Modern Age - Winter 2016 - 50

MODERN AGE

WINTER 2016

along with the Christian doctrine of "do unto others" as prominent elements of what he meant by a redemptive universal civilization. Naipaul might as well have included in his definition the
Declaration's other two rights, "life" and "liberty," and it is "life" in
particular, that most fundamental of human rights, with which
he is most concerned in A Bend in the River. At the center of the
novel is Naipaul's newfound grasp of the terrifying fragility of
human existence in the absence of civilization and his deepening comprehension of the implications for moral action that such
awareness entails.
As a vehicle for exploring this awareness, Naipaul's choice of
a susceptible protagonist adrift in an unstable corner of central
Africa was an inspired artistic decision. Cast into the political
anarchy of a fictionalized central African republic, Salim finds his
assumptions of individual autonomy challenged, especially as he
grasps the possibility of his own imminent demise. Everywhere
he looks, Salim encounters the specter of death. Significantly,
however, it is not simply human mortality, death as the natural
end of existence, that unsettles him, but another sort of death
altogether. What this young man faces in the unraveling of civilized norms is the likelihood of a sordid, utterly banal end at the
hands of an unfeeling minor official. Stripped of the most fundamental of human rights, he finds himself in the clutches of a
police state, and an unstable one at that, in which the execution
of anyone caught in officialdom's net becomes purely a matter of
routine.

N

aipaul's recognition of the flagrant insecurity of life in the
absence of the rule of law was spurred by a frightening happenstance the year before he began work on A Bend in the River.

50



Modern Age - Winter 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Modern Age - Winter 2016

Contents
Modern Age - Winter 2016 - Cover1
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Modern Age - Winter 2016 - Contents
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