A Bend in the River

A Bend in the River
Author: VS Naipaul 416 pp
My rating: 4*
Started June 10 2009, Finished June 15 2009.

At once an homage to Heart of Darkness, a portrait of recently post-colonial Africa and an exploration of one of Naipaul’s major themes, the lot the descendents of Diaspora Indians, this novel partially compensates for lacking the humor of Naipaul’s other masterpiece, A House For Mr. Biswas, with an unrelentingly ominous tone. The characters are not as fleshed out or human identifiable as those in Biswas, but the prose is more forceful -- at times I felt like I should underline the entire book. The book seems to be set in a fictionalized Congo/Zaire in the period just after that nation and most of sub-Saharan Africa became independent nations; it is notably depressing to think that the nation which in the book is depicted as almost completely non-functional and on the brink anarchy, has gone steadily down hill since Bend was published..

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Though Father Huismans knew so much about African religion and went such trouble to collect his pieces, I never felt that he was concerned about Africans in any other way; he seemed indifferent to the state of the country. (90)

Who wanted philosophy or faith for the good times? We could all cope with the good times. It was for the bad that we had to be equipped. And here in Africa, none of us were as well equipped as the Africans. (105)

This was how the place worked on you: you never knew what to think or feel. Fear or shame -- there seemed to be nothing in between. (112)

In a strongly Kurtzian echo, Raymond says of the president, “He is a truly remarkable man.” (198) In HOD, Kurtz is referred to at least five times as a “remarkable man”.  

Bringing to mind Marlowe’s “inconclusive experiences” in HOD, Salim remarks “our interview ended inconclusively”. (214)

Indar’s interview in London brings to mind Marlowe’s in Brussels. (218)

It isn’t that there’s no right and wrong here. There’s no right. (286-7)

You mustn’t think it’s bad just for you. It’s bad for everybody. That’s the terrible thing. It’s bad for Prosper, bad for the man they gave your shop to, bad for everybody. Nobody’s going anywhere. We’re all going to hell, and every man knows this in his bones. (408)