Brilliant writing, occasionally evil man.

Having read many of Naipaul's fiction and nonfiction, and his authorized biography "The World is What it is" by Patrick French (very good), and being active in investing throughout the Caribbean, I picked up this book--first published in 1962--prepared for an incisive if impressionistic analysis of the Caribbean, bordering on arrogant and politically incorrect. I would say that on all those counts, Naipaul delivers. I would also say that while this book came out more than 60 years ago, much of the analysis is still mostly relevant.

Readers will know Naipaul was born in Trinidad obviously in the Indian community there (another excellent semi-autobiographical novel is A House for Mr Biswas) and was a scholarship winner out of what certainly was Trinidad's best private school to go to University College Oxford. At Oxford, he suffered through a difficult path to what has become a fabulous writing career. One of his themes is that colonialism makes the development of that colony's own culture difficult, as at one level the culture of the colonial power and all those seeking to be successful in that system pretty much have to succeed in the colonial power's structure.

Naipaul carries this theme deeper by examining in depth how different colonial powers with legacy influence over Caribbean states have had different results, and notably Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana (then British Guiana), Suriname, Martinique and Jamaica. Trinidad and to a lesser extent British Guiana have had multiple colonial legacies, and have significant population representation in various "emerging market" cultures, whether Indian/South Asia, Syrian, African, Javanese or native "Amerindians". He shows how both the French and the Dutch have tried to their (at least then) colonies as "the 12th Dutch province" or as an integral French "departement", whereas the British (and Spanish) were much more traditional colonialists ( where control and wealth extraction were more important than for the Dutch and French, although as he says, this may be less of a real difference and more of a propaganda spin.

At the time the book was written, of course, none of these countries were still colonies, although Trinidad and Jamaica became independent republics in 1962, Guyana and Suriname only later and Martinique is still an "overseas region" of France. However, it was clear in 1962 that these societies were orienting themselves to independence.

But as mentioned while some of Naipaul's comments are now dated, and others still have a grain of truth, most of his comments are shocking and rude to virtually every side involved--although perhaps they are meant to provoke discussion. For example:

"The history of the islands can never be satisfactorily told. Brutality is not the only difficulty. History is built around achievement and creation; and nothing was created in the West Indies." So here Naipaul insults both the "brutal" colonialists and those now native populations (who themselves have come from elsewhere in the globe). The intentional and unintentional murder by carrying of global diseases effectively wiped out many of the native tribes (including the Carib tribe), such that today everyone has roots of some kind to countries outside of the country.

What is super clear is that the different colonial backgrounds, paces of economic development (T had a very limited time with slavery, whereas Jamaica was much earlier and therefore more slave labour orientated. But while the way the French, Dutch, English and Spanish operated "their" colonies is not the only factor, of course. Thus certain communities stay self-segregated, almost caste-like, while others seem (maybe after 60 years) much more integrated. At this past Carnival in Trinidad, I was amazed at how mixed the crowd was, and the extent two-culture marriages has shot up and seems to be working very well. Still, especially older citizens will, says Naipaul, continue to identify with their respective communities. And, as in the USA, politicians will undoubtedly seek to divide and conquer, thereby pushing community self identification and policy recognizing "the oppressed." (Interestingly, Naipaul himself shows how ALL communities in Trinidad in 1960 identified themselves as being "oppressed." Every group thinks they are hard done by, but few know really what the other side is like. This third and fourth generations may no longer observe their parents' or grandparents' religious festival or languages--coming together as one at carnival time or in rooting for the regional cricket team (at least when they are playing well).

Naipaul is acutely aware of how peoples who came to the Caribbean from other EM countries will, after as little as a generation, be disconnected from their "countries of origin". This can lead to rootlessness, bitterness and insecurity--and of course this has been the case for Naipaul himself.

