Tuesday's Pick

Reminiscent of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, V.S. Naipaul's A Bend in the River still resonates 30 years after its publication. Salim, the narrator, is an outsider from the African coast. Intending "to make something of himself", he buys a business selling dry goods in an unnamed African town on an unnamed river. The novel describes the next 12 years of his life in the centre of Africa. The author uses a number of African, Indian and European characters to paint a picture of African society as the country undergoes a political journey from the colonial past to a post-colonial society  Beyond them all looms "the Big Man", the demagogic dictator of the country.
    I didn't realize until I'd finished, that it was the all pervasive sense of terror, a sustained atmosphere that is both dream-like and threatening, that kept me reading. Each character is trapped in an irrational web of social turmoil, pending terror and corruption. Africa is presented as a place that resists understanding. Particularly timely now as the Congo once more spirals into chaos!