The Middle Passage: The Caribbean Revisited

by V.S. Naipaul

From the Nobel Prize-winning author comes a classic of modern travel writing—a deft portrait of Trinidad and the four adjacent Caribbean societies still haunted by the legacies of slavery and colonialism.

“Belongs in the same category of travel writing as Lawrence’s books on Italy, Greene’s on West Africa and Pritchett’s on Spain.” — New Statesman

In 1960 the government of Trinidad invited V. S. Naipaul to revisit his native country and record his impressions. In The Middle Passage, Naipaul watches a Trinidadian movie audience greeting Humphrey Bogart’s appearance with cries of “That is man!” He ventures into a Trinidad slum so insalubrious that the locals call it the Gaza Strip. He follows a racially charged election campaign in British Guiana (now Guyana) and marvels at the Gallic pretension of Martinique society, which maintains the fiction that its roads are extensions of France’s routes nationales. And throughout he relates the ghastly episodes of the region’s colonial past and shows how they continue to inform its language, politics, and values. The result is a work of novelistic vividness and dazzling perspicacity that displays Naipaul at the peak of his powers.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, History, Politics, Essays, Memoir, Classics

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

V. S. Naipaul was a British writer of Indo-Trinidadian descent known for his sharp, often controversial explorations of postcolonial societies, identity, and displacement. His works, which include both fiction and nonfiction, often depict themes of exile, cultural alienation, and the lingering effects of colonialism.
He gained early recognition with A House for Mr Biswas, a novel inspired by his father’s struggles in Trinidad. His later works, such as The Mimic Men, In a Free State, and A Bend in the River, cemented his reputation as a masterful and incisive writer. Beyond fiction, his travelogues and essays, including Among the Believers and India: A Million Mutinies Now, reflected his critical perspective on societies in transition.
Naipaul received numerous accolades throughout his career, including the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded for his ability to blend deep observation with literary artistry. While praised for his prose, his often unsparing portrayals of postcolonial nations and controversial statements sparked both admiration and criticism.

Reviews

[Dmitri · Rating 4 out of 5]

“How can the history of this West Indian futility be written? What tone shall the historian adopt? Shall he be academic, protesting from time to time at some brutality, and setting West Indian brutality in the context of European brutality? Shall he weigh one set of brutalities against another and conclude that one has not been described in all its foulness? Shall he, like the West Indian historians, who can only now begin to face their history, be icily detached and tell the story of the slave trade as another aspect of mercantilism? The history of the islands can never be satisfactorily told. Brutality is not the only difficulty. History is built around achievement and creation, and nothing was created in the West Indies.”

“I had never examined this fear of Trinidad. I had never wished to. In my novels I had only expressed the fear, and it’s only now I am able to attempt to examine it. I knew Trinidad to be unimportant, uncreative, cynical. The only professions were those of law and medicine; there was no need for any other. Power was recognized, but dignity was allowed to no one; every person of eminence was held to be crooked and contemptible. We had lived in a society which denied itself of heroes.”

“To our right lay the city rubbish dump, misty with smoke of rubbish burning in the open. On our left was Shanty Town, directly outside the city, oddly beautiful, each shack with its angular black shadow on the reddish hill. Vultures patrolled the highway; never far away from Trinidad they perch on the graceful branches of coconut trees on the beaches. When on the highway one of the city's innumerable pariah dogs is run over they pick the starved body clean, flapping heavily away from time to time to avoid the traffic. Scarlet ibises flew with an awkward grace over the mangrove.”

“Trinidad in fact teeters on the brink of a racial war. Politics must be blamed, but there must have been original antipathy for the politicians to work with. Matters are not helped by the fierce rivalry between the Indians and Negroes as to who despises the other more. There is also considerable rivalry as to who started the despising. It is sufficient to state that the antipathy exists. The Negro has a deep contempt for all that is not white; his values are the values of white imperialism at its most bigoted. The Indian despises the Negro for not being an Indian; in addition he has taken over the white prejudice against the Negro. With convert's zeal he regards as Negro everyone who has any tincture of Negro blood.”

- V S Naipaul, ‘The Middle Passage’, 1962

“In place of distaste for the Latin language came a passion to command it. In the same way, our national dress came into favour and the toga was everywhere to be seen. And so the Britons were gradually led on to the amenities that make vice agreeable; the arcades, baths and sumptuous banquets. They spoke of such novelties as civilization when really they were only a feature of their enslavement.”

- Tacitus, ‘Agricola’, 98 AD

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

Already a local legend from his Trinidad novels, V S Naipaul was invited back to Port of Spain on an all expenses paid junket, to do a few lectures and be feted by the government. While there he was pressed by the Premier to travel and to write a book about the Caribbean. What emerged in 1962 was the first nonfiction by a newly hatched, fully fledged author of undeniable critical abilities. While it may not have been what his patrons had in mind, in spite of the moaning and groaning he admonished “it was a very funny book”. As seen from this perspective all bets were off for his becoming their political lackey.

Naipaul and his wife, the long suffering factotum Patricia, traveled together in British Guiana, Suriname, Martinique and Jamaica although she is not mentioned in the work. The odyssey resembles his later novels more than a travelogue. Embarking from Britain on a run down immigrant boat and returning to the islands, in order to retain a few quid of his stipend, Naipaul wastes no time in developing the crew and castaways into future characters of a tragic comedy. Blacks and coloreds vie for racial distinctions, but between steerage and first class this order will inevitably break down as the voyage progresses.

The title refers to the infamous Atlantic Sea route on which slaves were introduced to the latest agricultural innovations of sugar cane plantations in the West Indies. The British slave trade was abolished in 1807 but ownership allowed to 1834 when a system of indentured servitude had gradually replaced the labor force. Many laborers came from British India, including Naipaul’s grandfather in the 1880’s, the origin of most South Asians in the Caribbean. A postwar ‘Middle Passage’ began, former colonial subjects migrating to the UK in search of opportunity as Naipaul returns to the island of his youth.

The ship calls at ports in St. Kitts, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, picking up its cargo of new emigrants, now beneath the whites, creoles, mulattos and blacks in experience of the world. Naipaul sees nothing created in the islands, not the Spanish South American culture, nor the revolutions of Haiti and British North America. He invokes the Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope, who visiting Jamaica in 1859 lamented the plight of English landowners unable to find workers willing to toil in the fields, and Ras Tafari, the Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie, who had urged an exodus to Africa from the Caribbean in 1959.

