"We came into the Indian areas where rice and sugarcane grew. My father spoke of the voyage to a strange hemisphere so remote, to complete our own little bastard world."

"We pretended to be learning, to be preparing ourselves for life, mimic men of the New World in one unknown corner."

"The order to which the colonial politician succeeds is not his order. It is something he is compelled to destroy. It comes with his emergence and is a condition of his power."

"I no longer seek to find beauty in the lives of the mean and the oppressed. Hate oppression and fear the oppressed."

('Ralph' Ranjit Singh's thoughts as told by V S Naipaul)

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

Naipaul wrote 'Mimic Men' in Kampala, Uganda where he had accepted an invitation to Makerere University. He let it be known that a Writer-In-Residence was just that, refusing to lecture or attend faculty functions, rarely coming out of his cottage. The result was this 1967 novel, a departure from his earlier comic stories and narrative fiction. He enters the mind of 'Ralph' Singh, suspiciously similar to Naipaul, an Indian from a fictitious post-colonial West Indies island.

Singh, through a series of flashbacks, recalls years in London attending university on scholarship from the colonies after WWII. He rooms in a dingy boarding house, with refugees and misfit expats, frequenting prostitutes. He meets Sandra, a British middle class student, who resembles Naipaul's first wife Pat. Within a short time they are married. He returns home with her, to the horror of his Hindu mother who is brokering his marriage with suitable girls from the island.

Singh inherits a rundown citrus farm on the outskirts of the Isabella capital and he unexpectedly turns it into a lucrative housing subdivision. Loans from US banks and post-war expansion bring him success and the envy of other colonial elites, who often marry expatriate spouses. He associates his luck with Sandra, who is increasingly derisive of the social scene. As their love wanes he suspects that she will leave him and only he would remain shipwrecked on the island.

Singh was a son of an educated but poor father and a mother from an illustrious family, echoes of Naipaul's life. He recalls school years and classmates competing for status. Dwelling in self doubts and delusions of grandeur he daydreams of descendants from Aryan plains, now toilers in the fields of sugarcane. A caste system of Europeans, Asians and Africans looked down upon each other. Teenage angst combines with colonial alienation as he resolves to escape the island.

Singh senses the class order breaking down after WWII. His father becomes a labor strike leader. He trades business for politics as nationalist movements begin. Elected he realizes no consensus is possible in the fragmented society. Civil service and land remain in the hands of foreigners, the trappings of power held by mimic men. Industry involves packing foreign products in foreign containers. Entangled in provincial disputes he returns to Britain from the island.

This novel is set within the thoughts of the narrator Singh. The incidents and characters recalled are subordinated to his introspection. If Naipaul was less intriguing it wouldn't be as interesting. Relations between man and woman, friend and foe, alien and native, seen through the disillusioned eyes of Singh, are disturbing but familiar. Naipaul was a voice of the diaspora, ex-slaves and indentured servants adrift on post-colonial seas, with a relentlessly dark view of the island.

Enjoyed - had a bit of a hard time with the narrative voice

I would've given this one two and half stars if there was a half star rating option.

This really wasn't the worst book. Just one of the more depressing ones. Naipaul's protagonist is decidedly not good company for more than 80-90% of the book and while I appreciate the alternate perspective of this ambivalent character's experiences, I did not enjoy reading the book. Very good writing, technically. Yet Naipaul's strength in technique is also his weakness here, for he accurately illustrated a very unlikeable character that, for me, left me cold at about a quarter of the book towards his endlessly negative point of view.

Yazar etrafında oluşan muhalif tavra aldırmadan okumanızı öneririm. Roman tümüyle sömürge toplumlarının melezleşmeyle oluşan köksüzlük, yerinden edilmişlik, aidiyetsizlik kavramları üzerine kurulu. Bu kavramlara hem sömürge hem de sömürgeci açısından bakarak bir karşıtlık, çift görüşlülük oluşturuyor. Sanırım çevirinin de etkisiyle rahat okunuyor.

The story here deals with the, leitmotif of colonial impersonation or ersatz. Here the narrator of the story is the paramount protagonist himself.