The sections on British Guiana and Suriname I felt were particularly revealing. For the former, there were various top down government planning initiatives, about which Naipaul is scathing:

(Speaking of a planned town near the border with Brazil, apparently planned to grow into a substantial city in 40 years (then by 2000 AD): "In that year, no doubt, it will occupy a commanding position in a splendid town centre, where smart and incorruptible policemen will control traffic through tree-lined avenues and fountains will play in well-kept gardens; but at the moment this town centre was an immense featureless dustbowl...The hotel, new and pink, already felt like a ruin, like a relic if a retreating civilization."

Speaking of Martinique, but of more general import to the West Indies: "Every poor country accepts tourism as an unavoidable degradation. None has gone as far as some of these West Indies islands, which in the name of tourism, are selling themselves into a new slavery. The elite of the islands, whose pleasures, revealingly, are tourist's pleasures..." You get the idea Naipaul is not interested in returning to the West Indies.

Finally, about young intellectuals--most having been educated in the countries of their colonialists: "The young intellectuals...talked and talked and became frenzied in their frustration. They were looking for an enemy, and there was none."

The book does a very good job describing the development of these countries until 1962, and certainly points at the complexities in these countries, very different and yet with many of the same frustrating rootlessness. But Naipaul's predictions are too gloomy, we can now say with the benefit of knowing what has happened in the intervening 60 years. Predicted Naipaul:

"...the danger of mob rule and authoritarianism will never cease ti be real. The paternalism of colonial rule will have been replaced by the jungle politics of rewards and revenge, the text book conditions for chaos."

Luckily this was far too dire. While the small and open countries have had to deal with macroeconomic volatility, IMF plans and being neglected, thanks to generally good education and perhaps having learned from failed social and economic experimentation, most of the Caribbean nations have done much better than what Naipaul gloomily if provocatively concluded.

Well worth reading if one is interested in understanding these countries and possibly the legacy of colonialism more generally.

A lot of the narrative in the pages I read were a bit ... iffy to me. Further research shows Naipaul is an anti-black misogynist among other things, and frankly I now have no desire to read any of his books.

It is an interesting comparison of the influence of slavery on former West Indian colonies. Naipaul tells about the societies of Trinidad, Guyana, Surinam, Martinique, and Jamaica through the lense of an insider. His views on politics, racism, colonial identity and tourism ring true as much today as when he wrote them in the early sixties

Wherever in the world Naipaul travels, he returns with challenging and usually stinging appraisals. As such I was curious what he would have to say about his own home region, Trinidad and the West Indes, which is the subject of this travelogue. He does not disappoint. As usual Naipaul's writing is brilliant and he casts as harsh glare on the familiar false consciousness, flawed modernity and simmering rage living under the surface of most postcolonial societies. Anyone whose ancestry traces to a formerly colonized country will recognize much of Naipaul's Trinidad as it is depicted in this book.

Once again, Naipaul deems the third world doomed to its fatalism. He does not really spare the West either though, noting matter of factly the chilling fact that Dutch and British slavery had turned the entire region into "a giant concentration camp as existed during the recent war." As usual his otherwise unremarkable travel routines are peppered with captivating insights into the human condition that are the proof that Naipaul was, good or bad, an undeniable genius.

“How can the history of this West Indian futility be written? What tone shall the historian adopt? Shall he be academic, protesting from time to time at some brutality, and setting West Indian brutality in the context of European brutality? Shall he weigh one set of brutalities against another and conclude that one has not been described in all its foulness? Shall he, like the West Indian historians, who can only now begin to face their history, be icily detached and tell the story of the slave trade as another aspect of mercantilism? The history of the islands can never be satisfactorily told. Brutality is not the only difficulty. History is built around achievement and creation, and nothing was created in the West Indies.”

“I had never examined this fear of Trinidad. I had never wished to. In my novels I had only expressed the fear, and it’s only now I am able to attempt to examine it. I knew Trinidad to be unimportant, uncreative, cynical. The only professions were those of law and medicine; there was no need for any other. Power was recognized, but dignity was allowed to no one; every person of eminence was held to be crooked and contemptible. We had lived in a society which denied itself of heroes.”