Naipaul challenges the old myth of a gracious slave owning culture in the southern US with the voracious and violent proclivities of West Indian slave drivers. Back on the boat tensions arise between the new passengers who refuse to observe the barriers between a first class upper deck and the crowded conditions below. Hauling anchor at the spice island of Grenada the ship approaches Trinidad through the Gulf of Paria off the coast of Venezuela, first explored by Columbus in 1498. The Captain and crew attempt to restore order but are disrupted by a Caribbean psychiatric patient who was banished from Britain.

Naipaul is transfixed by his former fear of Trinidad, its tin roofed wooden shacks and verandaed concrete boxes, by the steel band music and sugar cane rum bars, and is awakened by nightmares he is back in the tropics. Once on home turf he sees the middle class mimicking an American culture: instant coffee for fresh beans, metal and plastic furniture for wood, meat for fish, Hollywood movies, imported liquor and chocolate (made with local ingredients and advertised by foreign agencies). The economy is designed for a client state, to extract as much material and wealth in the 20th century as in the 19th.

Anyone who is familiar with Naipaul’s nonfiction would expect nothing less than acerbic wit and caustic comments with regards to India, Africa, the Middle East and Caribbean. This maiden voyage of cultural criticism goes far beyond his later diatribes, especially concerning Trinidad where Naipaul reveals an almost pathological hatred of the island. In South America he lightens up a little, having relieved himself of his rancor. Ironically for a West Indian who revered all things British he reserves particular contempt for Trinidadians who mindlessly adopted American pretenses, another country that he clearly detested.

[Venky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading "The Middle Passage" is akin to attempting parallel conversations with both Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde. While the book reeks of astounding clarity, the illuminating bits are punctuated by a condescension that is to say the least, infuriating. The style is typical Naipaul - irascible, irreverent and yet, indispensable.

In 1960, V.S.Naipaul undertook a year long journey from London to the Caribbean, a land which not only represented his motherland, but also a region that had left him disillusioned, disenchanted and despondent. This tour which was undertaken at the behest of the Trinidad Government transported Naipaul to distinct Caribbean regions such as Trinidad, British Guiana, Suriname, Grenada, Martinique and Jamaica. This is Naipaul's first travelogue and is a canvas of contradictions. Lush and verdant rushes of green grapple with corrugated tin roofs and abject squalor as Naipaul encounters Dickensian paradoxes every step of his way. Lame boarding houses manned by lethargic owners and lackadaisical servants come for some scathing revulsion. Naipaul elegantly holds forth on aspects such as colonial inflections and influences/remnants of decolonization. For example in Martinique the overarching influence of the French and in Suriname, the powerful undertones of a permanent Dutch presence, makes the reader wonder about the preservation or rather desecration of the original roots of an indigenous tribe enslaved for centuries before being emancipated. Such an emancipation however is merely symbolic as the controlled populace even in freedom not only take on the veneer and attributes of the controlled but also derive a perverse feeling of pleasure and patrimony.

The raging undercurrents of racial rift which pits an Indian against a black 'Negro' (yes the derogatory term was in vogue when Naipaul penned this book); a black against a coloured; and a coloured against the white, is an uncomfortably common aspect permeating the Caribbean like the bauxite that covers the unpaved roads. Phony reconciliations and forced peace represent taut strings waiting for an appropriate opportunity to snap so that violent vent is employed as a most suitable measure to overcome an inherent frustration that is the hallmark of a disgruntled Caribbean national.

Naipaul draws on the earlier works of Anthony Trollope and Patrick Leigh Fermour, the latter's experiences with the sights and sounds of the Caribbean ranging from the merry to the macabre. Quoting passages from Trollope, Naipaul blends Trollope's experiences with his own feelings and emotions. As a travel writer, Naipaul is at the peak of his brilliant abilities, exquisitely detailing the contours of the landscape he passes by. Adopting a matter-of-fact yet embellishing tone of narrative, Naipaul seamlessly transitions from one culture to the next. But one can sense an unmistakable bias in the author in his disenchantment with the Caribbean. Highlighting socio-economic, political and cultural deficiencies and resorting to unabashed condescension when writing about the foibles and frailties of an enfeebled mass of humanity, Naipaul comes across as a brash, brusque and blatant critic unwilling to accommodate to either reason or circumstance.

In conclusion "The Middle Passage" makes for some invigorating reading and goes a great way in providing a rudimentary, elementary and fundamental peek into the Caribbean way of life and living.

[Calzean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in 1960, it's one of VS's earlier works but his ability shines as he captures a culture through a few conversations. It is a fascinating view of a number of neighbouring countries shaped by their relevant imperialistic backgrounds, the impact of slavery and the state of the economy. There is a mixture of writing quality, depth and insights but it does give a little insight into life in the early 60s for five Caribbean nations.

[Murtaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wherever in the world Naipaul travels, he returns with challenging and usually stinging appraisals. As such I was curious what he would have to say about his own home region, Trinidad and the West Indes, which is the subject of this travelogue. He does not disappoint. As usual Naipaul's writing is brilliant and he casts as harsh glare on the familiar false consciousness, flawed modernity and simmering rage living under the surface of most postcolonial societies. Anyone whose ancestry traces to a formerly colonized country will recognize much of Naipaul's Trinidad as it is depicted in this book.

Once again, Naipaul deems the third world doomed to its fatalism. He does not really spare the West either though, noting matter of factly the chilling fact that Dutch and British slavery had turned the entire region into "a giant concentration camp as existed during the recent war." As usual his otherwise unremarkable travel routines are peppered with captivating insights into the human condition that are the proof that Naipaul was, good or bad, an undeniable genius.

[Alicia Beale · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Middle Passage" was my introduction to Naipaul and it occurred at the same moment I was being introduced to the Caribbean. I was attending a literary festival called Callabash which is where I brought the book. Naipaul had been bashed during a reading by Derek Walcott. It made me interested in this man considered to be a traitor to his homeland and the ethnic complexities of the Caribbean. The "Middle Passage" satisfied both curiosities. Naipaul's voice is exploratory and introspective. He draws connections throughout history to make sense of the present around him as he observes the various nations throughout his return to the region where he grew up.