The central character is a man called Ralph Kripal Singh who spends his infancy on the island of Isabella, goes abroad to attend school in England, marries an English girl, and returns to his newly independent homeland where he makes money and rides the tide of nationalistic fervour to political power.

But in due course he finds himself an expatriate from Isabella and has to settle down in London.

There is a vibrant organizational configuration behind the narrator's voice.

The novel is divided into three parts:

**In Part I, the narrator is in London, conflicting his new impressions of this city with those which he had formed there soon after the war. In this part he parleys about his student days, his marriage to an English girl named Sandra, his return to Isabelle, his achievement in the world of business, politics, and the disintegration of his marriage.

**In Part II, the narrator moves further back in time, to his juvenile days

**In Part III, the narrator distillates on his political experiences and then goes back to the present in London, including an ineffective love-affair, with a Lady Stella

Naipaul might have called this novel "Hollow Men" if T.S. Eliot had not previously used this title for one of his poems. For the theme of this novel, like the theme of Eliot's poem, is corruption-corruption of the body politic and corruption of the individual human soul.

This theme is emphasized by the narrator's sense of corruption of the human body in relationships where he should have been aware only of the body's pleasures. The Mimic Men is a political novel, dealing with society in the island called Isabella (situated in the Caribbean).

The novel takes the form of an autobiography by the chief character. The novel is of particular relevance to everybody belonging to a country which goes through a period of speedy political alteration after having achieved liberation from foreign rule.

All said, the novel is not without its blemishes. The major ones being:

**Although we are shown the association between the young Ralph Singh and Browne, we are not told how this association develops into a political agreement;

**The reader does not see how Singh and Browne are able to get their sustenance from the masses in the first instance. Instead, we simply get comments like the following:

“The truth of the movement lay in the Roman house. It also lay in our undeniable success. We offered, as it soon appeared, more than release from bitterness. We offered drama…”

Drama is precisely what Naipaul does not offer in such a portrayal! Likewise, the downfall of Singh's connection with his wife Sandra is not dramatized. Actually, it was never much of a relationship because Sandra, like Singh himself, had not yet completely mellowed; and Singh deceives whatever relationship did exist by having affairs with other women.

Abruptly Singh learns that Sandra too has been having affairs. Now, this revelation is just transported to us in such a way that we are powerless to feel its bearing in emotional and moral terms.

Singh's comment on his discovery is: "And I was amazed at my innocence."

But the comment falls flat. And, then, Singh sometimes raises hopes which he never fulfils.

However, the failures of this novel are minor as compared to its attainments. Naipaul's technique gives to the novel a completer substance than that of a political satire.

One must bear in mind that dishonesty and squalor have not been produced on the island of Isabella by political activities. The people there had been suffering from the significances of class and race variances even before political activities began.

An example of the unfathomable racial sores in West Indian society is a painful scene in the novel where a young boy called Hok ignores his mother because she is a Negro whereas he, being of assorted blood, does not look like a Negro. The denunciation occurs when a file of schoolboys, including Singh, is marching along the road.

Naipaul excels in his reflection of political life in such a hollow society and its victims. For example, when in exile in London, Singh goes to one of the big shops.

He recognizes one of the girls working there. Singh had met this girl at a conference of non-aligned nations. Her husband had been one of the fire-brands. In those days, she had looked splendid in her rich costumes.

But now the regulation skirt and blouse worn by all the shop-assistants had converted this girl to an untidy bundle. Singh felt that he could not face her, and so he left the shop without making his purchases.

This is thus a novel with an exclusively pessimistic narrative. Hardly any character in the book has any ideals or any values beyond grabbing whatever one can get for oneself.

The only person who reveals ideals of any kind is the narrator's father, a poor teacher; and he too breaks away from Isabella society to lead an eccentric political-cum-religious movement which flickers briefly until he dies of a gun-shot.

Recommended…

This book makes you feel small, insignificant, and makes you question the meaning of the almost absurd lives that we all lead in a world transformed by colonialism. As an Asian American, I experienced a mixture of emotions and reactions that are hard to describe. Oh, and reading this book makes you feel so, so alone in this world for some reason...

