Guerrillas
Apr 2011 · Sold by Vintage
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From the Nobel Prize-winning author comes a novel of exile, displacement, and the agonizing cruelty and pain of colonialism, both for those who rule and those who are their victims.
“A brilliant novel in every way.… [It] shimmers with artistic certainty.” —The New York Times Book Review
Set on a troubled Carribbean island, where “everybody wants to fight his own little war,” where “everyone is a guerrilla,” the novel centers on an Englishman named Roche, once a hero of the South African resistance, who has come to the island – subdued now, almost withdrawn – to work and to help. Soon his English mistress arrives: casually nihilistic, bored, quickly enticed – excited – by fantasies of native power and sexuality, and blindly unaware of any possible consequences of her acts. At once Roche and Jane are drawn into fatal connection with a young guerrilla leader named Jimmy Ahmed, a man driven by his own raging fantasies of power, of perverse sensuality, and of the England he half remembers, half sentimentalizes. Against the larger anguish of the world they inhabit, these three act out a drama of death, hideous sexual violence, and political and spiritual impotence that profoundly reflects the ravages history can make on human lives.
“A brilliant novel in every way.… [It] shimmers with artistic certainty.” —The New York Times Book Review
Set on a troubled Carribbean island, where “everybody wants to fight his own little war,” where “everyone is a guerrilla,” the novel centers on an Englishman named Roche, once a hero of the South African resistance, who has come to the island – subdued now, almost withdrawn – to work and to help. Soon his English mistress arrives: casually nihilistic, bored, quickly enticed – excited – by fantasies of native power and sexuality, and blindly unaware of any possible consequences of her acts. At once Roche and Jane are drawn into fatal connection with a young guerrilla leader named Jimmy Ahmed, a man driven by his own raging fantasies of power, of perverse sensuality, and of the England he half remembers, half sentimentalizes. Against the larger anguish of the world they inhabit, these three act out a drama of death, hideous sexual violence, and political and spiritual impotence that profoundly reflects the ravages history can make on human lives.
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February 6, 2012
A. Yes. I must be reading them in reverse chronological order. I started off with Half a life and then Magic seeds, which were published much later than this one.
Q. Is there any reason for those particular choices of order?
A. Reading M. G. Vassanji led me to try Naipaul, though Naipaul is by far the better known writer. Both are considered part of the Indian diaspora writers, so called. At my public libraries, the latest Naipaul writings are easily found, the earlier ones, like Guerrillas, are not so easily found. So I started with those more readily available.
Q. So you enjoy Naipaul?
A. Yes. He's been to places I've never been, or only passing through, like London. He has a story to tell. He plots well and has interesting characters. But, I should add, I still think, as I mentioned in a review of one of his other books, that Naipaul is mostly writing for a male readership. I haven't yet seen him portray a female character with, well, with character. As is Jane in this book, his female characters, when they come into the story, seem insipid, irrational, and certainly not worthy of emulation.
Q. So women may not enjoy this book as you did?
A. That's what I'm suggesting. Today's "modern" American woman, British, whatever, is going to consider this book very tilted toward the male perspective. But Jane does have her role. Naipaul, writing mostly in the third person, tries to imagine what Jane is thinking and why, but I'm not sure he hit that nail on the head, so to speak. Read it and let me know what you think.
Q. Well, from the title, we imagine the book to be about a semi-organized band of revolutionaries attempting to, perhaps, overthrow a government somewhere in a Latin American country. Is that what this book is all about?
A. Not really. That part of it is very tangential to the plot, almost like an afterthought or tack-on. Rather, the story has to do with a South African immigrant and a British woman, born in Ottawa, Canada, however. They are both white, but they take up residence on an island dominated by people of African descent, probably Jamaica.
Q. Why do you say probably Jamaica?
A. Jamaica is never mentioned, but reggae singing is often mentioned, and Jamaica is where reggae originated.
Q. So what is your recommendation on this book?
A. I suggest that newcomers to Naipaul read the above mentioned books first, and then continue with his earlier works if they find the first two enjoyable.
About the author
V.S. NAIPAUL was born in Trinidad in 1932. He came to England on a scholarship in 1950. He spent four years at University College, Oxford, and began to write, in London, in 1954. He pursued no other profession.
His novels include A House for Mr Biswas, The Mimic Men, Guerrillas, A Bend in the River, and The Enigma of Arrival. In 1971 he was awarded the Booker Prize for In a Free State. His works of nonfiction, equally acclaimed, include Among the Believers, Beyond Belief, The Masque of Africa, and a trio of books about India: An Area of Darkness, India: A Wounded Civilization and India: A Million Mutinies Now.
In 1990, V.S. Naipaul received a knighthood for services to literature; in 1993, he was the first recipient of the David Cohen British Literature Prize. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. He died in 2018.
His novels include A House for Mr Biswas, The Mimic Men, Guerrillas, A Bend in the River, and The Enigma of Arrival. In 1971 he was awarded the Booker Prize for In a Free State. His works of nonfiction, equally acclaimed, include Among the Believers, Beyond Belief, The Masque of Africa, and a trio of books about India: An Area of Darkness, India: A Wounded Civilization and India: A Million Mutinies Now.
In 1990, V.S. Naipaul received a knighthood for services to literature; in 1993, he was the first recipient of the David Cohen British Literature Prize. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. He died in 2018.
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