[Sairam Krishnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always tell folks who haven’t read Naipaul the same thing: Just begin, and you’ll find yourself drawn slowly but surely into a reading experience you’ll seldom have had before. The meticulous construction, the mental rhythm, of Naipaul’s prose has always taken my breath away: How does someone write like this? That is, take ideas of such depth and complexity and make them not just lucid, but lucid in all that complexity.



This, I think is the miracle of Naipaul. You may not agree with his portrayal, but his portrayal is not lazy.



The Middle Passage is, like much of Naipaul, laden with a lot more meaning that it lets on. His clear, almost cruel analysis of life on the islands is difficult to read at times, but it’s fascinating all the way through. I especially loved his account of Surinam and Martinique, and perhaps a look at life on the islands now would be something a lot of people would be interested in.

[Lewis Woolston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have you ever met those people who come from small towns, rural districts or the poorer parts of cities who utterly hate their own origins? Every chance they get they slag off the town they grew up in as backward, desolate and entirely populated by moronic peasants of the worst sort.
Well V.S Naipaul is a bit like that with the West Indies.
Born and raised in Trinidad the Grandson of an Indian Indentured servant he left for London as soon as he could where he made his name in the Literary world. This book was his first trip back to the West Indies and it seems he hated every minute of it.
He has nothing good to say about his homeland or the people in it. He views their misfortunes as largely of their own making and doesn't see much of a future for them.
I loved his style, his sledgehammer to the face bluntness, his acerbic and abrasive commitment to telling the truth of what he sees and who cares about your feelings.
I have a feeling that this book would never have been published today. Too many snowflakes would be offended.
This was my first exposure to Naipaul, it won't be the last.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

The other side of Franz Fanon's view of colonialism and the colonized. Naipaul views the African and Indian lumpen proletariat of Trinidad, Jamaica, British Guyana, Martinique and Surinam. While realizing the legacy of slavery and colonialism in creating the material and cultural structures of these tiny countries he views their degradation with both despair and disgust.

Naipaul writes brilliantly and corrosively.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

1960s travelogue through Trinidad, Guyana, Suriname.
As always with Naipaul, contemptuous but compelling.

[Saylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wrote an essay on this book, and here was the thesis: "Naipaul visits six Caribbean cultures – Trinidad, British Guiana, Surinam, Martinique, and Jamaica – in different stages of decolonization. He writes as a 20th-century goldilocks picking apart the inherent flaws in post-colonial society, only without the “just right” moments. Instead, Naipaul prophesies the downfall of all post-colonial Caribbean islands, and in the case of Martinique specifically, the French axiom “liberté, egalité, et fraternité” falls apart piece by piece: (1) liberty becomes impossible as Martiniquais will always be dependent on the French, (2) inequality reigns in a society where Martiniquais can never be truly French, and (3) fraternity between citizens is unattainable in a society built upon social division. Therefore, using Naipaul (and a little bit of De Beauvoir) to understand the contemporary situation in Martinique, François-Noël Buffet’s exhortation for dialogue, responsibility, and peace is futile. Martinique will inevitably descend into chaos because the post-colonial society was inherently broken in its construction; any attempts at unity in “Frenchness” wind up revealing the De Beauvoirian “otherness” rooted in the Martiniquais mentality."


Some quotes below:

“It was a cramping of his style; but in the West Indies, as in the upper reaches of society, you must be absolutely sure of your company before you speak: you never know who is what or, more important, who is related to what” (9).

“The West Indian, knowing only the values of money and race, is lost as soon as he steps out of his society onto one with more complex criteria” (13).

“As England receded, people prepared more actively for the West Indies. They formed colour groups, race groups, territory groups, money groups. The West Indies being what they are, no group was fixed; one man could belong to all” (13).

“For nothing was created in the British West Indies, no civilization as in Spanish America, no great revolution as in Haiti or the American colonies. There were only plantations, prosperity, decline, neglect: the size of the islands called for nothing else…a society without standards, without noble aspirations, nourished by greed and cruelty” (19-20).

Thesis: “How can the history of this West Indian futility be written? What tone shall the historian adopt? Shall he be as academic as Sir Alan Burns, protesting from time to time at some brutality, and setting West Indian brutality in the context of European brutality? Shall he, like Salvador de Madariaga, weigh one set of brutalities against another, and conclude that one has not been described in all its foulness and that this is unfair to Spain? Shall he, like the West Indian historians, who can only now begin to face their history, be icily detached and tell the story of the slave trade as if it were just another aspect of mercantilism? The history of the islands can never be satisfactorily told. Brutality is not the only difficulty. History is built around achievement and creation; and nothing was created in the West Indies” (20).

“The earth here was shaped like a woman’s breast, with the terrestrial paradise at the top of the nipple. The fresh water in the Gulf of Paria flowed down from the paradise which, because of its situation, could not be approached in a ship and certainly not without the permission of God” (31)

“The way was choked with emigrants, many of the Indians who had flown from British Guiana” (32).

“I had never examined this fear of Trinidad. I had never wished to. In my novels I had only expressed this fear; and it is only now, at the moment of writing, that I am able to attempt to examine it. I knew Trinidad to be unimportant, uncreative, cynical. The only professions were those of law and medicine, because there was no need for any other; and the most successful people were commission agents, bank managers, and members of the distributive trades. Power was recognized, but dignity was allowed to no one. Every person of eminence was held to be crooked and contemptible. We lived in a society which denied itself heroes. It was a place where the stories were never stories of success but of failure: brilliant men, scholarship winners, who had died young, gone mad, or taken to drink; cricketers of promise whose careers had been ruined by disagreements with the authorities. It was also a place where a recurring word of abuse was ‘conceited,’ an expression of the resentment felt of anyone who possessed unusual skills. Such skills were not required by a society and were never called upon to be efficient. And such people had to be cut down to size or, to use the Trinidad expression, be made to “boil down.” Generosity - the admiration of equal for equal, was therefore unknown; it was the quality I knew only from books and found only in England. For talent, a futility, the Trinidadian substituted intrigue; and in the exercise of this, in small things as well as large, he became a master. Admiration he did have: for boys who did well at school, such academic success, separate from everyday life, giving self-respect to the community as a whole without threatening it in any way; for scholarship winners until they became conceited; for racehorses. And for cricketers. Cricket has always been more than a game in Trinidad. In a society which demanded no skills and offered no rewards to merit, cricket was the only activity which permitted a man to grow to his full stature and to be measured against international standards…his race, education, wealth did not matter. We had no scientists, engineers, explorers, soldiers, or poets. The cricketer was our only hero-figure” (35).

