The Middle Passage: Impressions of Five Societies, British, French and Dutch, in the West Indies - Hardcover

Naipaul, V. S.

3.58

636 ratings by Goodreads

9780233956183: The Middle Passage: Impressions of Five Societies, British, French and Dutch, in the West Indies

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0233956182 ISBN 13: 9780233956183

Publisher: Andre Deutsch Ltd, 1974

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V.S. Naipaul undertook this Caribbean journey at the invitation, in 1960, of Dr Eric Williams, the first Prime Minister of independent Trinidad, the author’s birthplace.

At that time, the plantation colonies of the region were formed, culturally, in the image of the metropolis. Racial and political assertion had yet to catch up with them in varying ways.

In Trinidad, African racialism found itself at odds with old colonial mimicry; forty years on, the racial issue will not be between black and white, but between black and Asian. Guyana was Marxist, but with the same racial divisions: forty years on, the country will be so ruined that a newspaper will be regarded almost as a luxury item.

In Surinam, a movement was afoot to replace the Dutch language with a pidgin English called talkie-talkie: forty years on, that racial sentiment will have led to military dictatorship and an exodus of the locals to Holland. Whereas Martinique, defying geography, saw itself as France.

And, in Jamaica, such rejectionism took the form of Rastafarianism – which, absurdly, turns out to have been the invention of Italian black propaganda during the Abyssinian War of the 1930s.

The Middle Passage catches this poor topsy-turvy world at a critical moment: a world by turns sad, earnest and hilarious – indeed, a perfect subject for the understanding and comedy of this great writer.

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Review:

"The coolest literary eye and the most lucid prose we have."-"The New York Times Book Review ""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" "Naipaul travels with the artist's eye and ear and his observations are sharply discerning." -Evelyn Waugh "Where earlier travelers enthused or recoiled, Mr. Naipaul explains. His tone is critical but humane, and he tempers his inevitable indignation with an admirable sense of comedy." -"The Observer" "Dazzling reportorial skills and a sharp historical mind." -"The New York Times"

Book Description:

V.S. Naipaul’s first travel book – travelling from London to his birthplace, the Caribbean.

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