A deeply fractured narrative from the pen of a deeply fractured narrator, this book is strange, but it's also pretty good. It defies conventional means of talking about it, and while there are good scenes, they can be so jumbled in the timeline of events that it's probably best to speak on the book from afar. The overall story is unique and serves as an excellent exploration on colonialism and its effects. It's not the best thing I've ever read, but it's still moderately impressive.

Formidable prose

Ishiguro vibes in the best way, though the narrator is far too self aware to be an Ishiguro protagonist. Naipaul had his flaws (one thing he can't be compared to on Ishiguro is his portrayals of women) but there's a reason he's considered one of the best writers on the subject of colonialism.

I have been resistant to reading Naipaul because well...ahem ahem. Can't say Naipaul was redeemed for me in this book. Too indulgent. And who describes a woman's legs as something that "quivered like risen dough" No thanks.

The story of a man growing up on a Caribbean island called Isabella. It is divided into three parts. First his trip to England and life there. He lives in a rundown hotel and meets eventually Sandra. They marry and return to Isabella. His mother is upset he has married a white woman. Ralph Singh the name he gives himself then becomes a successful property developer. He is in a group of people not really friends who envy his success. He becomes estranged from his wife who is uneducated and common.

The second part deals with his childhood and relationships with family and friends. His father leaves him and sets up a cult with political aspirations. This fails. Then his father becomes a leader of a small Hindu sect. Ralph’s family is well off and he associates with his mothers side of the family who are wealthy from having the Coca Cola franchise for the island. He is nearly murdered by his cousin Cecil a spoilt child who grows up to lose everything. He also begins to be involved in politics. The first part also includes his past relationship with his wife Sandra. The life they have of building a Roman house, friends they do not like and Ralph’s alienation of who he is.

The third part of the novel is his rise and fall as a politician and return to England to write his memoirs in a London Hotel. The story captures the struggle of newly independent colonies and the naivety of politicians, corruption, greed and the making of promises to the populace that can and have never been achieved. Ralph does not have the stomach for the shenanigans and instead gives up and finds a form of peace in writing his story.

Naipaul has a great way with words if at time heavy the story is one we are familiar with and still happens today.

A solid novel that's on such uneasy ground (perhaps that's why it tides in and out, refusing to narrate in chronological order). Naipaul has never been one to shy away of strong, pessimistic opinions of what happens to the colonised nations and people after the colonists leave. What is their future, after their exports are all exhausted and exported?

The title suggests a lot. And the novel suggests that it's a bad idea - for the developing world to use the developed world as a model for behaviour. For the loss of one's own culture and the adoption of someone else's can only end poorly - in confusion, in resentment, in misunderstanding, in war.

As the narrator of this book becomes a dandy, the mimicry of the island of Isabella to European ideals is just a façade, a partial presence, a basis in nothing other than wanting power, a power that doesn't exist in the New World because the New World doesn't have the Eurasian shrines that have been there for millennia with religions equally as old.

Some uppers:
--'We become what we see of ourselves in the eyes of others'. (25)
--'"A father," she had said to me at our first meeting, "is one of nature's handicaps."' (50)
--'An audience is never important. An audience is made up of individuals most of whom are likely to be your inferiors. A disagreeable confession; but I have never believe the actor who says he loves his audience. He loves his audience in the way he might love his dogs.' (136)
--'Everything about me became temporary and unimportant; I was consciously holding myself back for the reality that lay elsewhere.' (141)
--'Success is success; once it occurs it explains itself.' (152)
--'We, here on our island, handling books printed in this world, and using its goods, had been abandoned and forgotten. We pretended to be real, to be learning, to be preparing ourselves for life, we mimic men of the New World, one unknown corner of it, with all its reminders of the corruption that came quickly to the new.' (175)
--'Wendy was as thin as her mother but more engagingly ugly.' (202)
--'"Let me tell you, boy. Take a tip from somebody who has seen the world, eh. Don't."' (204)
--'Fulfilment creates its own illusions.' (278)