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An Area of Darkness

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An Area of Darkness

By: V. S. Naipaul
Narrated by: Simon Vance
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About this listen

A classic of modern travel writing, An Area of Darkness is Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul’s profound reckoning with his ancestral homeland and an extraordinarily perceptive chronicle of his first encounter with India.

Traveling from the bureaucratic morass of Bombay to the ethereal beauty of Kashmir, from a sacred ice cave in the Himalayas to an abandoned temple near Madras, Naipaul encounters a dizzying cross-section of humanity: browbeaten government workers and imperious servants, a suavely self-serving holy man, and a deluded American religious seeker. An Area of Darkness also abounds with Naipaul’s strikingly original responses to India’s paralyzing caste system, its apparently serene acceptance of poverty and squalor, and the conflict between its desire for self-determination and its nostalgia for the British raj. The result may be the most elegant and passionate book ever written about the subcontinent.

©1964 copyright renewed 1992 by V. S. Naipaul (P)2021 Blackstone Publishing Art & Literature Asia Authors Travel Writing & Commentary
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As a travel book, written on a visit to India in the early 60s, this is hardly a useful guide to today's India. As a piece of anthropology exploring the post-colonial mindset, it remains fascinating.

As a Trinidadian of Indian descent, Naipaul's insider-outsider status initially seems to be being set up to show him as a useful guide to Indian culture for complete outsiders. Early on, his unconcealed frustration bordering on contempt for the disorganised bureaucracy, corruption and general squalor he encounters initially make this feel extremely dated - but probably a useful warning to prim middle class western tourists considering India as a getaway destination.

As the book progresses, though, it becomes clear this isn't really a book about India, it's a book about people - their sense of identity, self, place in society, and how this can change over time. The most interesting sections are not the expertly-told descriptions of places and people, it's Naipaul's self-reflection on his place in the world - his smugness based on his education and imperialist assumptions - and the lasting impact of history even on those unaware of it. This man with a gift for words finds himself unable to communicate across barriers of perception caused by all these layers of social difference and, in the end, runs away rather than work to resolve a conflict his own family has inadvertently caused.

It's very nearly a metaphor for the fall of the British Raj - only with far less bloodshed.

Bluntness turning to empathy

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loved it, must read for any V S Naipaul fan. haunting and thoughtful and deliriously insightful.

wonderful prose, must read for any V S Naipaul fan

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I did not enjoy this book. I found the narrator both arrogant and depressing. It portrays a very unsympathetic picture of India in the 1960’s.
I don’t believe in banning books but can understand why it was banned in India.
His writing might be good, but his scornful attitude left me cold.

Arrogant narrator

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