“To our right lay the city rubbish dump, misty with smoke of rubbish burning in the open. On our left was Shanty Town, directly outside the city, oddly beautiful, each shack with its angular black shadow on the reddish hill. Vultures patrolled the highway; never far away from Trinidad they perch on the graceful branches of coconut trees on the beaches. When on the highway one of the city's innumerable pariah dogs is run over they pick the starved body clean, flapping heavily away from time to time to avoid the traffic. Scarlet ibises flew with an awkward grace over the mangrove.”

“Trinidad in fact teeters on the brink of a racial war. Politics must be blamed, but there must have been original antipathy for the politicians to work with. Matters are not helped by the fierce rivalry between the Indians and Negroes as to who despises the other more. There is also considerable rivalry as to who started the despising. It is sufficient to state that the antipathy exists. The Negro has a deep contempt for all that is not white; his values are the values of white imperialism at its most bigoted. The Indian despises the Negro for not being an Indian; in addition he has taken over the white prejudice against the Negro. With convert's zeal he regards as Negro everyone who has any tincture of Negro blood.”

- V S Naipaul, ‘The Middle Passage’, 1962

“In place of distaste for the Latin language came a passion to command it. In the same way, our national dress came into favour and the toga was everywhere to be seen. And so the Britons were gradually led on to the amenities that make vice agreeable; the arcades, baths and sumptuous banquets. They spoke of such novelties as civilization when really they were only a feature of their enslavement.”

- Tacitus, ‘Agricola’, 98 AD

************

Already a local legend from his Trinidad novels, V S Naipaul was invited back to Port of Spain on an all expenses paid junket, to do a few lectures and be feted by the government. While there he was pressed by the Premier to travel and to write a book about the Caribbean. What emerged in 1962 was the first nonfiction by a newly hatched, fully fledged author of undeniable critical abilities. While it may not have been what his patrons had in mind, in spite of the moaning and groaning he admonished “it was a very funny book”. As seen from this perspective all bets were off for his becoming their political lackey.

Naipaul and his wife, the long suffering factotum Patricia, traveled together in British Guiana, Suriname, Martinique and Jamaica although she is not mentioned in the work. The odyssey resembles his later novels more than a travelogue. Embarking from Britain on a run down immigrant boat and returning to the islands, in order to retain a few quid of his stipend, Naipaul wastes no time in developing the crew and castaways into future characters of a tragic comedy. Blacks and coloreds vie for racial distinctions, but between steerage and first class this order will inevitably break down as the voyage progresses.

The title refers to the infamous Atlantic Sea route on which slaves were introduced to the latest agricultural innovations of sugar cane plantations in the West Indies. The British slave trade was abolished in 1807 but ownership allowed to 1834 when a system of indentured servitude had gradually replaced the labor force. Many laborers came from British India, including Naipaul’s grandfather in the 1880’s, the origin of most South Asians in the Caribbean. A postwar ‘Middle Passage’ began, former colonial subjects migrating to the UK in search of opportunity as Naipaul returns to the island of his youth.

The ship calls at ports in St. Kitts, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, picking up its cargo of new emigrants, now beneath the whites, creoles, mulattos and blacks in experience of the world. Naipaul sees nothing created in the islands, not the Spanish South American culture, nor the revolutions of Haiti and British North America. He invokes the Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope, who visiting Jamaica in 1859 lamented the plight of English landowners unable to find workers willing to toil in the fields, and Ras Tafari, the Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie, who had urged an exodus to Africa from the Caribbean in 1959.

Naipaul challenges the old myth of a gracious slave owning culture in the southern US with the voracious and violent proclivities of West Indian slave drivers. Back on the boat tensions arise between the new passengers who refuse to observe the barriers between a first class upper deck and the crowded conditions below. Hauling anchor at the spice island of Grenada the ship approaches Trinidad through the Gulf of Paria off the coast of Venezuela, first explored by Columbus in 1498. The Captain and crew attempt to restore order but are disrupted by a Caribbean psychiatric patient who was banished from Britain.

