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A Bend in the River

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A Bend in the River

By: V. S. Naipaul
Narrated by: Simon Vance
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This incandescent novel chronicles both an internal journey and a physical trek into the heart of Africa, a place caught between the dangerously alluring modern world and its own tenacious past and traditions. Exploring political and individual corruption, it expresses skepticism about the ability of newly decolonized nations to forge independent identities.

Salim, a Muslim Indian merchant, opens a store in a sleepy small town at a bend in the river, whose inhabitants include a Belgian priest, a witch, and a white intellectual named Raymond. The president of the new country is a demagogue called the Big Man who hires Raymond as his speechwriter. Salim loses control of his store to the commercially inexperienced Citizen Theotime, who hires Salim to manage it. Gradually, the town's veneer of civilization begins to crumble.

©1979 V. S. Naipaul (P)2004 Blackstone Publishing Contemporary Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Fiction Africa
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Critic reviews

“Austere and brilliant…Naipaul has mastered the gift of creating an aura of psychic and moral tension…A novelist has to be faithful to what he sees, and few see as well as Naipaul.”

(New York Times Book Review)

“In a vigilant style, which has been deservedly admired, [Naipul] transforms rage into precision and allows events to speak with their own inherent irony.”

(Swedish Academy, announcing the 2001 Nobel Prize in Literature )

“Confirms Naipaul’s position as one of the best writers now at work.”

(Newsweek)

“Vance delivers the detached ferocity that won Naipaul the Nobel Prize.”

(AudioFile)
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The more we know about this man, the less we like him - it's the paradox of the literary celebrity age. If Sir Vidia wasn't such a marvellous writer, if he hadn't conjured a modern philosophe, if he didn't visit upon his British audience their post-colonial angst in the midst of our suburban ennui - then we wouldn't be at all interested in his Tuesday afternoon trysts. A great literary bequest laid low by a failure of heart - the heart of darkness seems to be within yourself Sir Vidia.
A good novel, though, well drawn characters standing on different corners of different streets following two rivers - each with a distinct bend.
Naipaul's own opening incantation 'The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.' now seems too big a challenge even for a man of Naipaul's exemplitude - what do you amount to old man?

In service to Sir Vidia

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Excellently read.

A Bend in the River

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If you're interested in central and east Africa in general, and the DRC in particular, you've doubtless read 'Heart of Darkness', 'King Leopold's Ghost' and 'In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz'. Don't miss this classic novel, which provides an engrossing first-person account of the life of an Indian shopkeeper in the remote east of what was then called Zaire. The view through the eyes of a single shopkeeper makes a grand accompaniment to those other, broader texts. The story begins before the ascendancy of President Mobutu Sese-Seko, describes the initial excitement that his authoritative reign created - often overlooked by other commentators - then traces the collapse of the regime and the country into corrupt anarchy. The characters that appear along the way symbolise many of the major attitudes towards this abortive African renaissance - the naive academic credulously serving the Big Man, disappointed ex-pats sliding into bored debauchery, arrogant young students bitter as they realise the lies they have been told, the Africa-loving priest brought to a grisly end - and, of course, the foreign traders trying to live in two worlds to profit from it all, yet with the dreadful risk of losing everything hanging over them, a threat that adds real tension to the story.

A flowing history from the heart of Africa

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Beautifully written and beautifully read, though little really happens, so not much of a story arc.
It focusses mainly on domestic detail and the ebb and flow of social and political forces as they alter a once familiar world.
A quality piece of writing - well worth the time investment.

Quality Literature

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Heart of Darkness 100 years later? Also set in the Congo, the story recounts the experience of an young Indian man who tries to make a living as a tradesman during the 1960'es and 70'es on the banks of the Congo. The author provides insight and perspective on the post-colonial experience, but the reader is still left outside the phenomena. The darkness remains, the wonder at the seemingly irrational behaviours, the violence, the randomness etc. But maybe that is exactly the message?

The horror ?

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