books 2006: An Area of Darkness, by V.S. Naipaul

[supercheesegirl]

Full title: An Area of Darkness: A Discovery of India. I was supposed to read it for my Travel Writing class last night, so really I'm just finishing it a day late. I really wish I had been able to finish the whole thing before class, though. This is a book that I was heartily annoyed with yesterday, but the last 60 pages changed my tune. Don't get me wrong, a huge part of this book was incredibly boring, and I would never want to read it again, nor would I recommend it to others unless they knew what they were getting into. But the endless historical essays on caste and English colonialization did eventually end, and did lead into a really interesting place for Naipaul. One of my chief complaints with the book yesterday was that Naipaul kept himself aloof, that so much of the book was abstract historical essay instead of real stories of his travels. There was a chunk in the middle of the book where Naipaul stayed at a particular hotel and got to know the people there, which was really intriguing, but otherwise I was dead bored. The last 60 pages, however, were almost entirely of Naipaul's experience and dealt with the real people he met and the terrible misunderstandings he had. I was moved by his disconnection from India and from his grandfather's village and family; all of the earlier material on caste etc had been building up to this point: the point when he visits his grandfather's village and, though charmed at first, ultimately cannot connect with his relations there for the same reasons that he can't connect with the rest of India. Overall the ending was very moving and very powerful. (Not worth the time and effort of reading the entire book, but still very powerful.)

Comments

[lizabethanqueen]

I didn't know if you knew about this: http://www.librarything.com/

But it allows you to show everything you've read and what you plan on reading, etc... Another way to keep up with your long list of books.

[skadi.livejournal.com]

Ha ha! I just read a section of that for class on Wednesday! It's a conspiracy!

[supercheesegirl.livejournal.com]

I've been hoping to try that out, but it's going to be a time consuming project! Maybe this summer...