Posted on 04/30/2010 8:19:30 AM PDT by Chickensoup
http://www.amazon.com/Among-Believers-V-S-Naipaul/dp/0844671304
Among the Belivers is a book that was published 10 years ago but is very timely today. It discusses the de-westernization of Eastern countries is familiar in Western countries today.
Uh, It was published in 1981, I remember reading it in the 80’s. I also remember thinking “what a bunch of ignorant savages”...
One of the best books by one of the best authors ever.
I recommend his other books as well.
All of them.
Greatest English language author of the past 60 years. “Bend in the River” is definitely on my desert island list of books.
"I’ve been aware of madness in the Islamic world. I’ve written about it. The madness of people who have fallen behind technically, and who do not have the will to make the intellectual effort to catch up. I was aware of the religious hatred, I was aware of the indifference to life. I was aware of the anti-civilization aspect of the new fundamentalism. But I had no idea it had gone so far — the madness. The idea of their strength is an illusion. Nothing is coming from within. The terrorists can fly a plane, but what they can’t do is build a plane. What they can’t do is build those towers. I think people have spoken much rubbish about that event. The poor revenging themselves on the rich! It’s nothing but an aspect of religious hatred. And that is so hard to deal with, or even contemplate. You can deal with the poor striking out, but you can’t deal with the threat of a universal religious war.” Though he approved of the recent war in Afghanistan, he is keenly aware of the inherent absurdity of the current war on terrorism: “Your biggest enemy is your great ally — Saudi Arabia — and the foot-soldiers of the terror come from your other ally — Pakistan.”
V. S. Naipaul
YOu are correct, it was published originally in the eighties. I was looking at the 2000 republishing date. Interesting that this man was able to document thirty years ago what happened in moderate Islamic communities. This is our future. Steyn is right.
I have not read Beyond Belief but have put it on my list.
THank you.
I taught postcolonial literature for a few years, before it became obligatory for the teacher to be a postcolonial person of color to be allowed to teach it.
Naipaul was among the best. In fact, he is generally omitted from postcolonial lit courses today because he is very Politically Incorrect. And he knows what he’s talking about.
Pretty much all his books are good. But the two classics are “A House for Mr Biswas” and “A Bend in the River.”
Both are must-reads, IMHO. One is an autobiographical novel of what it was like to grow up in an Indian family on a mostly black island in the Carribean, after independence. The other is about the dismal problems of postcolonial Africa after the British left.
A Bend in the River was devasting.
If only our colleges would assign real hard hitting books like this.
I found it on my own, but not many college students go looking for ‘unsafe’ material.
I once graded an honors thesis by a young black woman who was an undergraduate. She wrote her thesis on Naipaul, but I’m afraid it was mostly an attack, and she resented having undertaken the assignment in the first place. I was the second reader, so I don’t know how she happened to do it in the first place.
I would agree that A Bend in the River is the most devastating. It’s the best explanation I know of what happened in post colonial Africa after the British left.
I actually think that A House for Mr. Biswas is equally good, but not as powerful. In some ways it’s his best novel, as novel.
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