“Though we knew that something was wrong with our society, we made no attempt to assess it. Trinidad was too unimportant and we could never be convinced of the value of reading the history of a place which was, as everyone said, only a dot on the map of the world. Our interest was all in the world outside, the remoter the better; Australia was more important than Venezuela, which we could see on a clear day. Our own strange past was buried and no one cared to dig it up. This gave us a strange time-sense. The England of 1914 was the England of yesterday; the Trinidad of 1914 belonged to the dark ages” (36).

“Everyone was an individual, fighting for his place in the community. Yet“I had tried hard to feel Interest in the Americans as a whole, but had failed. I couldn't read their faces; I couldn't understand their language, and I could never gauge at what level communication was possible. among more complex peoples there are certain individuals who have the power to transmit to you their sense of defeat and purposelessness: emotional parasites who flourish by draining you of the Vitality you preserve with difficulty. the amerindians had this effect on me” (101)

“‘You Guianese are the slowest people I have ever met.’ you alone are affected by these words; the waitress simply stare and you go out into the white light trembling with anger, so lacing yourself with the words of abuse which have just left into your mind. inhospitable, reactionary and lethargic except when predatory: these were the words… the malarial sluggishness of the Guianese is known throughout the Caribbean and is recognized even in British Guiana” (117)

“ slavery, the land, the latifundia, bookers, indenture, the colonial system, malaria: all these have helped to make a society that is at once revolutionary and intensely reactionary, and have made the Guianese what he is: slow, solon, independent through deceptively yielding, proud of his particular corner of guyana, and sensitive to any criticism he does not utter himself. when the Guianese face goes blank in the eyes are fixed on you, you know that receptivity has seized and that you are going to be told what the speaker believes you want to hear… it isn't lying; it is only an expression of distrust, one of guiennese's conditioned reflexes” (120)

“ that the government is elected does not matter; the people require it to be as paternalistic as before, if a little more benevolently; and a popular government must respond. ‘The people’ have learned their power, and The Sensation is still so new that every new voter regards himself as a pressure group. In this way the people– not the politicians' abstraction, but the people who wish to beg, bribe and Bully because this is the way they got things in the past – in this way the people are a threat to the responsible government and a threat, finally, to their own leaders. it is part of the colonial legacy” (121)

“Racial antagonisms, endlessly acting and reacting upon one another, and encouraged by the cynical buffoons who form so large apart of the politically ambiguous in every population, are building up pressures which might easily overwhelm the leaders of both sides and overwhelm the country semicolon through British guiana, because of its physical size and the isolation of its communities, can better withstand disturbance than Trinidad” (135)

“ The West Indian Colonial situation is unique because the west indies, and all the racial and social complexity, are so completely a creation of Empire that the withdrawal of Empire is almost without meaning. In such a situation nationalism is the only revitalizing force” (142)
“Although since emancipation Christianity has asserted itself and has in many ways rescued the colonial society from utter corruption, it has not lost its racial associations, its association with power and Prestige and progress. the Ministers of god, like the senior administrators of the Civil service, we're expected to be white; it is only of late that the white collars of church and Civil Service have begun to set off a certain nigrescence. this driving towards the now accommodating faith of an unaccommodating race has inevitably created deep psychological disturbances. it has confirmed the colonial in his role as imitator, the traveler who never arrives” (161)

“ In Suriname Holland is Europe; Holland is the center of the world. even America recedes…. with Dutch realism the surinamers have avoided racial Collision Not By ignoring group differences but by openly acknowledging them” (168)

“ with no inflammatory political issues, no acute racial problem, and with the Dutch government contributing to thirds of the money ( 1/3 gift, one third loan) for the development of the country, a nationalism would seem unlikely and perverse growth. but a nationalism has arisen which is unsettling the established order, proving that the objection to colonialism in the West Indies is not only economic or political or, as many believe, simply racial. colonialism distorts the identity of the subject people, and the Negro in particular is bewildered and irritable. Racial equality in a simulation are attractive but only underline the loss, since to accept simulation is in a way to accept a permanent inferiority. nationalism and suriname, feeding on no racial or economic resentments, is the profoundest anti-colonial movement in the west indies. it is an idealist movement, and a rather sad one, for shows has imprisoning for the West Indian his Colonial culture is. europe, the Suriname nationalist says, is to be rejected as the sole source of enlightenment; Africa and Asia are to be brought in as well” (169)

the colonial cultural ideal has pronounced bad consequences for the individual. it is in fact an unattainable ideal… a few exceptional people… come to great achievements, but thereby lose their nationality” (173)

“ So many things in these West Indian territories, I now began to see, speak of slavery. there is slavery in the vegetation. in the sugarcane, brought by Columbus on the second voyage when, to Queen Isabella's fury, he proposed the enslavement of the amerindians. in the breadfruit, cheap slave food, 300 trees of which were taken to St Vincent by Captain Bligh in 1793 and sold for a thousand pounds” (189)

“ In the forest the bush negro reorganized his life on the African pattern; tried to reformed, tribal territories demarcated. the bush negro never married outside his tribe or race and was proud of his pure African descent: it marked him as a descendant of free men. settled along the rivers, he developed his outstanding River skills. isolated from the world, he remembered his African skills of carving, song and dance; he remembered his African religions. he developed his language; in the far interior it became africanized” (191)

“The colonial attitude which rejects as barbarous all that does not issue from the white mother country” (175)

“ I was glad to leave Coronie, for more than lazy negroes, it held the full desolation that came to those who made the middle passage” (197)

“None has gone as far as some of these West Indian islands, which, in the name of tourism, are selling themselves into a new slavery. the elite of the islands, whose pleasures, revealingly, are tourist’s pleasures, ask no more than to be permitted to mix with the white tourists, and the governments make feeble stipulations about the colour bar” 198

“Martinique is France. arriving from trinidad, you feel you have crossed and not the Caribbean but the English Channel” (199)

“ they are black, but they are Frenchmen” (200)

Vous faites les nuances quote on 200

“ More than England to the British West Indian or even Holland to the surinamer, France is the mother country to the Martinique one. the highest positions are open to him in france; it is a cause for pride, and not surprised, that a French West Indian represents an important French town in the National Assembly and was for some time the Constitutional successor to president de gaulle” (201)

