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You can see in Naipaul's travel writing his genius of perception and description.
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The Middle Passage: The Caribbean Revisited
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From the Nobel Prize-winning author comes a classic of modern travel writing—a deft portrait of Trinidad and the four adjacent Caribbean societies still haunted by the legacies of slavery and colonialism.
“Belongs in the same category of travel writing as Lawrence’s books on Italy, Greene’s on West Africa and Pritchett’s on Spain.” — New Statesman
In 1960 the government of Trinidad invited V. S. Naipaul to revisit his native country and record his impressions. In The Middle Passage, Naipaul watches a Trinidadian movie audience greeting Humphrey Bogart’s appearance with cries of “That is man!” He ventures into a Trinidad slum so insalubrious that the locals call it the Gaza Strip. He follows a racially charged election campaign in British Guiana (now Guyana) and marvels at the Gallic pretension of Martinique society, which maintains the fiction that its roads are extensions of France’s routes nationales. And throughout he relates the ghastly episodes of the region’s colonial past and shows how they continue to inform its language, politics, and values. The result is a work of novelistic vividness and dazzling perspicacity that displays Naipaul at the peak of his powers.
“Belongs in the same category of travel writing as Lawrence’s books on Italy, Greene’s on West Africa and Pritchett’s on Spain.” — New Statesman
In 1960 the government of Trinidad invited V. S. Naipaul to revisit his native country and record his impressions. In The Middle Passage, Naipaul watches a Trinidadian movie audience greeting Humphrey Bogart’s appearance with cries of “That is man!” He ventures into a Trinidad slum so insalubrious that the locals call it the Gaza Strip. He follows a racially charged election campaign in British Guiana (now Guyana) and marvels at the Gallic pretension of Martinique society, which maintains the fiction that its roads are extensions of France’s routes nationales. And throughout he relates the ghastly episodes of the region’s colonial past and shows how they continue to inform its language, politics, and values. The result is a work of novelistic vividness and dazzling perspicacity that displays Naipaul at the peak of his powers.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1,1962
This edition
- Format
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256 pages, Paperback
- Published
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January 8, 2002 by Vintage
- ISBN
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9780375708343
- ASIN
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0375708340
- Language
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English
About the author
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V. S. Naipaul was a British writer of Indo-Trinidadian descent known for his sharp, often controversial explorations of postcolonial societies, identity, and displacement. His works, which include both fiction and nonfiction, often depict themes of exile, cultural alienation, and the lingering effects of colonialism.
He gained early recognition with A House for Mr Biswas, a novel inspired by his father's struggles in Trinidad. His later works, such as The Mimic Men, In a Free State, and A Bend in the River, cemented his reputation as a masterful and incisive writer. Beyond fiction, his travelogues and essays, including Among the Believers and India: A Million Mutinies Now, reflected his critical perspective on societies in transition.
Naipaul received numerous accolades throughout his career, including the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded for his ability to blend deep observation with literary artistry. While praised for his prose, his often unsparing portrayals of postcolonial nations and controversial statements sparked both admiration and criticism.
He gained early recognition with A House for Mr Biswas, a novel inspired by his father's struggles in Trinidad. His later works, such as The Mimic Men, In a Free State, and A Bend in the River, cemented his reputation as a masterful and incisive writer. Beyond fiction, his travelogues and essays, including Among the Believers and India: A Million Mutinies Now, reflected his critical perspective on societies in transition.
Naipaul received numerous accolades throughout his career, including the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded for his ability to blend deep observation with literary artistry. While praised for his prose, his often unsparing portrayals of postcolonial nations and controversial statements sparked both admiration and criticism.
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Rating(4 / 5.0, 60 votes)
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This was a difficult read
Naipaul is extremely knowledgable of the region and its history. He is able to give details of the particulars of slavery and indentureship, the extent to which these institutions existed in each territory and the lasting effects of these institutions and colonial rule on each territory he visited.
