V.S. Naipaul In A Free State (1971)

V.S. Naipaul has a reputation for courting controversy.  Born in Trinidad in 1932, he is the first of the authors on this list who is still living; he has been involved in bitter disputes with authorial rivals and has attracted criticism for his recent comments regarding female writers.  He has been described as being the “greatest living writer of English prose”, yet it is difficult to grasp an understanding of the authorial motivations that lie beneath the regular critical swipes against members of the established literary canon (Henry James, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens are all recent recipients of Naipaul’s contempt)  and his forays into more controversial territory (he had to pull out of a literary event in India last year to inflammatory comments he made concerning Islam in 2001).

Contempt seems to be an emotion that runs through In A Free State.  Bobby, one of the principal protagonists, is contemptuous towards his driving companion, the model colonial wife Linda.  The soldiers in the unnamed East African country where the novel is set show contempt towards civil servants like Bobby, and the colonial institutions that they represent.  Even the run-down state of the roads and buildings, formerly colonial outposts and now crumbling wrecks, arguably demonstrates a contempt on the part of the new country towards the institutions and policies of the old rulers.  In A Free State is unusual however in that it is not just one story; the central tale is preceded by two shorter stories which focus on people who have emigrated; the first on an Indian servant who moves to New York, the other on two West Indian cousins who move to the UK.  In both we see contempt from the émigrés for the new culture into which they arrive, and a yearning for that which they have elected to leave behind.  There are also two fragments, one at the beginning of the novel and the other at the end, where the narrator describes travelling to Egypt on a ferry and then describes what he sees whilst touring Giza and Luxor.  In both fragments he describes Egypt post-independence in the 1950s, where again, contempt for the previous regime is shown.  This fragmentary narrative leaves the reader uncertain of what In A Free State is meant to represent; the abrupt end of the core narrative and sudden move to the final fragment leaves the reader feeling that this is more of a collection of short stories than a longer narrative, demonstrating similar themes of post-colonialism and a yearning for the past but having little else to unite them coherently.

The central tale describes Bobby and Linda’s drive from the capital city to the blandly-named Southern Protectorate, in the area of the country that its King comes from.  The King is on the run from the country’s President, who has taken power and is looking to purge the supporters of the man who was formerly propped up by the colonial powers that ruled the country before independence.  This is redolent of real-world political situations, where Britain, France and the USA among others all helped to keep dictators in charge of various ‘protectorates’ for the sake of political expediency.  Bobby and Linda witness the escalating violence first-hand, as they see people fleeing their homes, army vans on the roads, prisoners in chains and, ultimately, the site of the apprehension and murder of the old King.  Naipaul leaves the reader questioning whether the “free state” of the title is really an improvement on the previous colonial regime, as Bobby and Linda’s journey becomes increasingly dangerous.  They are attempting to return to the civil servants’ compound where they live, and consider themselves neutral in this civil conflict.  Neither character is particularly likeable; Bobby is frequently taciturn and contradictory and on two occasions he attempts to seduce young African boys, while Linda anticipates the opportunity for extra-marital activities on the journey and is portrayed by Naipaul as being frivolous and naive.  Neither is able to see that they are part of a colonial machine that is despised by the indigenous peoples of the country, and there is a sense of looming menace and building pressure throughout the novel which suggests that the whole edifice will be swept away on a tide of anti-colonial violence.

Naipaul has written much about colonialism and Africa and was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2001, thirty years after winning the Booker.  In A Free State is not so much a study of colonialism or Africa but can be said to be a study of how those who were part of the colonising forces absolve themselves of the collective guilt they feel for the brutal treatment of those they ruled over.  Bobby and Linda pretend to be neutral but at points they show that they do not really believe this to be the case and Naipaul’s ultimate contempt for his protagonists demonstrates that, ultimately, we must all choose sides, either the safety of the compound or the violence of the streets, if we are to be authentic to our beliefs.            

J.G. Farrell, Troubles (1970)

Troubles is an unusual entry on the list of Booker Prize winners, as it didn’t actually win its Prize until 2010, despite having been written 30 years earlier. This came about because the rules for eligibility for the award were changed; until 1970 the Booker prize was awarded to books that were published during the previous year, while from 1971 onwards it was awarded to books published the same year as the award. This lead to all books published during 1970 to be ineligible for the award at the time. In 2010 The Lost Man Booker Prize award was commissioned and Troubles was voted the winner out of a shortlist of six titles.

