I have finished reading another novel, V.S. Naipaul's "In a Free State". It took me a bugger of a long time to get through it, 37 days to be exact, an average of less than 7 pages per day! I blame my unimpressive progress in the past 4 months on a 'summer holiday' mentality - I've only read 4 novels since I returned from my holidays in June. It's depressing. I keep looking at my shelf and imagining how many fantasy novels I could get through in a week if I weren't restricting myself to 'literature', and I have to force myself not to give into the temptation because I know if I start to read anything off the 'to-be-read' list I'll just make more excuses not to read the Man Booker list!
Anyway, "In A Free State" was a different sort novel - it's comprised of 5 sections, three short stories sandwiched by a pair of travel 'journal entries', all dealing with the idea of freedom. It's almost the myth of freedom, as each section shows in a different way how our perception of freedom is skewed from the reality of the situation. I found the first three sections really interesting and I was engaged in the stories, but the fourth section was very tedious for me. It is the largest section of the novel and describes the journey of a pair of English expatriates across the country side of an unspecified African nation in a time of civil unrest. It's an interesting plot, dealing with racism in addition to the idea that one can be free from societal pressures while living in another country, but I was completely bogged down by the descriptions of the landscape. It's one of the major drawbacks of a 'road trip' story, and also the main reason I've never been able to read "The Lord of the Rings". After about 25 pages I felt like saying, Yes, I get it - Africa is beautiful, the landscape is varied, seemingly constant but constantly changing and unexpected - please lets move on! Not that I didn't enjoy the novel over-all, in fact I found it quiet insightful, and I would gladly recommend it. I find descriptions of landscape to be very dull, but if you enjoy or even don't mind that sort of thing I'm certain that you will find this an engaging and entertaining read. Just don't say I didn't warn you about the scenery!
My favourite section of the novel was the second, 'One out of Many', which examines how a search for freedom can become a procession through various forms of enslavement. Santosh begins his story as a servant living in near-slum conditions in Bombay, a life in which he describes himself as happy, and ends as an American citizen in Washington, "free" but trapped and lonely. It's beautiful in it's simplicity, and I know his story will haunt me for years. I found the third section, 'Tell Me Who To Kill', very sad. It deals with how familial expectations can become a living prison. I cried.
I'm jumping back up to 1993 for my next read with Roddy Doyle's "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha". I know I said I was going to try "Something to Answer For" next, but at this point I feel like I waited so long to get it, I may save it for last to read. It's my own weird psychology, nothing I can really explain. Honestly, I've just really been looking forward to Roddy Doyle - in fact, I have thirty minutes to spare right now....
Happy reading!