“It is a significant tribute to Frances management of her empire… that her distant territory should consider this ( assimilation as departments into the Metropole) to be the highest compliment and benefit they could receive” (203)

“ in spite of all that has been said about French color blindness, race has always been important in Martinique… Trinidad is more Humane and allows people who look reasonably white to pass as white. Humane is perhaps not the right word” (204)

“ if the French have exported their civilization to Martinique, they have also exported their social structure” (205)

“ all cannot be white, but all can aspire to frenchness, and in frenchness all are equal” (206)

“ Martinique is poor, the middle class Martinique ones say. scarcely any development is possible, for no Martinique when industry could compete with a French one; and without her connection with France Martinique would be lost” (207)

“ the Caribbean has been described as Europe's other sea the Mediterranean of the new world. it was a Mediterranean which summoned up every dark human instinct without the complimentary impulses towards nobility and beauty of older lands, a Mediterranean were civilization turns sat, perverting those it attracted and if one considers this sea, which the tourist now in livens with his fantastic uniform, as a wasteful consumer of men through more than three centuries – the Aboriginal population of some Millions wiped out; the insatiable plantations: 300,000 slaves taken to suriname, which today has a negro population of 90,000; the interminable Wars: 40,000 British soldiers dead between 1794 and 1796 alone, and another 40,000 discharged as unfit – it would seem that simply to have survived in the West Indies is to have triumphed” (212)

“And wherever you look you see the surrounding Kingston hills, one of the beauties of the island: freshening now into green after rain, blurred in the evening light, the folds as soft as those on animal skin. against such a view lay a dead mule, it's teeth bare, it's belly swollen and taught. it had been there for 2 days; a broomstick had been playfully stuck in its anus” (225)

“ race– in the sense of black against brown, yellow and white, in that order- is the most important issue in Jamaica today. the hypocrisy which permitted the middle class Brown Jamaican to speak of racial Harmony while carefully maintaining the shade distinctions that preserved its privilege is at last provoking anger and creating a thoroughly black racism which could conceivably turn the island into another Haiti” (228)

“ For 7 months I had been traveling through territories which, unimportant except to themselves, and faced with every sort of problem, we're exhausting the energies in Petty power and squabbles in the maintaining of the petty prejudices of petty societies. I had seen how deep and nearly every West indian, high and low were the prejudices of race; how often these prejudices were rooted in self-contempt; and how much important action they prompted. everyone spoke of nation and nationalism but no one was willing to surrender the Privileges or even the separateness of his group. nowhere, except perhaps in British guiana, was there any binding philosophy: there were only competing sectional interests. with an absence of feeling of community, there was an absence of pride, and there was even cynicism” (241)

“ In the west indies, with its large middle class and it's abundance of talent, the protest leader is in anachronism, and a dangerous anachronism. for the Edna educated masses, quick to respond to racial stirrings and childishly pleased with destructive gestures, the protest leader will always be a hero” (241)

“ the paternalism of colonial rule will have been replaced by the jungle politics of rewards and revenge, the textbook conditions for chaos” (241)

Dr Kenneth Boulding: “ population grows unchecked, doubling every 25 years. immigration cannot keep pace and in any case skims off the cream of the people. Farms are subdivided and subdivided until the country produces far more people than it can take and the people crowd into huge City slums where there is large scale unemployment. Education collapses under the strain of poverty and the flood of children. superstition and ignorance increase, along with pride. self-government means that every pressure group has to be placated, and there is less and less discrimination between high and low quality products whether bananas or people. This ends in a famine, and insurrection. The regiment shoots down the mob and establishes a military dictatorship. for an Investments and Gifts dry up; the islands are left just do in their own misery and the world in effect draws a cordon sanitaire around them. That the road to ruin is a real road, and a distressingly wide and available one, is shown by the example of some nearby Islands which have gone a long way down it” (242)

[Bert van der Vaart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read many of Naipaul's fiction and nonfiction, and his authorized biography "The World is What it is" by Patrick French (very good), and being active in investing throughout the Caribbean, I picked up this book--first published in 1962--prepared for an incisive if impressionistic analysis of the Caribbean, bordering on arrogant and politically incorrect. I would say that on all those counts, Naipaul delivers. I would also say that while this book came out more than 60 years ago, much of the analysis is still mostly relevant.

Readers will know Naipaul was born in Trinidad obviously in the Indian community there (another excellent semi-autobiographical novel is A House for Mr Biswas) and was a scholarship winner out of what certainly was Trinidad's best private school to go to University College Oxford. At Oxford, he suffered through a difficult path to what has become a fabulous writing career. One of his themes is that colonialism makes the development of that colony's own culture difficult, as at one level the culture of the colonial power and all those seeking to be successful in that system pretty much have to succeed in the colonial power's structure.

Naipaul carries this theme deeper by examining in depth how different colonial powers with legacy influence over Caribbean states have had different results, and notably Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana (then British Guiana), Suriname, Martinique and Jamaica. Trinidad and to a lesser extent British Guiana have had multiple colonial legacies, and have significant population representation in various "emerging market" cultures, whether Indian/South Asia, Syrian, African, Javanese or native "Amerindians". He shows how both the French and the Dutch have tried to their (at least then) colonies as "the 12th Dutch province" or as an integral French "departement", whereas the British (and Spanish) were much more traditional colonialists ( where control and wealth extraction were more important than for the Dutch and French, although as he says, this may be less of a real difference and more of a propaganda spin.

At the time the book was written, of course, none of these countries were still colonies, although Trinidad and Jamaica became independent republics in 1962, Guyana and Suriname only later and Martinique is still an "overseas region" of France. However, it was clear in 1962 that these societies were orienting themselves to independence.

But as mentioned while some of Naipaul's comments are now dated, and others still have a grain of truth, most of his comments are shocking and rude to virtually every side involved--although perhaps they are meant to provoke discussion. For example:

"The history of the islands can never be satisfactorily told. Brutality is not the only difficulty. History is built around achievement and creation; and nothing was created in the West Indies." So here Naipaul insults both the "brutal" colonialists and those now native populations (who themselves have come from elsewhere in the globe). The intentional and unintentional murder by carrying of global diseases effectively wiped out many of the native tribes (including the Carib tribe), such that today everyone has roots of some kind to countries outside of the country.

