In a Free State

Naipaul is an exquisite writer. This collection of stories addresses states of freedom -- from the intimacy within one's own mind all the way to the vastness of a country's political upheaval, along with various states in between. A malaise surrounds the narratives, all relating to displaced protagonists, wandering, not at home anywhere, I think; I say that because there's a certain disconnectedness roving through the hearts & souls of these words, something that works to keep all of the characters as outsiders from themselves & others &, yet, still human. Is anyone ever really in a free state? Recommended.

Nominally a novel, but actually more like a collection of short stories, In a Free State by V. S. Naipaul is in this way different than other works of Naipaul that I have read. But in other ways it is similar and even better than the others. This is primarily because all the five stories are linked thematically and they share Naipaul's beautiful prose style.

The novel includes stories that are all about people who find themselves in places where they feel, or are made to feel, that they don’t belong; the stories are about boundaries, purity, pollution, incommensurability and just plain strangeness. In the opening prologue, the presence of an English tramp on a Greek ferry causes uproar. The second story tells of an Indian servant who show more tries to adjust to a new life in Washington D.C. Next, in a story that demonstrated a striking voice with a melancholy that I found disturbing, a South Asian West Indian immigrant in London reflects on the ruins of his life. His relationship with boy he is helping deteriorates as he slowly realizes the failure of the boy to live up to his naive ideal.

The final story, “In a Free State,” is equally pessimistic. In it, Bobby and Linda share a car ride from the capital, in the northern part of the African country, to the so-called Southern Collectorate, where Bobby works and where Linda will rejoin her husband. Ethnic rivalries within the country make this journey perilous because the president, whose politically and militarily dominant people control the north, has set up roadblocks to apprehend the king, whose weaker people populate the south.

The basic conflict between the two characters concerns their attitude toward Africa: Bobby, a homosexual who suffered a nervous breakdown at Oxford, has emigrated to Africa and plans to make it his home. “My life is here,” he says. Linda has lived in the country for six years and considers it an exciting place for her and her husband to work, but she intends to go to South Africa, if it ever stops being “like a John Ford Western.” Her attitude suggests that Europeans can never be accepted in black African society. In the epilogue an Asian businessman travelling through Milan and Cairo reflects on cruelty and empire.

While I found interesting aspects to all the shorter stories, In a Free State clearly stands out among the lot. While neither of the two main characters are appealing, the contrast between the self-deluding Bobby, who claims to have some sort of authentic connection with “Africa,” and the cynical, weary Linda is very effective. They wear their prejudices on their sleeves, so to speak, and only differ in tone and personality. More effective for me was the setting and the use of description to maintain a tension that suggested (not unlike a Hitchcock thriller) the presence of horror just around the bend. Whether you agree with the view represented in these stories about the difficulty of adjusting your being to a new place and a different culture you can, through the graceful prose style of V. S. Naipaul, enjoy the book. show less

Published in 1971, and winner of the Booker Prize, In a Free State is a combination of two short stories, one novella, and two segments of travelogue set in countries around the world. The travelogue provides the introduction and involves a trip by ship from Greece to Egypt. It also provides the conclusion, 25 years later, in Egypt. One Out of Many is about Santosh, a servant living in Bombay, who accompanies his employer to Washington D.C. In Tell Me Who to Kill, a Trinidadian in London desires to fund his brother’s education but finds his brother has been deceitful. In the titular novella, two British bureaucrats take a road trip in an unnamed African country (similar to Uganda) in the midst of political upheaval, where they show more encounter racial divisions and violence.

This is a book that requires a “big picture” mindset. The stories are not connected except in themes, which include displacement, alienation, and different interpretations of “freedom.” The protagonists are unrelated, but all are outside their home countries. I most enjoyed One Out of Many – the adventures of Santosh as he experiences western version of freedom but is unable to replicate the happiness he found in Bombay. In this story, Santosh is a fully developed character, and the reader can follow his gradual disillusionment.

In the novella, two unpleasant British expats, Bobby and Linda, on the road to a remote compound, exhibit their perceived “superiority” to the African inhabitants. I am sure it is intended for the reader to feel tension and discomfort and it succeeds. I appreciate the themes and Naipaul’s brilliant writing style. It is worth reading for its literary merit and effective in its social commentary, but do not expect anything remotely cheery. show less

I can see why Robert McCrum chose this for the 1970s nominee for the Golden Booker. It may not be better than some of the other excellent winners, but it's very very good. Is it Naipaul's best? I don't know, I haven't read all the novels, but his best is very good indeed.

