INDIA: A WOUNDED CIVILIZATION by V.S. Naipaul
I really want to like this book.
It’s a critique of certain aspects of Indian civilization (as one might guess from the title): the rigid caste system, the blind adherence to ancient and obscure religious rituals and practices, cultural, political, technological, and economic stagnation, corruption and laziness at all levels - all of which interact to keep it a backward, third-world country; at least according to Naipaul, who is, after all, Indian.
Except he’s not, really. His parents left India before he was born, and he grew up in Trinidad - still part of the Empire, but not India. And he was educated at Oxford. The first words in the book, before even the title page, are as follows:
“India is for me a difficult country. It isn’t my home and cannot be my home; and yet I cannot reject it or be indifferent to it; I cannot travel only for the sights. I am at once too close and too far.”
This admission doesn’t stop him, however, from casting his essentially Western criticisms as authoritative and “Indian” - which annoys me, because it means I can’t agree with him without some reservations. That’s the problem with forming opinions based on books - they’re full of someone else’s opinions.
So, don’t bother reading this book, unless you have some specific interest in India (like I do). It’s just not worth it otherwise.
October 27th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Why are you into India? I never knew you were into India! I’ve always wanted to read Octavio Paz’s “In Light of India”, just because it’s so indescribably weird that such a book would be written by a Mexican poet that it’s GOT to be interesting.
October 27th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
I’m into India partly because my first real encounter with colonialism in literature was Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, which is set in India. And the British imperial experience in India was far more complex and problematic than in most of the other colonies, where they just treated the natives like cattle. A much better book than this one is William Dalrymple’s White Mughals, which is about the dramatic shift in British thinking about India that occured c. 1800.
November 1st, 2007 at 4:53 pm
I LOVE Dalrymple, and I want to read everything he’s written. I’ve been thinking about ‘In Xanadu’ next, though.
All I’ve read of his was ‘From the Holy Mountain’, but it was really really impressive (as was, I must admit, just about every book Reid gave to me (the bastard knows his lit.)).
November 2nd, 2007 at 12:17 am
yeah, he’s the one who turned me on to williams - though i found out (just recently, actually), that he didn’t really like all of them. i can understand, maybe, why he wouldn’t like descent into hell.
okay, so that was a cheap shot. sorry.
anyway, yeah, white mughals was excellent. he’s actually descended from one of the secondary players in the whole story he’s telling: which doesn’t really mean anything, but is kind of cool.