What is super clear is that the different colonial backgrounds, paces of economic development (T had a very limited time with slavery, whereas Jamaica was much earlier and therefore more slave labour orientated. But while the way the French, Dutch, English and Spanish operated "their" colonies is not the only factor, of course. Thus certain communities stay self-segregated, almost caste-like, while others seem (maybe after 60 years) much more integrated. At this past Carnival in Trinidad, I was amazed at how mixed the crowd was, and the extent two-culture marriages has shot up and seems to be working very well. Still, especially older citizens will, says Naipaul, continue to identify with their respective communities. And, as in the USA, politicians will undoubtedly seek to divide and conquer, thereby pushing community self identification and policy recognizing "the oppressed." (Interestingly, Naipaul himself shows how ALL communities in Trinidad in 1960 identified themselves as being "oppressed." Every group thinks they are hard done by, but few know really what the other side is like. This third and fourth generations may no longer observe their parents' or grandparents' religious festival or languages--coming together as one at carnival time or in rooting for the regional cricket team (at least when they are playing well).

Naipaul is acutely aware of how peoples who came to the Caribbean from other EM countries will, after as little as a generation, be disconnected from their "countries of origin". This can lead to rootlessness, bitterness and insecurity--and of course this has been the case for Naipaul himself.

The sections on British Guiana and Suriname I felt were particularly revealing. For the former, there were various top down government planning initiatives, about which Naipaul is scathing:

(Speaking of a planned town near the border with Brazil, apparently planned to grow into a substantial city in 40 years (then by 2000 AD): "In that year, no doubt, it will occupy a commanding position in a splendid town centre, where smart and incorruptible policemen will control traffic through tree-lined avenues and fountains will play in well-kept gardens; but at the moment this town centre was an immense featureless dustbowl...The hotel, new and pink, already felt like a ruin, like a relic if a retreating civilization."

Speaking of Martinique, but of more general import to the West Indies: "Every poor country accepts tourism as an unavoidable degradation. None has gone as far as some of these West Indies islands, which in the name of tourism, are selling themselves into a new slavery. The elite of the islands, whose pleasures, revealingly, are tourist's pleasures..." You get the idea Naipaul is not interested in returning to the West Indies.

Finally, about young intellectuals--most having been educated in the countries of their colonialists: "The young intellectuals...talked and talked and became frenzied in their frustration. They were looking for an enemy, and there was none."

The book does a very good job describing the development of these countries until 1962, and certainly points at the complexities in these countries, very different and yet with many of the same frustrating rootlessness. But Naipaul's predictions are too gloomy, we can now say with the benefit of knowing what has happened in the intervening 60 years. Predicted Naipaul:

"...the danger of mob rule and authoritarianism will never cease ti be real. The paternalism of colonial rule will have been replaced by the jungle politics of rewards and revenge, the text book conditions for chaos."

Luckily this was far too dire. While the small and open countries have had to deal with macroeconomic volatility, IMF plans and being neglected, thanks to generally good education and perhaps having learned from failed social and economic experimentation, most of the Caribbean nations have done much better than what Naipaul gloomily if provocatively concluded.

Well worth reading if one is interested in understanding these countries and possibly the legacy of colonialism more generally.

[Gavin · Rating 5 out of 5]

after re-reading this great little travel novel I changed my rating form 4 to 5 stars. Naipaul remains one of my favourite writers and this book finds him at his best. More than just as travel book, as a good travel book should be; witty and insightful observation, well-read history and filled with socio-cultural critique. A great snapshot of a part of the Caribbean at the time when many colonies were moving into independence , Naipaul, with his superb prose, effortlessly captures these new nations in this difficult time, focusing on the themes of his earlier fictional work, that of the struggle to find a common identity at the end of colonialism

[Salvatore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Haters gonna hate, but Naipaul (Hater) actually finds things to appreciate in lands he otherwise finds to be empty, vapid, useless, lazy, parroting, held in self-contempt, etc etc. He might be able to deal with the culture and architecture of Georgetown, of Suriname.

Interesting to note that Naipaul documents the racial tensions in all of these islands, the people there wanting to stop immigration, fearing outsiders taking their jobs and ruining their nations. Sounds very familiar...

Marlon James borrows a couple of lines from this for A Brief History of Seven Killings.

[Michael David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered V. S. Naipaul when I read one work by Rabindranath Tagore about a decade ago. While Tagore was the only person from India to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Naipaul shared the honor with him with respect to descent. Although Naipaul hailed from Trinidad and Tobago, he was nevertheless influenced by India and was racially Indian.

This was my first book from him, however. I can’t even say I discovered him with this book, as his best books appeared on local bookstores on occasion: I just didn’t want to read an Indian novelist at those times, because they tended toward sprawling, familial epics that I simply did not want to deal with. (I have read Tagore and Amitav Ghosh, and I loved both authors: I just wasn’t in the mood to read Indian literature whenever I found copies of Naipaul’s works.)

I know I am committing an offense when I generalize writers by their race. However, in my experience, common themes are often shared by writers from the same country, and I wasn’t in the mood for epic family dramas.

My mind hasn’t changed. The Middle Passage is, after all, a travelogue and not a novel. I still don’t intend to read more Naipaul in the near future. Obtaining the book was actually just making the most of an opportunity: after I traded in a few of my self-help books for store credit in an Australian bookstore, I chose this book by Naipaul from the vintage section as the one I would most likely read. (I honestly preferred The Cloister and the Hearth, but I already have a copy, and there were few better choices.)

The book was, unsurprisingly, insightful. It was the first time I have read of “the middle passage” as a phrase, and learned that it was actually part of the slave trade prevalent during the past centuries: Africans were transported into America, but quite a few ended up in the Caribbean. The countries that were subsequently visited and disinterred by Naipaul were colonies or former colonies of the prominent imperialists at the time the book was written. These countries included Trinidad (Naipaul’s own homeland), British Guiana (now Guyana), Suriname, and Martinique. Jamaica was also lightly discussed.

