37-39. Non-African Books I have Read this Year

This blog is aimed at promoting African Literature. Consequently, all interviews, reviews, events, and profiles concern African authors, published or unpublished. However, a suggestion was made that once a while I let others in on non-African authored books I have been reading and so to resolve this, I tried conducting a poll. Unfortunately, the question got lost in the dark background of the blog and there was no way I could edit it.

What I am doing today is to also solicit your views concerning the inclusion of non-African authored books. The reasoning behind this blog is simple. I have read a lot of book blogs and almost always, about ninety-nine percent of what they read, reviewed or talked about were Western books. Only a few book bloggers profiled  authored by Africans and even then the usual authors comprising Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Ben Okri and recently Chimamanda were the most discussed books. So I decided to use this blog to fill that gap, blogging for a niche readers, those ready to know about Africa's literary folks, up and coming and those already established.

Initially, I was scared of not having much to talk about. And I am glad to say that I was wrong to be scared. New books are published on daily basis by Africans, and if one wants to talk about then, one would publish a blog a day. However, like most of you, I also keep a 8am to 5pm job; hence my inability to reach out fully.

So for those who want to know what I do read in addition my African books, today I present those non-African authored books I have read this year, not much though considering the fact that my readings this year has severely been affected. Last year September I read 8 books, whilst keeping an 8-5 job; this year I have read only two or three. However, this post would not be frequent because I don't want to risk populating this blog with non-African authored books; I don't want to fall under the Western literature spell; I don't want to lose sight of my vision for this blog. So books presented here would not be reviewed, I would only talk about them. Matter of semantics? Wait and see!

99. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

My followers on twitter would know how much I loved this book. The simple reason is that I enjoyed the vision of Atwood and it reflected mine. I have always talked to friends about my fear of Science. Not as a subject but the misapplication of its boundary-pushing researches and findings. Like nanotechnology, like artificial intelligence, like anti-matter, like DNA splicing and many others. I am afraid that humans would be the cause of their own extinction and that if I were God, I would create no Hell for man, with time, would annihilate itself. We are more than capable. What haven't we done with the Nuclear bombs? Baghdad, Kabul, Vietnam, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are all there for us to see.

100. Possession by A.S. Byatt
This book was too academic and again, my followers on facebook and twitter would know that I abandoned this book and picked it up again. Its abandonment is not a result of disinterest but the difficulty in penetrating certain sections. The overall story is interesting, yet it is too academic and draws a lot of attention to the writer. It makes you always realise that there is someone writing something. Besides, I didn't like the small fonts. It makes reading tedious. What about the reading of long diary entries? I hated them. Sometimes you lost yourself. The poems were way beyond my comprehension. However, I love the use of diary entries in the telling of the lives of Randolph Ash and Christian Lamotte and the parallels it draws with Roland and Maud. Byatt reached for much and came with a work too academic. Yet, I rushed to look for Randolph Ash only to realise that it is a fictional creation of Byatt. Why wouldn't I congratulate her then?

101. A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul

Alright so this is the last of Naipaul's books I would ever read and thank God I have none unread in my shelf. The other only other book I read was A Bend in the River. This book is dystopian; very depressing. I wonder how fun could be created from a life so dejected. What I never understood was how Mr. Biswas couldn't make himself happy from the academic performance of Anand. The character of Mr. Biswas is one of depression filled with the I-can-do-nothing behaviour. Always blaming someone. I think his wife was also too attached to her parents; never wanting anything his other sisters don't yet have. Everything Mr. Biswas tried doing was causing her shame, especially if her other sisters don't already have it. I was bored to the core. I really didn't like any of them but I sympathised most often with Mr. Biswas. I also like his gradual upgrade in life and had it not been his fear of absolute progress, partially fortified and entrenched by Shama, his wife, he would have made a big impact. And for him to die shows the extent of Naipaul's love for depression. 

Dear readers, kindly let me know what you think: Should this be a quarterly affair or should I drop it?

