Introduction

Summary

The aim of this book is two-fold: one, to show how Trinidad was central to understanding Naipaul’s evolving literary, racial and religious politics over the years; and two, how Trinidadians have acknowledged and owned him in spite of Naipaul distancing himself from Trinidad on numerous occasions. His writings endeared him to Trinidadians because they held a ‘truth’ value, a liveliness of environment and vividness of character that went beyond his slanted attacks at their ineptness in handling the newly independent nation. Being born in Trinidad during colonial times, Naipaul grew up under the colonial system of education learning and studying English language and literature. He realised only later how the English education system had not only coloured but tainted his vision of Trinidad, England and the world. Everything appeared faded and jaded in contrast: ‘There was, for instance, Wordsworth’s notorious poem about the daffodils. A pretty little flower, no doubt; but we had never seen it… Dickens’s rain and drizzle I turned into tropical downpours; the snow and fog I accepted as conventions of books’ (‘Jasmine’ 1964b: 1972, 23) This essential difference between what he saw and felt and what he learnt in school led him to trust his instincts rather than his scholarship. He devised new ways of learning about his environment using his experiences in Trinidad as a touchstone to know the world. This book serves to complement established Naipaulian criticism by presenting a case for viewing Naipaul as ‘typically Trinidadian.’ This premise is not based upon personal whim or any desperate attempt to claim Naipaul for Trinidad, but it is based upon a commonly held opinion in Trinidadian circles regarding Naipaul and his repeated antics in disclosing yet distancing himself from his humble beginnings. This endeavour finds support amongst numerous commentators such as Llyod Best who reiterate Naipaul’s Trinidadian-ness. Yet, Naipaul escaped any stereotyping because he inculcated within himself a sense of contradictoriness that made him challenge commonly held opinions. An example of this is that by staying on in Britain, Naipaul challenged the boundaries of the British literary canon, more so by hardly writing about the British. Similarly, Naipaul challenged the boundaries of Caribbean literature by not staying in the Caribbean but writing about it most often.

The book brings into sharp focus Naipaul’s background and how the first eighteen years of his life in Trinidad shaped and defined his writing in the following six decades.