This is a series of thematically connected stories with two very short journal-entry vignettes bookending the beginning and end. There are two short-ish stories and one novella (the latter being the titular story). All consider the issues raised by immigration, colonialism, exile, and color/race supremacy. The three major pieces are quite different from each other in terms of plot and character, but the threads connecting them are clear.

Naipaul is hard to read. He's show more at best pitiless and at worst cruel. But his writing is so phenomenal, his eye so acute, and his evocation of the natural and built worlds so penetrating (from beautiful to horrible as the subject requires), that he demands to be read, carefully and thoroughly.

ETA: The way Naipaul depicts African people is frequently painful, even more than his usual unsparingly cruel eye. In the main story these depictions are primarily through the perspective of the main characters, who are mostly unlikable, but he is definitely making points about the extent to which humans resemble the less pleasant aspects of animals (or just animals in general). But it *is* painful for the reader. show less

Like a watercolor left in the rain. I guess I should throw in the "spoiler alert", except that knowing the basic plot in advance would have helped me through this mess quite a bit. These stories hint at something great, but the writing style leaves them all muddles. The first tale, of a servant taken from India to Washington, is comprehensible, and seemed a promising start to the book. Another review of the second tale states that the narrator ends up in jail. Well, perhaps, but, after reading the review, I went back and read the tale again, and I still can't find anything that makes that clear, or even particularly more likely than other versions, which is too bad, because the story described in the review sounds much better than show more Naipaul's version. The characters in the main tale, Bobby and Linda, alternate between hating each other and developing a begrudging fondness for each other in a way that completely lacks plausibility. Again, there are hints of two or three different, good stories buried in the main tale, but Naipaul doesn't seemed to have figured out which one he wanted to tell, so he tossed them all in. By time I reached the end of the tale, I hoped that Bobby and Linda would come to some horrible fate, just because I'd become so annoyed with them and with Naipaul's narrative style. show less

I don’t think I’ve ever read any Naipaul before. Can’t think why. This was an excellent series of short stories wandering through themes of empire, colonialism and identity and is as relevant today as it was 40 years ago, if not more so.

The book has four narratives:

The opening and closing are from the point of view of a traveller embarking on a ship to Egypt and then being a tourist in Egypt.
There is a narrative about a guy who is a cook for an Indian diplomat who takes him to the US where he ends up being an illegal immigrant.
The most opaque story involves the bitter thoughts of a man whose brother had made a success of emigration while he still struggles due to some bad choices.
The longest story involves a car journey that show more two ex-pats take through an East African country which is fictional but which has recently gained independence with all the consequent instability that brings.

All the stories have are deeply psychological with Naipaul using tension throughout to convey the impression of dislocation and crisis for almost all the characters. Much of what the characters struggle with is very moving. The Indian narrative in particular brought to mind the struggles of the characters in Mistry’s A Fine Balance. Naipaul must surely have influenced many Indian writers.

If you’re like me and you’ve spent your life wandering the earth and have given up all hope of finding a place where you feel settled, then a lot of what these characters go through will resonate with you. Through some prophetic serendipity, this was also the Booker Prize winner from the year of my birth.

This is not an uplifting read, but it is a very powerful book that deals with the realities of the colonial legacy. With the rise of globalism in the decades following its publication, it has only become more relevant to our times. It quite rightly brought Naipaul the accolades and recognition he would come to deserve in his lifetime. show less

Published in 1971, and winner of the Booker Prize, In a Free State is a combination of two short stories, one novella, and two segments of travelogue set in countries around the world. The travelogue provides the introduction and involves a trip by ship from Greece to Egypt. It also provides the conclusion, 25 years later, in Egypt. One Out of Many is about Santosh, a servant living in Bombay, who accompanies his employer to Washington D.C. In Tell Me Who to Kill, a Trinidadian in London desires to fund his brother’s education but finds his brother has been deceitful. In the titular novella, two British bureaucrats take a road trip in an unnamed African country (similar to Uganda) in the midst of political upheaval, where they show more encounter racial divisions and violence.

This is a book that requires a “big picture” mindset. The stories are not connected except in themes, which include displacement, alienation, and different interpretations of “freedom.” The protagonists are unrelated, but all are outside their home countries. I most enjoyed One Out of Many – the adventures of Santosh as he experiences western version of freedom but is unable to replicate the happiness he found in Bombay. In this story, Santosh is a fully developed character, and the reader can follow his gradual disillusionment.

In the novella, two unpleasant British expats, Bobby and Linda, on the road to a remote compound, exhibit their perceived “superiority” to the African inhabitants. I am sure it is intended for the reader to feel tension and discomfort and it succeeds. I appreciate the themes and Naipaul’s brilliant writing style. It is worth reading for its literary merit and effective in its social commentary, but do not expect anything remotely cheery. show less