Today, all except Martinique are independent nations. What links them is that each of the nations possesses a dominant culture impressed upon by colonization: Trinidad and Tobago was Spanish for 300 years; Guyana was a British colony; Suriname a Dutch one; and Martinique remains to be French. Each of the colonies possesses character from the dominant imperial power of the past: Trinidad is similar to the Philippines in that it had been full of “crab mentality,” but was also racially tolerant, as we are in the Philippines. Guyana, on the other hand, had been predominantly underdeveloped, and yet still looked to Britain for guidance. Suriname was more accepting, due to the Dutch heritage of being more civil with their colonies, while Martinique was quite attached to France and Frenchhood, even down to racial differences within the colony. In all his portraits, Naipaul is cynical, but highly nuanced: he praises when praise is deserved, and scathes when it is needed, too.

As one progresses through the travelogue, however, one cannot help but realize that the identity of one’s country cannot be divorced from its colonial past. The same problems can be found with Trinidad and the Philippines. Naipaul’s conclusion, voicing out the “road to ruin” of the small society from a certain Dr. Boulding, is particularly haunting as it is what happens with my country today:

“Population grows unchecked, doubling every twenty-five years. Emigration cannot keep pace and in any case skims off the cream of the people. Farms are sub-divided and sub-divided until the country produces far more people than it can take and the people crowd into huge city slums where there is large-scale unemployment. Education collapses under the strain of poverty and the flood of children. Superstition and ignorance increase, along with pride. Self-government means that every pressure group has to be placated, and there is less and less discrimination between high and low quality products whether bananas or people. This ends in a famine, an insurrection. The regiment shoots down the mob and establishes a military dictatorship. Foreign investments and gifts dry up; the islands are left to stew in their own misery and the world in effect draws a cordon sanitaire around them. That the road to ruin is a real road, and a distressingly wide and available one, is shown by the example of some nearby islands which have gone a long way down it.”

That’s happening to us right now.

[Tom Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I buy a new book first published decades ago ('Middle Passage' ist published 1962) I worry about lousy POD editions - thank God that wasn't the case. Good binding, no typos.
My second V.S. Naipaul book. I doubt he ever published a second-rate book. I have two more of his books on my shelf and look forward to reading them.

The legacy of slavery and colonialism in the Caribbean; racial strife, poverty...

A quote from page 2 on being a black emigrant from a British Caribbean colony trying to make a better life in the motherland; ‘Eh! I tell you about the foreman?’ He spoke easily; the train was not England. ‘One day he say, “Blackie, come here a minute.” I watch at him, and I say, “Good, I coming.” I went up and hit him baps! Clean through a glass window.’
I thought to myself, I’m going to like this book. As I read through it, I could easily see parallels with our own nation today. Unless progress aligns perfectly with personal gain for the powerful, it’s a rough go.

Here, just one of many in the book, is another amusing anecdote, “My own encounter had been with a fat brown-skinned Grenadian of thirty-three. He said he had ten children in Grenada…by various women. …He loved this child; he didn’t care for the others. I asked why, then, he had had so many. Didn’t they have contraceptives in Grenada? He said with some indignation that he was a Roman Catholic; and for the rest of the journey never spoke to me.”

Page 62; “This was the greatest damage done to the Negro by slavery. (According to V.S., the blacks of the Caribbean circa 1960 were offended if called an African.) It taught him self-contempt. It set him the ideals of white civilization and made him despise every other.”

Page 63; “20,000,000 Africans made the Middle Passage.”
Asked Google and got, “Most contemporary historians estimate that between 9.4 and 12 million Africans arrived in the New World…another 2 million died en route.” This with wooden sailing ships and no medical care. The estimate of circa 1960 was quite close.

V.S. Naipaul’s book was much more than a travelogue or history report. I believe he could make a trip to the grocery interesting. He puts so much of himself into his works. There were good reasons for his winning the Nobel. He was a man of strong opinions and not shy about expressing them. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/v-s... The article is worth the read.

British Guiana – “Sugar cane is an ugly crop and it has an ugly history.”

From the section on Surinam: Bit of history: sugarcane introduced to the New World by Columbus on his 2nd voyage. Well, maybe. Could not verify that on Google. Perfecting the refining process took considerable effort by many a pioneer. Sugar would be an interesting subject to delve into. That sugar was the crop that drove slavery isn’t so doubtful. The demand was insatiable. Slavery engendered a thousand more evils.

Yet another quote, page 189, “(There is)…slavery in the absence of family life, in the laughter in the cinema at films of German concentration camps, in the fondness for terms of racial abuse, in the physical brutality of strong to weak; nowhere in the world are children beaten as savagely as in the West Indies.”

In the eighteenth century, like Caribbean hurricanes, slave revolts were frequent and violent. In several instances, they were also successful. In Surinam the Africans escaped to the interior and replicated African village life on the banks of the interior rivers.

The history lesson is nice, but it is how Naipaul relates current life in Surinam, British Guiana, Trinidad, Jamaica, and the small islands, that the book shines. “Current” being almost 60 years ago.

Following is a summation paragraph from page 241; pertinent to the mess we now find ourselves in with the reactionary, anti-science, anti-progress Republicans. “For the uneducated masses, quick to respond to racial stirrings and childishly pleased with destructive gestures, (“childish”, “destructive”…does that remind you of anyone?) the protest leader will always be a hero.”
Substitute demagogue for “protest leader” and the sentence is spot on.

‘The Middle Passage: The Caribbean Revisited’ is 243 pages of cogent writing.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Middle Passage by VS Naipaul

In 1960, the first Prime Minister of Trinidad paid VS Naipaul to undertake a journey round the Caribbean and the European colonies of northern South America. Presumably the commission was intended as a PR exercise, as the fledgling nation was welcoming home its most celebrated writer. In fact, what we have here is classic Naipaul: a tearless evocation of cultures which have 'created nothing'.

Naipaul begins at Waterloo en route to an immigrant ship bound for Port of Spain. The ship is crowded with pungent grotesques. There is the 'Negro with the ruined face', the over-familiar Guyanese man who 'had lost his teeth', and Mr Hassan, the Indian - selfish, boorish and obsessed 'with wealth'.

For Naipaul, these men are not 'real people'. Rather, they are mimics. They are 'living in a borrowed culture', and 'no attitude in the West Indies is new'. Trinidad is still trapped in the thought-world of colonialism; Surinam has concocted a 'limited... dialect' made of bastardised English; and, most alarmingly, Naipaul tells us, 'Martinique is France'.