23. A Bend in the River: V.S. Naipaul (Not so African)

Title: A Bend in the River

Author: V.S. Naipaul

Publishers: Picador

Genre: Novel (Post-Colonial)

Pages: 326

Year of First Publication: 1979 (this edition, 2002)

Country: United Kingdom

APOLOGIES: Until the present post the objective of this blog has been to promote African writers. African in this sense was defined as 'SOMEONE WHO WAS EITHER BORN ON THE CONTINENT OR WHO BECAME A CITIZEN OF AN AFRICAN COUNTRY' either by adoption or naturalisation. It is based on this premise that I did not review Obama's Dreams from my Father and Kafka's Trial, though I would have loved to. However, I am breaking this rule for just this post. I am doing so because this book has been highly rated and was shortlisted for the 1979 Booker Prize and on the list of many Top 100 novels, including my own Top 100 books to be read in five years. It is also about Africa. 

Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (born 1938) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001 and the Booker Prize in 1971. This makes him the second Nobel Laureate for Literature and the second Booker Prizer winner I am reading, following John Maxwell Coetzee.

A Bend in the River was set in the period immediately following the independence of a country (circa 1963), which Naipaul chose not to name, but which descriptions of its president or the Big-Man, as Naipaul called him, (especially the leopard-style caps, clothes and the staff he carries) together with academic discourse has named as Zaire or present-day DR Congo. The Big-Man with his long African name is no other than Mobutu Sese Sseko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga and the town located at the bend in the river has also been named as Kisangani.

The narrator, Salim, is a migrant from an Indian Ocean country referred to only as the Coast, who has come to the town at the bend in the river to establish and man a business concern. Later he was joined by Ali or Metty his family slave.

Salim's description of the inhabitants of the bend in the river was brutal and without understanding, criticising them at every chance and likening them to animals, though he never fraternise with these inhabitants to understand them. He never spoke their local patois even though Metty came to speak and fraternise freely with the locals.

According to Salim sex at the town at the bend in the river was as loose as anything one could think of. You could just walk to and knock upon a woman's door and without much talk have sex with her. However, early on, Salim's sex life revolved around prostitutes in brothels. He never saw a stable relationship with the local women possible or even sensible and tried keeping it secret whilst he bedded them. Later, Salim was to have a brutal and awkward affair with the wife (Yvette) of a History professor (Raymond) whose presence he came to enjoy. Salim's chauvinistic attitude was so bad that he had to beat and manhandle Yvette when he thought the relationship had to come to an end. There were times that he likened Yvette to the prostitutes after she has made such harmless comment as praising his sexuality. Salim considered his friend, Mahesh, as stunted by his relationship with Shoba, his girlfriend.

During the upheavals and the radicalization decree by the Big Man that saw most of the enterprises owned by foreigners taken over by the locals, Salim became an ordinary worker in his own shop and decided to deal in illegal activities including gold and ivory to generate some money and leave the town and country. Salim was later to be arrested for dealing in ivory but was set free by an African, Ferdinand, to whom he was to be a mentor.

Life at the bend in the river was pathetic and almost mournful. It had a sinusoidal appearance with a boom followed a depression and famine and upheavals. People became distracted and this distraction and abjection was well observed and captured by Ferdinand:

Nobody's going anywhere. We're all going to hell, and every man knows this in his bones. We're  being killed. Nothing has any meaning. That is why everyone is so frantic. Everyone wants to make his money and run away. But where? That is what is driving people mad.... (page 319)

What I didn't like about this novel is his bundling together of all the people and labelling them as Africans. Africans are a diverse group and it is this sort of novels that make people think that Africa is a country rather than a continent. One town in a given country cannot represent Africa. If Naipaul wanted not to name the country and the town, all he could have done was to state 'the people of the bend in the river...' or 'the people of the country' rather than using Africa as an umbrella description.

My worries and disappointment by this novel has nothing to do with his description of women or the bundling of the inhabitants under an African umbrella. It had more to do with the literary presentation. The monologue nature of the narrative is dull and, though it reads well, it lacks plot. It is more like a rant and reads like a diary entry and could have gone on and on and on without reaching a peak.

I would not want to recommend this book. If you want to read Naipaul, a celebrated author, read a different book as I am going to do. I would be reading, but not blogging, A House for Mr. Biswa.