Having explained the rationale for the award, I can now introduce the novel itself. Troubles is set in the Republic of Ireland in 1919, at a time when the Irish War of Independence was about to break out. The title is apposite, not just because of the political problems reflected in the novel’s setting but also the context in which it was written, as Ireland was suffering outbreaks of ethno-political violence at the height of The Troubles in 1970. Like Something to Answer For, looming conflict is a key theme in Troubles, with a growing sense of unease proliferating as the novel progresses. Set in the crumbling Majestic Hotel, the novel follows Major Brendan Archer’s escapades, after he travels to Ireland to meet the fiancée he acquired while on leave during World War I. His engagement, rather predictably, proves to be short-lived, but not necessarily for the reasons one might expect. The Major becomes ensconced in the faded glamour and shabby chic of the Majestic, unwilling to stay but not able to leave, as the place and the people begin to crumble around him.

The Majestic can be said to be a microcosm of Ireland at the time, although this is perhaps a slightly simplistic comparison to draw. Edward Spencer, the owner of the Majestic, is a member of the English gentry, attempting to keep control of his estate at a time when the local populace is growing restless for change. The place becomes ever more ruinous and decayed as Edward desperately tries to keep a grip on his fiefdom, while attacks on the hotel residents by local villagers become more frequent and alarming. The gathering clouds seem to be visible to everyone except him. This could be said to mirror the British government’s naive attempts to keep Ireland under British rule, at a time when the Irish were desperate for independence and were willing to fight in order to achieve it.

Decay is another important theme in the novel, and is not just implied by the physical deterioration of the hotel. Plants grow out of control to unnaturally large sizes and seem to be taking over parts of the building (Brendan describes seeing the bulge of a tree root appearing through one of the floors that is the width of his arm), while the number of semi-feral cats living in the building grows and multiplies at the same rate as their hostility towards their human hosts. The elderly residents also appear to be synonymous with decay; ladies of a certain age, widows or spinsters, all on reduced means, who are aging rapidly with deteriorating health (winter is described as a trial for all at the Majestic, as they face up to the reality that a number of the more frail guests will almost certainly be killed off by chills and colds).

None of the characters in Troubles particularly endear themselves to the reader, least of all the Major, who is paralysed by indecision throughout the novel. He becomes stuck at the Majestic like the other residents, trapped in a vestige of life as it used to be at a time of conspicuous change. Edward Spencer is blind to the faults of his rakish son and indolent twin daughters, and becomes ever more inactive and insane, haunted by the death of his wife. Most of the villagers are untrusting and hostile, while the wheelchair-bound Sarah treats the Major’s attempts to befriend her with gleeful disdain. While the domestic situation at the Majestic deteriorates, nobody seems willing to make any effort to change anything. The impasse between those who want change and those who are unwilling to relinquish what they have reflects the political situation as it was at the time the novel was written, and emphasises the key point that Farrell may well have attempted to make, that those who refuse to accept and embrace change may suffer the same type of inevitable doom that befalls the Majestic Hotel.

J.G. Farrell was to win the Booker again in 1973 for The Siege of Krishnapur, the novel that formed the second part of his Empire trilogy (this was to be concluded by The Singapore Grip in 1978, which did not win the Booker). Troubles was the first of these three books, and, despite not being recognised by the Booker panel at the time due to a technicality, the belated award has given this intriguing postcolonial novel the recognition which it fully deserves.

Bernice Rubens The Elected Member (1970)

Norman Zweck sees silverfish everywhere he goes. This would be pretty alarming for anyone (on the odd occasion I see one of those creatures they make my skin crawl) but for Norman, a previously successful barrister and “the clever one” in his family, this has the effect of literally driving him mad.

The silverfish are a side-effect of Norman’s addiction to amphetamines, which have destroyed his career and are now destroying his mind. His father, the elderly Rabbi Zweck, and his sister Bella, decide that the only option for them is to commit him to a mental institution. Norman, however, feels that he has been made the scapegoat for the family’s emotional problems, which Rubens gradually reveals throughout the novel’s course. Most of these could arguably be attributed to Norman’s deceased mother, the smothering but cruel Sarah, who seems to ultimately be the cause of every family member’s present misery; her unwillingness to let her children live their own lives leads Norman to drug-taking and Bella to closet herself in a world of childish make-believe, so that she feels that she has never grown up; she still wears her girlish white lace socks, even though she is now in her forties.