He also explores the growing Nationalist (Independence would be more accurate today) movements happening throughout the Caribbean at the time.
It is in his analysis of these Nationalist movements, their origins, significance and future where most of the frustration I experienced reading this book arose!
Naipaul is condescending or downright disdainful towards almost every person he encounters during his 7 month long journey through the Caribbean.
From the tourist class passengers who dared have a drink at the first class bar during his passage across the Atlantic but later join him in looking down on the emigrants to the UK who joined them for the St Kitts to Trinidad leg of their voyage.
Naipaul looks so far down his nose at West Indians that he doesn’t seem to see the irony when he criticises Trinidadians for viewing “anyone who possessed unusual skill” as conceited. Nor does he see the absurdity when he derides Trinidadian cinema audiences, claiming it is important that they see women humiliated on screen as though it wasn’t important to the American/English filmmakers to depict it!
Naipaul is at his worst when he speaks about the budding Nationalist (Independence) sentiments in each of the territories he visits. He argues that racial animosity is too great for there to be genuine Nationalism in Trinidad and Guyana but on the other hand seems confused by the rising Nationalist sentiment in Surinam despite no acute racial problem and an active role in the colony’s development by the Dutch.
Even in the case of Rastas in Jamaica, who at the time were beginning to receive some support from students and faculty at the University, Naipaul rather focus on the “farcical fantasy” aspects rather than the aspects of the philosophy dealing with the need for social change. Instead he laments how “close the intellectual had moved to Ras Tafarianism”.
There are many other books that succeed in capturing the Caribbean during this period of our history
Naipaul is extremely knowledgable of the region and its history. He is able to give details of the particulars of slavery and indentureship, the extent to which these institutions existed in each territory and the lasting effects of these institutions and colonial rule on each territory he visited.
He also explores the growing Nationalist (Independence would be more accurate today) movements happening throughout the Caribbean at the time.
It is in his analysis of these Nationalist movements, their origins, significance and future where most of the frustration I experienced reading this book arose!
Naipaul is condescending or downright disdainful towards almost every person he encounters during his 7 month long journey through the Caribbean.
From the tourist class passengers who dared have a drink at the first class bar during his passage across the Atlantic but later join him in looking down on the emigrants to the UK who joined them for the St Kitts to Trinidad leg of their voyage.
Naipaul looks so far down his nose at West Indians that he doesn’t seem to see the irony when he criticises Trinidadians for viewing “anyone who possessed unusual skill” as conceited. Nor does he see the absurdity when he derides Trinidadian cinema audiences, claiming it is important that they see women humiliated on screen as though it wasn’t important to the American/English filmmakers to depict it!
Naipaul is at his worst when he speaks about the budding Nationalist (Independence) sentiments in each of the territories he visits. He argues that racial animosity is too great for there to be genuine Nationalism in Trinidad and Guyana but on the other hand seems confused by the rising Nationalist sentiment in Surinam despite no acute racial problem and an active role in the colony’s development by the Dutch.
Even in the case of Rastas in Jamaica, who at the time were beginning to receive some support from students and faculty at the University, Naipaul rather focus on the “farcical fantasy” aspects rather than the aspects of the philosophy dealing with the need for social change. Instead he laments how “close the intellectual had moved to Ras Tafarianism”.
There are many other books that succeed in capturing the Caribbean during this period of our history
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Just like "An Area of Darkness" - this is Naipaul's tour and observations of the Caribbean
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Wonderful book about the slave ships...a young black man joins a slave ship out of New Orleans and barely survives...both emotionally and physically. Very moving read. Highly recommended!
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A trenchant, expansive look at the West Indies in the early 1960s. Naipaul doesn't mince words about West Indian society - he basically called Trinidad a backwater without any real culture - but he's always interesting, and he visits parts of the region that are rarely discussed (Suriname, Martinique, Guyana). Great travel writing.