Naipaul is transfixed by his former fear of Trinidad, its tin roofed wooden shacks and verandaed concrete boxes, by the steel band music and sugar cane rum bars, and is awakened by nightmares he is back in the tropics. Once on home turf he sees the middle class mimicking an American culture: instant coffee for fresh beans, metal and plastic furniture for wood, meat for fish, Hollywood movies, imported liquor and chocolate (made with local ingredients and advertised by foreign agencies). The economy is designed for a client state, to extract as much material and wealth in the 20th century as in the 19th.

Anyone who is familiar with Naipaul’s nonfiction would expect nothing less than acerbic wit and caustic comments with regards to India, Africa, the Middle East and Caribbean. This maiden voyage of cultural criticism goes far beyond his later diatribes, especially concerning Trinidad where Naipaul reveals an almost pathological hatred of the island. In South America he lightens up a little, having relieved himself of his rancor. Ironically for a West Indian who revered all things British he reserves particular contempt for Trinidadians who mindlessly adopted American pretenses, another country that he clearly detested.

(Trinidad)

Beautifully written but a chore to finish. I would highly recommend his writing on Trinidad (Ch. 2), Naipaul's country of origin, in which his observations on the intersection of culture and colonialism are revelatory. Often, the after effects of colonialism are considered only in reference to quality of life indicators (poverty, public health) but Naipaul instead focuses on the effects of colonialism on identity, psyche and culture (film, advertising, cuisine) and his observations are fascinating. I found the chapters on the other countries he visited on this trip (Martinique, Surinam, British Guiana, Jamaica) much less interesting.

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Finished reading: July 31st 2014
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“I had seen how deep in nearly every West Indian, high and low, were the prejudices of race; how often these prejudices were rooted in self-contempt; and how much important action they prompted. Everyone spoke of nation and nationalism but no one was willing to surrender the priviledges or even the separateness of his group.”
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A friend of mine lend me a copy of The Middle Passage, and I'm glad I took the time to finish this travel memoir by V.S. Naipaul before I returned it to her. The Middle Passage was not my typical choice of reading and I have to admit I don't know that much about Trinidad and the four Carribean societies mentioned (except for maybe Surinam because of its connection with Holland). What the countries have in common are the traces of slavery and colonialism, and that is what Naipaul focuses on in his book: the racial differences and the connections the former colonies have with their occupiers.



It's hard to give a proper summary of all the different countries without this review becoming a short novel itself, so I have decided to keep this short. In The Middle Passage, Naipaul takes you on a journey through five societies and former British, French and Dutch colonies. He tells us his experiences during his journey, and analyzes the situation in the different countries (Trinidad, British Guiana, Surinam, Martinique and Jamaica). Not every society has reacted to its occupiers in the same way, and while some reject the foreign cultures, others openly embrace it. There is also an enormous difference in racial acceptance between the different countries... With huge social consequences.



The way Naipaul wrote down his story didn't convince me fully, and I had to make myself continue at certain points where the story just became too slow to keep my attention. But I cannot deny it is an interesting story Naipaul is trying to tell. The fact that he was born and raised in Trinidad and later moved to London has a lot to do with that. Having lived in both 'worlds', he is able to blend in with the locals as well as having access to the insights of outsiders. I cannot judge properly if the comments he makes in The Middle Passage about the different societies, race problematics and inequality are accurate. What does become clear is that the book narrates his experiences when travelling through those countries; the difficulties on the way and the people he meets a sample of what the situation was like back then. Recommended to those who want to know more about the societies mentioned and enjoy reading non fiction travel memoirs.