We also see the devastating effect that the claustrophobic Zweck household has had on their youngest daughter Esther. The former golden girl of the family, wrapped up in her scriptural studies in the synagogue, her father casts her out when he discovers that she has eloped to marry a man who is not Jewish. Her need to run away was rash however, and she is now trapped in a household where she feels no love for her husband (the saintly sinner John, who knows their marriage will never be consummated but who loves his wife nonetheless). Desperate for her father’s forgiveness but afraid to see him for fear of what he will say, she sits at home alone and worries about what the rest of the family are doing.

Norman is the novel’s focus, and it is through his interactions with the other characters that we witness the flaws in their own lives. The fact that Norman’s problem is not as socially acceptable as that of the others is his reason for committal, but ultimately we get the impression that the entire family are just as bad as each other. Sarah’s love has suffocated the entire family, to the point that they are all mad in their own ways. Rubens’ portrayal of a family coping with a crisis is dark and poignant but is a masterful portrayal of human frailty and a similar message can be drawn from it as that famously made by Philip Larkin in one of his poems: “They fuck you up, your mum and dad”.

P.H.Newby Something to Answer For (1969)

As promised, this is my review of the first novel to win the Booker Prize (now called the Man Booker Prize). I’m not going to give each novel a rating as I don’t think it is particularly fair to compare novels written forty years ago to those written today, considering that the novel as a genre has undergone a massive amount of change during the intervening period. I will probably finish with some sort of ranking of the ones that I enjoyed the most, though.

Something to Answer For is not a particularly complicated novel in terms of plot: Townrow, the protagonist, goes to Egypt at the request of the wife of a friend, who believes that her late husband was murdered. Mostly set in the Egyptian city of Port Said during the Suez Crisis of 1956, it portrays the adventures of Townrow, as he faces up to not only the conflict occurring around him between Egypt and her former colonial rulers, France and Great Britain, but also the conflict within himself between his innate selfishness and his desire to make amends for the failures of his past.

Something is a product of its time, pertinently raising questions concerning the nature of war crimes and colonialism, written at a time when the last vestiges of Britain’s empire were gaining their independence. Newby was a soldier in Egypt during the Second World War and his knowledge and enthusiasm about Egypt seeps through every page; although the protagonist of the novel is an arrogant, disinterested rake, his descriptions of the landscape and people of Egypt evoke a tantalising portrait of a beautiful country that is on the brink of emancipation and conflict.

I don’t think that Newby’s work would win the Man Booker Prize if it were nominated for the award today, as the plot is not particularly outstanding; however, it is, as I said previously, a product of its time and I would say that the questions that it raises concerning war and aggression, racism and colonialism are just as pertinent today as they were forty-one years ago. Ultimately it makes the Western reader question whether, as the product of a formerly imperialistic culture, we all have something to answer for.

The Booker Prize Project

As some of you may or may not already know, I love reading and I collect books. More than any other item books have always enthralled me, with the infinite possibilities for escapism and allure of exotic locales provided by fiction. As a child I was always encouraged to read and when I was bullied at school I found novels to be my salvation: like opening the Narnian wardrobe into another world, except it could be any one of an infinite number of worlds. I have always preferred books to films; films show you how a story unfolds and only permit one image of the action, whereas books allow the reader to envisage the characters, settings and events in their own minds in any number of ways; the images of Dickens’ ‘Great Expectations’ that I conjure up will potentially be very different to those envisaged by another reader of the same novel. It is this democracy of imagining that I love about reading.

Having said this I have to admit that, most of the time, I am a lazy reader. I am not usually one for “literature” or the classics. I enjoy reading “chick-lit”, love murder mystery novels and have a fondness for the works of Agatha Christie bordering on the obsessive. I am well aware that such work is not considered to be as intrinsically literary as other more mainstream works. I was pondering this the other day while I was reading about the latest winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, awarded this year to Howard Jacobson’s ‘The Finkler Question’. I realised at this point that I had not even heard of, let alone read, any of the novels on the Booker long list this year.

Such thoughts have prompted me to action. I am going to read every single winner of the Man Booker Prize since the award’s inception in 1969 and will review them systematically on here. I am aware that I am not the first person to have conceived of such an idea but I have never claimed to be original – I am doing this because I hope that it will be an enjoyable experience, as well as an eye-opening one. I’m also not aiming for this to be particularly literary or serious in tone – I just want to be able to remember which novel is which! I’ve already read three of the winners – ‘The Blind Assassin’ by Margaret Atwood (2000), ‘Life of Pi’ by Yann Martel (2002) and ‘The Line of Beauty’ by Alan Hollinghurst (2004) and I did enjoy them all, but feel it would be beneficial to read them again (if only to satisfy my OCD about completing sequences in order!). I have already read the first two novels and reviews of these will follow shortly.