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A glimpse of Caribbean societies in transition, The Middle Passage is the tale of VS Naipaul's journey to five Caribbean countries in 1960, as they are negotiating their post-colonial identities. Judgemental, pessimistic and haughty in tone, the novel conveys Naipaul's deep disdain for his native country of Trinidad and its neighbors. Of historical value and well written for travel literature, but not an especially likable piece.
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He writes real good about a bunch of depressing places. In the midst of change but seemingly frozen in place...
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1962 -- amazing to think this is over 50 years ago, yet I think of Naipaul as a contemporary, and he is.
Need to keep in mind while reading this book that Naipaul was very young, undoubtedly struggling with his identity after growing up in Trinidad and moving to London. Could make a case for him personifying much of what he critically describes.
Sign of the times: during an overnight stopover in Antigua, he was extremely bored and wanted to write, but he had had to empty his pen [presumably a fountain pen] before boarding the airplane. I guess it would have leaked, otherwise.
Many musings about the colonial situation and what it does and has done to people's minds and lives and futures. I get the feeling Naipaul is exploring all this himself, I mean for the first time in his life. Probably he has clearer things to say about it much later in life? But he gets at the resentment, the humiliation, the tendency to suck up, to wish to identify with the oppressor.
A very interesting description of Rastafarians, very big at that time.
215:
"Jamaica presents to the outside world two opposed images: the expensive winter resort..........and the immigrant boat-trains arriving at London's gloomy railway stations: painted in large red letters in Brixton and white chalked everywhere.
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the quality service of the Jamaica Broadcasting Company, its talks, features, well-mannered discussions: they belonged to a settled, confident society. I could not associate them with the people or the land about me.... [217]
216:
The slums of Kingston are beyond description.
230
"exhausting their energies in petty power squabbles and the maintaining of the petty prejudices of petty societies. I had seen how deep i nearly every West Indian, high and low, were the prejudices of race; how often these prejudices were rooted in self-contempt... With an absence of a feeling of community, there was an absence of pride...
For the uneducated masses, quick to respond to racial stirrings and childishly pleased with destructive gestures, the protest leader will always be a hero. The West Indies will never have a shortage of such leaders, and the danger of mob rule and authoritarianism will never cease to be real.
Need to keep in mind while reading this book that Naipaul was very young, undoubtedly struggling with his identity after growing up in Trinidad and moving to London. Could make a case for him personifying much of what he critically describes.
Sign of the times: during an overnight stopover in Antigua, he was extremely bored and wanted to write, but he had had to empty his pen [presumably a fountain pen] before boarding the airplane. I guess it would have leaked, otherwise.
Many musings about the colonial situation and what it does and has done to people's minds and lives and futures. I get the feeling Naipaul is exploring all this himself, I mean for the first time in his life. Probably he has clearer things to say about it much later in life? But he gets at the resentment, the humiliation, the tendency to suck up, to wish to identify with the oppressor.
A very interesting description of Rastafarians, very big at that time.
215:
"Jamaica presents to the outside world two opposed images: the expensive winter resort..........and the immigrant boat-trains arriving at London's gloomy railway stations: painted in large red letters in Brixton and white chalked everywhere.
...
the quality service of the Jamaica Broadcasting Company, its talks, features, well-mannered discussions: they belonged to a settled, confident society. I could not associate them with the people or the land about me.... [217]
216:
The slums of Kingston are beyond description.
230
"exhausting their energies in petty power squabbles and the maintaining of the petty prejudices of petty societies. I had seen how deep i nearly every West Indian, high and low, were the prejudices of race; how often these prejudices were rooted in self-contempt... With an absence of a feeling of community, there was an absence of pride...
For the uneducated masses, quick to respond to racial stirrings and childishly pleased with destructive gestures, the protest leader will always be a hero. The West Indies will never have a shortage of such leaders, and the danger of mob rule and authoritarianism will never cease to be real.
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