n  P.S. Find more of my reviews here.n

Have you ever met those people who come from small towns, rural districts or the poorer parts of cities who utterly hate their own origins? Every chance they get they slag off the town they grew up in as backward, desolate and entirely populated by moronic peasants of the worst sort.
Well V.S Naipaul is a bit like that with the West Indies.
Born and raised in Trinidad the Grandson of an Indian Indentured servant he left for London as soon as he could where he made his name in the Literary world. This book was his first trip back to the West Indies and it seems he hated every minute of it.
He has nothing good to say about his homeland or the people in it. He views their misfortunes as largely of their own making and doesn't see much of a future for them.
I loved his style, his sledgehammer to the face bluntness, his acerbic and abrasive commitment to telling the truth of what he sees and who cares about your feelings.
I have a feeling that this book would never have been published today. Too many snowflakes would be offended.
This was my first exposure to Naipaul, it won't be the last.

On the one hand, it is not every day that you get an account of travelling in Trinidad (from where Naipaul hails), Suriname, British Guyana, Martinique and Jamaica in the dying days of the Eisenhower Administration. For that reason alone the book is worth reading as it is a snapshot into another era, filled with curious insights when flying was a luxury, class differences were sharper and travel was less common. Unfortunately Naipaul's misanthropic nature and his shall we say gently idiosyncratic views on race make it difficult for a modern reader to enjoy the book. If postcolonial theory has any relevance, it was meant to psychoanalyze someone like Naipaul who seems fixated on racial differences and is dismissive of the gifts of Caribbean society. So despite his significant skill in painting character studies, the book is one sided and frankly cranky at times. But Canadian readers might be amused that he stayed at a luxury resort which hosted the Diefenbakers.

The Middle Passage by VS Naipaul

In 1960, the first Prime Minister of Trinidad paid VS Naipaul to undertake a journey round the Caribbean and the European colonies of northern South America. Presumably the commission was intended as a PR exercise, as the fledgling nation was welcoming home its most celebrated writer. In fact, what we have here is classic Naipaul: a tearless evocation of cultures which have 'created nothing'.

Naipaul begins at Waterloo en route to an immigrant ship bound for Port of Spain. The ship is crowded with pungent grotesques. There is the 'Negro with the ruined face', the over-familiar Guyanese man who 'had lost his teeth', and Mr Hassan, the Indian - selfish, boorish and obsessed 'with wealth'.

For Naipaul, these men are not 'real people'. Rather, they are mimics. They are 'living in a borrowed culture', and 'no attitude in the West Indies is new'. Trinidad is still trapped in the thought-world of colonialism; Surinam has concocted a 'limited... dialect' made of bastardised English; and, most alarmingly, Naipaul tells us, 'Martinique is France'.

I don’t know that much about Trinidad and the four Carribean societies mentioned (except for maybe Surinam because of its connection with Holland). What the countries have in common are the traces of slavery and colonialism, and that is what Naipaul focuses on in his book: the racial differences and the connections the former colonies have with their occupiers.

It’s hard to give a proper summary of all the different countries without this review becoming a short novel itself, so I have decided to keep this short. In The Middle Passage, Naipaul takes you on a journey through five societies and former British, French and Dutch colonies. He tells us his experiences during his journey, and analyzes the situation in the different countries (Trinidad, British Guiana, Surinam, Martinique and Jamaica). Not every society has reacted to its occupiers in the same way, and while some reject the foreign cultures, others openly embrace it. There is also an enormous difference in racial acceptance between the different countries. With huge social consequences.

The fact that Naipaul was born and raised in Trinidad and later moved to London has a lot to do with that. Having lived in both ‘worlds’, he is able to blend in with the locals as well as having access to the insights of outsiders. I cannot judge properly if the comments he makes in The Middle Passage about the different societies, race problematics and inequality are accurate. What does become clear is that the book narrates his experiences when travelling through those countries; the difficulties on the way and the people he meets a sample of what the situation was like back then.

The final chapter reads like a curse. Slums will mushroom; famine will follow; 'the islands will stew in their own misery'. Gloom-mongering exhilarates Naipaul but, 40 years on, many of the countries are, as he predicted, still dogged by the 'politics of rewards and revenge, the textbook conditions for chaos'.