IF there’s one thing that I’ve come to realise, it’s that at heart, no matter where his novels are set, Sir Vidia is always, incessantly, writing about Sir Vidia. England, Trinidad, Africa… they are all mere fluffy background to an author who really doesn’t seem to be interested in anyone or anything other than himself. It is perhaps this incredible megalomania — as so rudely outed in Paul Theroux’s In Sir Vidia’s Shadow — that won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001.
Naipaul is a spare, acerbic writer with an astounding ability to write; that has never been debated. But as he has aged, his sense of self-importance has grown proportionately, and in some ways, damaged his writing. At the same time, while the ego has grown, his perspicacity has diminished. In The Masque of Africa, his latest travelogue, the septuagenarian Naipaul expresses an unexpected sense of his own frailty, and seems to — shock and horror! — acknowledge that he is not, in fact, omniscient.One of the best things about Naipaul is that he is a master of instigation: he is always read with either unadulterated loathing, or limitless joy, and most of the time, one gets the sense that he is smirking constantly at whatever reactions are unleashed.Given his historical approach (incendiary, to say the least), the idea of Naipaul plunging into one of the mostcomplex and sensitive continents on the planet, determined to root out its theological and mystical traditions, is appalling.
The man is brilliant, but he is bellicose and dismissive. At least, he was. As Naipaul meanders (at one point in a wheelbarrow) through Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, Gabon and South Africa, his words — and self — are exposed. What is revealed is less than pretty: the ire and scathing wit that characterised his past works, both fiction and non-fiction — has faded. The excoriation and perception that was so able demonstrated in his last travel work, Beyond Belief (1998), in which he wandered through Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan and Indonesia as an investigation into the political influence of Islam, is missing.
The Masque of Africa is a compelling read in many ways, and Naipaul’s command of prose is still masterful, but this book isalmost sterile. There is scepticism and rancour a-plenty, but the text lacks vitality.
As the title would indicate, The Masque of Africa is about performance as a prime factor of African religions. Naipaul’s sense of bravado is clearly undiminished. Naipaul focuses on paganism and animism, but his narrative is — despite several references to the past — that of someone completely divorced from his subject matter.
His writing brings to mind a tourist being escorted through a zoo, with overtones of “my goodness, how noble these savages are” peppering each page. The manner in which Naipaul glosses over the socio-political contexts of each country he visits is also somewhat remarkable — it is less an exploration of the African “masque” than it is a leave-taking, and as such, is probably the greatest lack in his book.
Without sufficient history and context, Naipaul’s observations verge on the meaningless. In fact, they are almost existential: in no country is there evidence of growth or progress, or that most mysterious of phenomenon: “enlightenment”. Rather, Naipaul’s return serves but to reinforce the image of Africa as a decaying continent, the victim of human greed and avarice, and a testament to folly. How his critical observations of Africa are supposed to explain or help one understand African myth and theology — such as it is — is something of a mystery.
Naipaul might have been the specific subject of “How to Write About Africa”, a blistering, acerbic essay by Binyavanga Wainaina, a Kenyan writer. In it, Wainaina urges aspiring writers who have an interest in Africa to “Always use the word ‘Africa’ or ‘darkness’ or ‘safari’ in your title”. Mockingly, he also insists that taboo topics include “love between Africans (unless a death is involved)”.
Wainaina is ostensibly being tongue-in-cheek, but his exhortations clearly target people who write “knowledgably” about50-odd countries as if they were one and who have no real knowledge of customs and languages. His barbs are virulent in their scorn, and the contempt in them could have been intended to be particularly applicable to the sort of writing in which Naipaulengages here, in an exploration of “African belief”… in other words, the conviction that there is something especially “African” about totemic rituals and witch-doctors.
One cannot help but feel that had Naipaul picked up a book by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, or paid more attention to Chinua Achebe (in a positive sense, that is; Sir Vidia’s low opinion of contemporary writers is well-documented), he might have been able to write an equally deep piece of work without having to fork out money for a plane ticket and accommodation.
In a way, this is almost heartbreaking. A “grand old man of letters”, Naipaul has always stood apart from the crowd due to one key element: he has never let anything, whether it is public opinion or a sense of propriety, interfere with what he considers to be the truth. Admittedly, in his case, it has generally been truth insofar as he, the writer himself, is concerned, but in The Masque of Africa that overwhelming sense of purpose and direction seems to have died down from a flame to a guttering ember. Naipaul’s book is upsetting, not because of a paucity of vision or ability, but because it seems to emblematically reflect his own diminishing sense of self.
One almost wishes he had not chosen to travel back to his literal and metaphorical youth, if this sense of aged grievance —almost petulance — is what was to be revealed.
The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief (TRAVELOGUE)By V.S. Naipaul Random House, New YorkISBN 9780307270734256pp. $26.95