Finding the Center

In the first of the two essays, and more important of this book V. S. Naipaul tells of his literary beginnings. He describes how he wrote the first sentence which truly got him going. He was at the time a twenty- three year part - time reporter for the BBC covering his native Caribbean. "It was in that Victorian- Edwardian gloom, and at one of those typewriters that later one afternoon, without having any idea where I was going, and not perhaps intending to type to the end of the page. I wrote ' Every morning when he got up Hat would sit on the banister of his back verandah and shout across , "What happening there, Bogart?' Thus began one of the most distinguished of living novelists' literary career. Subsequently in the memoir Naipaul tells us how his father, a sometime journalist and troubled figure transmitted the urge to writing, and the sense of cultures and worlds mixed and lost in the background- the pursuit of which and definition of which would be a major element in Naipaul's literary work. Naipaul writes with a sharpness of eye, a clear and deep sense of human character complexities, and of the vast variety of human situations and realities. Even in these small essays his great gifts are abundantly apparent.

It is a rear book of two essays that dealt with the author's own personal experiences in two entirely different worlds. Prolouge to an Autobiography, the first one was more personal than the second one and it was related to his background in Trinidad and Indian ancestry. I enjoyed reading it mainly because of my Indian background, and if there was something intrinsic I might have missed it because of the same reason. I need to read it over.However I found something remarkably valuable in the second essay, The Crocodiles of Yamaoussoukro. It was more of a travel type dealing with foriegn (African) culture with certain intrinsic revelations about the human nature itself. It showed presence of spirituality behind the primitiveness. Acceptance of the way things happen was delicately brought out through people from Ghana when they say "Yesterday we were all right. Today we are poor. That is the way it is. Tomorrow we may be all right again. Or we my not. That is the way it is." ; and throuh Arlette when she says thing like "But the world is sand. Life is sand" when she tries to explain the unstability of Life. Nailpaul draws the parallel themes between this practical acceptance of Africa and that of the Hindu doctrine of Karma.Naipaul is probably the most focused writer of our times. Only he could have written such observational essays. I highly recommend them to any one with an open mind and a desire to finding one's own center.