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The road changes everything!
Oct 09, 2016 07:17 PM 4289 Views

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I read Picador paperback which had fine quality pages.


In a country in Africa, there are two groups of people – the President’s men and the King’s men; and the third are the Europeans, the settlers, the colonialists, the government officers, trapped in the rising heat between them. A hunt is going on and Bobby and Linda are travelling from capital, where Africa is in absentia, to the troubled south, with the uprising, revenge and self-identification of natives in the backdrop of their conversation. There is change of tides, rusting of old establishments and adjustment of hierarchy. But the story is of a travel, of perception of two white people of the changes in their present home, of transition and not of the revolution.


This 1971 Booker Prize winning book, which was originally published with two supporting matter from other places, now absent, is, in abstract, a story of change, but not the physical change as much as the change of outlook, attitude and opinions. Compared to the Naipaul’s previous books, this book have a different tongue which is much closer to a travelogue than a work of fiction. With almost more than 70% of book dedicated to the description of the surrounding, of the road, nearly everything around the protagonist Bobby, it seems that Naipaul want its reader to clearly picture the Africa of that time and imagine the changing feelings which is the reason the book clearly belongs to the decade of 70s.


Many people mistake the readability of the Naipaul’s books, considering the accolades and achievements, to be difficult but in fact his books are overly simplistic with little embellishments. The only roadblock in reading this book is, maybe, the depiction part, as the portrayal takes time in forming in the mind, like:


“Tall eucalyptus trees made an open, dripping grove, tattered bark on straight trunks; and, against the great mountains in the distance, the rising hills showed a mixture of fenced pastures, hummocked open land, eucalyptus windbreaks, old forest patches: an unfinished landscape, a scratching in the continent.”


For me, Naipaul’s other books were more enjoyable and thoughtful but if you want to read about the landscapes of Africa and the changing sentiment of the people around the time of decolonisation, this is your book.


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