The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief - Hardcover

Naipaul, V. S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0330472054 ISBN 13: 9780330472050

Publisher: Picador, 2010

Synopsis

Like all of V. S. Naipaul’s ‘travel’ books, The Masque of Africa encompasses a much larger narrative and purpose: to judge the effects of belief (in indigenous animisms, the foreign religions of Christianity and Islam, the cults of leaders and mythical history) upon the progress of civilization.

From V. S. Naipaul:

For my travel books I travel on a theme. And the theme of The Masque of Africa is African belief. I begin in Uganda, at the centre of the continent, do Ghana and Nigeria, the Ivory Coast and Gabon, and end at the bottom of the continent, in South Africa. My theme is belief, not political or economical life; and yet at the bottom of the continent the political realities are so overwhelming that they have to be taken into account. Perhaps an unspoken aspect of my inquiry was the possibility of the subversion of old Africa by the ways of the outside world. The theme held until I got to the South, when the clash of the two ways of thinking and believing became far too one-sided. The skyscrapers of Johannesburg didn’t rest on sand. The older world of magic felt fragile, but at the same time had an enduring quality. You felt it would survive any calamity. I had expected that over the great size of Africa the practices of magic would significantly vary. But they didn’t. The diviners everywhere wanted to ‘throw the bones’ to read the future and the idea of ‘energy’ remained a constant, to be tapped into by the ritual sacrifice of body parts. In South Africa body parts, mainly of animals, but also of men and women, made a mixture of ‘battle medicine’. To witness this, to be given some idea of its power, was to be taken far back to the beginning of things. To reach that beginning was the purpose of my book.

About this title

Product Description:

Rare Book

Review:

'[Naipaul] is dry, often irked, sometimes enraged. He is quite rude. But he is also patient (not a trait often associated with him), engaged, funny, self-reflective and thoughtful [...] The Masque of Africa is a book for outsiders, for those who may never visit Africa or may know it only superficially. But it is also a book in which Africans themselves may find something to learn.' --Aminatta Forna, Observer

`Naipaul offers some fascinating insights on everything from Christianity and Islam to political leadership and consumerism, encased - as expected - in sharp and elegant prose.' --Time Out

`There are moments of real insight: Naipaul's no-nonsense approach, although often brutal and sometimes downright rude, reveals some fascinating truths about modern Africans' struggle to place themselves in a world overwhelmed by Western/Islamic ideals and find a faith that fits their changing needs.' --Metro (Non-Fiction Book of the Week)

'Naipaul travels, he asks, he listens attentively and, above all else, he notices, often seeing what others do not or cannot. That acute gift has never left him [...] In this new book, the best moments are those lit by the radiance of sudden and unexpected noticing [...] As he travels, often irritably, through Africa on this, his latest and perhaps final long journey{...}he is sustained by the old ideal of unadorned truth-telling. Like Edgar in King Lear, he speaks what he feels, not what he ought to say - which is admirable and is why, even now, so late in the day, you still read him with all the old fascination, [...] quite unlike anyone else: The Writer, still the only one.' --New Statesman

'Africa is the setting for several of V. S. Naipaul's finest fictional stories. And there is a pattern to the themes in the African works: fear, post-colonial disintegration, isolation, approaching catastrophe, as sense of being trapped in a way of life that is hovering on the borders of savagery. It is an unforgettable vision, but it remains that of an outsider. In The Masque of Africa, Naipaul goes deeper... It has its own value as an investigation into the least discussed aspect of African society today.' --Spectator

'In his latest travelogue, Sir V.S. Naipaul - Nobel laureate, man of opinions, giant of Western Letters - examines the enduring power of [belief in magic] in six African countries... compelling, insightful, often somberly beautiful.' --Sunday Telegraph

'Naipaul's deceptively casual account is of great structural sophistication... He is, in every instinct and at every moment, a man who sees the world under the aspect of the written word. He is, to that degree, an alien presence in an oral, visual culture, but here is the genius of The Masque of Africa: that it dances around that paradox and reveals far more than its uneasy protagonist seems to know.' --Herald

'[Naipaul] does caustically capture a hard truth: the nature and traditions of Africa are being nibbled away.' --Economist

'Nobel Laureate, V. S. Naipaul, arguably the greatest living writer of English prose, is one of our few literary stars to shine with equal brilliance both in fiction and non-fiction... The Masque of Africa is marvelously entertaining. Flashes of the old master illuminate its pages' --Mail on Sunday

'VS Naipaul made his name as one of the defining voices of post-colonial fiction, and was awarded the Nobel prize for his talent in recovering forgotten and suppressed stories... A daring but thoughtful account of the ironies and tragedies of belief in modern Africa.' --Waterstone's Books Quarterly

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0330472054
• ISBN 13: 9780330472050
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336