Modern Age - Winter 2016 - 61

V. S. NAIPAUL'S A BEND IN THE RIVER

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perspective." For Howe, Naipaul had allowed "the wretchedness of his depicted scene
to become the limit of his vision" ("A Dark Vision," New York Times Book Review, May 13,
1979). There are exceptions, of course, to this pattern of dismissive critique. Bruce King,
for one, manages to avoid the ideological minefields of imperialism and racism and
so provides insight into Naipaul's true subject: the terrible uncertainly of the human
condition at all times and places. King is one of the few to recognize that the disorder
that Naipaul depicts in A Bend in the River "is found to be universal" rather than specific
to the Congo or to Africa. What Naipaul discovers in this and other works is that "all
history consists of change, of peoples struggling against peoples, tribes against tribes,
individuals against individuals" (V. S. Naipaul [New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993], 118).
King also discovers a redemptive quality in the novel, which, he asserts, is "a strong
statement about the need to struggle to survive and to be lucid and rational" (V. S.
Naipaul , 119). With its frequent allusions to Virgil, Dante, Greene, and Conrad, as well as
to the Hindu epic Ramayana, "Naipaul's vision . . . becomes part of a universal, timeless
perspective of the rise and fall of human achievements" (V. S. Naipaul, 126).
French, The World Is What It Is, 253.
In his essay "The Crocodiles of Yamoussoukro," Naipaul praises Félix HouphouëtBoigny, ruler of the Ivory Coast from its independence in 1960 until his death in 1993.
"He has ruled well," Naipaul states. "He has made his country rich" (Writer and the World,
229). It is not just Houphouët-Boigny that Naipaul admires, however. He describes
Joachim Bony, minister of education at the time, as "gracious" and cultivated. It is
not the race of these leaders but their beliefs and values that distinguish them. The
universal civilization in which these Ivoirians participate makes possible the "intellectual atmosphere" (Writer and the World, 504) that Naipaul celebrated in "Postscript: Our
Universal Civilization," an atmosphere in which Naipaul believes individuals like himself
can flourish.

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Modern Age - Winter 2016

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