An area of darkness (original 1964; edição 1975)

'An Area of Darkness' is a masterpiece of travel writing and personal memoir. Although it dates back as far as the 1960s, it is still an enormously valuable book that serves as a model for anything and everything travel-related since. ( )

If one can imagine the difficulties Naipaul suffers now in a period in which the principle of 'free speech' is being eroded by nice white people to 'you can say what you like as long as we agree with it', it speaks buckets for this book that he experienced the 'censorship of the offended' the very moment it appeared. Banned in India and still banned over fifty years later.

This sits badly with me, not only because of the issue of free speech, but also because he didn't look at all at the side of India which is truly dark. He could so easily have talked of the violence and exploitation, but he left it unsaid. He spoke only of what he saw and how he felt. A travelogue filled with angst, not only towards the India which so upset him, but also towards himself. No doubt one learns a lot about one's own inadequacies in such a situation and Naipaul doesn't shrink from them one bit. I don't really understand why people who see this as only a personal critique of India, don't understand this. Neither writer nor subject come off well in this encounter. There are only losers, but why should it be any other way?

For the rest, please go here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2016/04/05/an-area-of-darkness-by-vs... ( )

If one can imagine the difficulties Naipaul suffers now in a period in which the principle of 'free speech' is being eroded by nice white people to 'you can say what you like as long as we agree with it', it speaks buckets for this book that he experienced the 'censorship of the offended' the very moment it appeared. Banned in India and still banned over fifty years later.

This sits badly with me, not only because of the issue of free speech, but also because he didn't look at all at the side of India which is truly dark. He could so easily have talked of the violence and exploitation, but he left it unsaid. He spoke only of what he saw and how he felt. A travelogue filled with angst, not only towards the India which so upset him, but also towards himself. No doubt one learns a lot about one's own inadequacies in such a situation and Naipaul doesn't shrink from them one bit. I don't really understand why people who see this as only a personal critique of India, don't understand this. Neither writer nor subject come off well in this encounter. There are only losers, but why should it be any other way?

For the rest, please go here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2016/04/05/an-area-of-darkness-by-vs... ( )

If one can imagine the difficulties Naipaul suffers now in a period in which the principle of 'free speech' is being eroded by nice white people to 'you can say what you like as long as we agree with it', it speaks buckets for this book that he experienced the 'censorship of the offended' the very moment it appeared. Banned in India and still banned over fifty years later.

This sits badly with me, not only because of the issue of free speech, but also because he didn't look at all at the side of India which is truly dark. He could so easily have talked of the violence and exploitation, but he left it unsaid. He spoke only of what he saw and how he felt. A travelogue filled with angst, not only towards the India which so upset him, but also towards himself. No doubt one learns a lot about one's own inadequacies in such a situation and Naipaul doesn't shrink from them one bit. I don't really understand why people who see this as only a personal critique of India, don't understand this. Neither writer nor subject come off well in this encounter. There are only losers, but why should it be any other way?

For the rest, please go here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2016/04/05/an-area-of-darkness-by-vs... ( )

My eyes don't let me read this in bed (light not bright enough), so I poike into it now and again. But the man sure can write ... and observe. Very intelligent coming-to-terms with his Indianness, and with growing up in Trinidad. I actually purchased this tiny-print paperback during my McGill years for use on my honours essay on the literature of travel. I never did read far into it--not since 1983! I wonder at getting that degree and the "honours" at all. ( )