North of South: An African Journey Book

Is there an equivalent phrasing to "You can't go home again" that might suffice for rereading a book I wonder? I first read Shiva Naipaul's North of South just after it was published in the 1980 Penguin edition, finding it then rather limited in many regards & the author a bit surly. Since I lived in East Africa just before the time-frame Naipaul details & happened to feel in need of something less engaging than the works of philosophy I'd been assigned for a university continuing ed. course, coupled with a sense of nostalgia for the period when I lived in Kenya, North of South seemed to fill a distinct need. If anything, Naipaul's book was much better than I'd remembered at my initial reading of the book.



Yes, there is an acerbic quality to the writing and a far less than positive view of the potential for post-colonial Africa & the Africans Naipaul encounters but there was also something that I'd not recalled, the author's feeling of being in no-man's land as a Trinidadian of East Indian extraction who had come to maturity in England, especially when he meets those labelled "Asians" within Africa and even a fellow at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania who wants to be known as an "Indian National" rather than an East African born "Asian", pigment coming to grips with nationality as it were to define a different sort of tribalism.

Apart from these, there were the "Watu wa Benzi", the Sikhs who stood quite apart from other East African Asians & who often drove a Mercedes-Benz, not to mention the Roman-Catholic Goans from what had until then been Portuguese Goa. (They were usually considered the most trustworthy of Indians & assigned to work in banks by the British.)

Living in East Africa, it took some time to master the full declension of these as well as the indigenous African points of tribal definition, particularly since folks who seemed so similar to an outsider often saw themselves as exceedingly different from each other. I suspect that Naipaul felt like an outsider even among those who were not considered to be in the ascendancy in newly independent East Africa, as opposed to the powerful Kikuyu tribe and the remaining whites (called "Europeans") who braved this post-colonial phase with greater finesse than others. And yet, Shiva Naipaul gets caught up in a defense of the Asian population of E. Africa:Who banished the African from what became the "White Highlands" & confined him to overcrowded reservations? Who denied him--and the Asian--an effective political voice? Whose despoliations were the direct cause of Mau Mau? On whose behalf was fought the brutal campaign of suppression that followed? I see nothing particularly "symbolic" in this dismal chronicle of settler civilization. I see only the poacher has turned gamekeeper--with a vengeance.In turn, the Asian communities in Kenya, Tanzania & Uganda were vilified by both the white settlers as well as Africans living in these newly independent countries. Unlike the European, the Indian or Asian communities remained forever cloistered from Africans, merely "a face across the counter of the duka (small storefront in villages & larger businesses in places like Nairobi) & nothing more." Asians (including some whose far-off extended families became part of Pakistan after the partition) were brought to East Africa from India by the British 80 years or so prior to independence & just stayed on, for the most part lacking in any other options.

"Out of that void of non-reaction arose the Indian tragedy. He failed not because of what he did but because of what he failed to do." Naipaul's shorthand explanation of the resultant post-colonial pecking order is reported as "never come between the master & his slave, who is a born conservative." Meanwhile, the Asian in Africa remains "the eternal other".

What also surprised me is that the author takes considerable pains to differentiate Kenya's approach to independence from that of Tanzania and also to Zambia, a country in which he spent less time but observed what might be called regional peculiarities, as each nation attempted to define itself in the early post-colonial years.

Jomo Kenyatta's approach to rule in Kenya is rather different than that of Julius Nyerere in Tanzania (a country with no discernibly dominant tribes, unlike Kenya) and also quite apart from that of President Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia. And Naipaul looks upon the white population of Kenya as detailed by Karen Blixen & Elspeth Huxley, authors who represent a "displaced aristocracy & who speak of a mystical kinship with the land".

Every journey, particularly within a Third World country is defined by the people one meets en route and because Shiva Naipaul is limited by lack of fluency in tribal languages & also by budget, he does speak primarily with white people living in E. Africa, with Asians who are accessible to outsiders & to Africans who are fluent in English. He can be exceedingly judgmental & surly with those he crosses paths with but is often dependent on their help to reach the next place on his itinerary or takes extremely down-trodden buses packed with local people + chickens & goats. In the midst of such a journey, Naipaul attempts towork himself into a trance-like state of mind, which is the sine qua non of long-distance travel in this part of the world. It is a state of mind that combines fatalism, self-surrender & a steely determination to maintain one's toehold of possession. I have come a long day since my first matatu (bush taxi) ride. No more do I give way to either outrage or compassion.There are most certainly people who could be painted as "gargoyles" because of their approaches to life, including a Kenyan woman named Alberta who fills her large home in an unnamed town in the Highlands with copies of Rubens' artwork, a bust of Mozart, Scandinavian furniture + two large freezers as a sign of wealth and whose daughters provide a rendition of Gilbert & Sullivan for visitors. Americans are mostly portrayed as boorish & incurious, while Germans come off poorly as well. An international cast of young tourists bound for South Africa & its inflexible Apartheid rule seem more interested in the fate of African animals than the African people.

A visit to an office that includes a publisher of African books on Socialism in the Tanzanian capital seems to treat Naipaul with mixed indifference & condescension, while an African-American woman working there offers only contempt. On the Indian Ocean island of Lamu, rich in Arab history, the reader is informed of visiting Swiss & Austrian "sex tourists", both male & female. An Arab resident is described as "woolly haired, flat-nosed & thick-lipped" and it is commented that apparently being Arab can be "just a state of mind". There are indeed distracting & insufferable authorial flaws that can't be overlooked.

Beyond all of that however, and for many this may represent damning faint praise, Shiva Naipaul writes very well and comparisons with the books of Paul Theroux are not out of place, especially when near journey's end Naipaul takes a long train ride between Kapiri Mposhi, Zambia & Dar es Salam, Tanzania on the just-completed route built by the Chinese. With Theroux, experiencing the process of travel, especially via rail, is more important than destinations and there are often intersections with famous authors & references to classic novels read en route, not the case with North of South.

This is a 40 year old work by a comparatively young author who died at age 40, a book that is definitely not for everyone but which is a travel account I somehow managed to enjoy more at 2nd reading than I did when it was initially published. *There is listed praise on the book's spine by the likes of Graham Greene, Bruce Chatwin, Larry McMurtry + the London Sunday Times. **My version of the book has the colorful image of an acacia tree at sunset & is not among the versions of North of South portrayed at Goodreads.