En un estado libre (In a Free State) Book

This is not a simple reread - this time I read the whole five part book as originally published whereas the copy I read in 2015 was a reprint that (apparently at Naipaul's request) only contained the core African road trip novella. I was much more impressed this time round - perhaps because I read it in a more concentrated way but also because the other shorter pieces make it clearer what Naipaul was trying to achieve in the core story.

All of the parts centre on people experiencing unfamiliar cultures that fail to meet their ambitions and expectations. The first and last are short extracts from a traveller's journal on visits to Egypt, in both cases as witness to acts of inhumanity. The second relates the experience of a poor servant from Bombay (as Mumbai still was then) who comes to Washington as cook for a diplomat - this is perhaps the lightest in tone and is full of comic misunderstandings. The third tells of a Trinidadian of Asian extraction who follows his brother to London and ends up in jail.

The core fourth part, more than half the book, is narrated by Bobby, a gay Englishman who works for the government of a recently independent East African country which is anonymous but shares many elements of Uganda before Amin. The country is divided and the South is still largely loyal to the old king. Bobby lives in a protected enclave within the king's region, and at the start of the book he is in the capital preparing to drive back. He is persuaded to give a lift to Linda, a colonial wife, and the book follows there two day journey through an increasingly war-torn and anarchic country. Their fractious relationship is part of the story, but Naipaul also recreates the sights, and the threats and fears they face, very vividly. Second time round I found it very powerful, if a little dated.