomes a luxury, how can we get a place in the world, and how can we prove that we have come?
This question deserves to be reflected by all of humanity.