I don’t know that much about Trinidad and the four Carribean societies mentioned (except for maybe Surinam because of its connection with Holland). What the countries have in common are the traces of slavery and colonialism, and that is what Naipaul focuses on in his book: the racial differences and the connections the former colonies have with their occupiers.

It’s hard to give a proper summary of all the different countries without this review becoming a short novel itself, so I have decided to keep this short. In The Middle Passage, Naipaul takes you on a journey through five societies and former British, French and Dutch colonies. He tells us his experiences during his journey, and analyzes the situation in the different countries (Trinidad, British Guiana, Surinam, Martinique and Jamaica). Not every society has reacted to its occupiers in the same way, and while some reject the foreign cultures, others openly embrace it. There is also an enormous difference in racial acceptance between the different countries. With huge social consequences.

The fact that Naipaul was born and raised in Trinidad and later moved to London has a lot to do with that. Having lived in both ‘worlds’, he is able to blend in with the locals as well as having access to the insights of outsiders. I cannot judge properly if the comments he makes in The Middle Passage about the different societies, race problematics and inequality are accurate. What does become clear is that the book narrates his experiences when travelling through those countries; the difficulties on the way and the people he meets a sample of what the situation was like back then.

The final chapter reads like a curse. Slums will mushroom; famine will follow; 'the islands will stew in their own misery'. Gloom-mongering exhilarates Naipaul but, 40 years on, many of the countries are, as he predicted, still dogged by the 'politics of rewards and revenge, the textbook conditions for chaos'.

[Megan Spillane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whilst undoubtedly a skilled writer Naipaul's opinion can come off dated in this travelogue. That isn't to say there isn't anything of value here as he examines the post colonial West Indies. One of the problems I found is that he his travels are essentially a PR exercise as he was invited by a politician so the lense is quite narrow although he himself comments on how much is done for show and hides the true face. This in itself is a comment on the nature of the society there at that time.
I would like to read some more of his work as he definitely is a skilled writer, this was perhaps not the best one to start with.


Be aware the book does use racist language and contain racist tones at points due to the time it was written which I found bizarre as Naipaul himself is originally from the West Indies, just goes to show how colonial ideas can enter one's mind. It was quite heavy at the beginning and I did find myself wondering if I should not continue with the book as I was not enjoying this aspect obviously.

[Ravi · Rating 2 out of 5]

On the one hand, it is not every day that you get an account of travelling in Trinidad (from where Naipaul hails), Suriname, British Guyana, Martinique and Jamaica in the dying days of the Eisenhower Administration. For that reason alone the book is worth reading as it is a snapshot into another era, filled with curious insights when flying was a luxury, class differences were sharper and travel was less common. Unfortunately Naipaul's misanthropic nature and his shall we say gently idiosyncratic views on race make it difficult for a modern reader to enjoy the book. If postcolonial theory has any relevance, it was meant to psychoanalyze someone like Naipaul who seems fixated on racial differences and is dismissive of the gifts of Caribbean society. So despite his significant skill in painting character studies, the book is one sided and frankly cranky at times. But Canadian readers might be amused that he stayed at a luxury resort which hosted the Diefenbakers.

[Luis Jimenez · Rating 2 out of 5]

First off I am a huge fan of V S Naipaul and I’m also a Trinidadian and this book clearly shows what appears to be a very derogatory take on the culture he came from.

Interestingly in this book he describes the West Indian as being lazy, uneducated, fixated on racism in actuality it would appear that he is transferring his own prejudices to the people and cultures

Having grown up and lived in Trinidad in the period in which he wrote I can see he truly did not understand or take the time to really understand the culture. He simply painted it with a broad brush coated with his own issues
He really fell short in his analysis and understanding of the history culture and people

Clearly written by a person who fled his country and culture and like so many others disassociates and then demonizes it because by creating that separation he attempts to be what he views as better and more than what he truly is

[Sarah Klevan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written but a chore to finish. I would highly recommend his writing on Trinidad (Ch. 2), Naipaul's country of origin, in which his observations on the intersection of culture and colonialism are revelatory. Often, the after effects of colonialism are considered only in reference to quality of life indicators (poverty, public health) but Naipaul instead focuses on the effects of colonialism on identity, psyche and culture (film, advertising, cuisine) and his observations are fascinating. I found the chapters on the other countries he visited on this trip (Martinique, Surinam, British Guiana, Jamaica) much less interesting.

[Mariah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Actually, I did not finish this book. I think it was too stuck in its time for me, and difficult to read because I could not relate to it in any way. Not only does Naipaul show that he is a product of the racial stratification that was a by-product of colonialism, he writes in a voice that is simultaneously pompous and judgmental. But perhaps that is just my 21st Century, modern POC view. Perhaps if I could have forced myself to read on, I might have discovered something likable about the book, but I just don't have the energy to do so.

[Greta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being from Trinidad, VS Naipaul creates an interesting travelogue of his return to his country of origin. It is 1960 where he was born in 1932, much has remained the same on the island as it was when his grandparents moved there from India. British Guiana, now Guyana, and Martinique are also a part of his exploration the colonial past and are revealed as very different, and yet much the same as their history would lead you to expect.

[Don Annand · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is an interesting comparison of the influence of slavery on former West Indian colonies. Naipaul tells about the societies of Trinidad, Guyana, Surinam, Martinique, and Jamaica through the lense of an insider. His views on politics, racism, colonial identity and tourism ring true as much today as when he wrote them in the early sixties

[Sebastian · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some good passages in this, but on the whole Naipaul is exceedingly dismissive of black nationalisms, quite racist at times, and ungenerous to the countries he travels to. He's miserable the whole time and only says anything of value in passages that are few and far between, apart from the occasional poignant or telling anecdote.

[Sarah F. · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a variety of social cultures in the Caribbean you can learn from reading this book, and how they were influenced by historical events. I really enjoy his social observations and sense of humor.

[Andrew Gupta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Naipaul essentially insults several countries in the West Indies. But his ability to capture their problems with such precision makes it an intriguing read.

[Catie Handley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting topics but difficult reading

[mt anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is hard to get into but it is definitely a valuable, eye-opening read.

[Alex]

1962 was a different time and all, but -- Edward Said wrote that Naipaul was happy to be used as a witness for the Western prosecution, and, wow, yeah

[Mario Macia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not an enjoyable read. If you feel the need to categorize everyone into a racial group, and thereby learn all you need to know about a person, this could be the book for you.