In A Free State

Nominally a novel, but actually more like a collection of short stories, In a Free State by V. S. Naipaul is thus a little difficult to review. Should I focus on the novella, from which the book gets its title, or should I deal equally with all five narratives, and attempt to draw out the shared themes that give the book its coherence? I’ll try to do a little of both, the latter first.

In a Free State is, essentially, about experiences being out of place. Up until now in "The Mystic Masseur”, "A House for Mr. Biswas" Naipaul displayed openly his alienation from his native land. Now how does he fare after he leaves the island ? Naipaul takes it beyond geographical circumstances, beyond material success and social position. These new stories focus on the failure of heart, on the animal like cruelty man exhibits to other men. The stories are all about people who find themselves in places where they feel that they don’t belong; the stories are about boundaries, purity, pollution and just plain strangeness. The presence of an English tramp on a Greek ferry causes uproar, an Indian servant tries to come to terms with his new life in Washington D.C., a South Asian West Indian immigrant in London reflects on the ruins of his life, two white Britons in Uganda drive from the capital to their compound in the south as post-independence upheaval around them throws their presence in the country into relief, and finally, an Asian businessman travelling through Milan and Cairo reflects on cruelty and empire. I liked some of the stories a lot more than others. Some made for uncomfortable reading.

In a Free State is a sequence of five works - the prologue and the epilogue, two short stories and a short novella - linked by a common theme . All are about individuals stranded in foreign countries and confronted by alien cultures.

The Tramp At Piraeus (the prologue) is the literary equivalent of a maestro checking and testing his theme with a few chords and melody lines before starting with the main piece. It's a quite disturbing description of the bullying of a mentally ill English tramp by two Libyans and a German on a ship sailing from Greece. It is quite a painful short piece , tense and tragic, with no word out of place , it actually promises more than the rest of the book can deliver.

The first story is “One out of Many” and it concerns an Indian servant Santosh from Bombay who is forced to accompany his master on a diplomatic visit to Washington, D.C.. The two Indians suffer from the poor value of Indian currency.

The servant lives in almost a cupboard and unfortunately blows several weeks salary just buying a snack. However he gets to meet a restaurant proprietor who offers him quite a salary, so he absconds and works for him. Once he has his affairs in reasonable order, however, he starts to live in fear that his master will find him and order him back. He also learns that he is working illegally and liable to deportation.

The only way of resolving the situation is to marry a woman who had seduced him but whom he had avoided ever since out of shame for his behaviour.

The second story “Tell me Who to Kill” a young man from the islands, out of petty and blind rivalry with his uncle's family, goes to London to support his brother in his studies. He denies and degrades himself in various ways; he takes two jobs to accumulate money faster; he gets grand notions of owning his own business though he knows nothing about running it. His brother is no student and isn't capable of being one. But no one faces up to the truth. At the end, tricked by his brother, his money gone, his energy drained, his loss complete, full of hate he looks around for revenge: "Tell me who to kill."

The main story “In A Free State” is set in an East African state that has recently acquired independence. The King is weak, and is on the run while the President is poised to take absolute power. The level of violence in urban centres of the country is rising and there are rumours of violence in the countryside.

Bobby is an official who has been attending a conference in the capital city. He now heads back to the governmental Compound where he lives, and he has offered a lift to Linda, another colleague's wife.

At a time when the crisis is coming to a head, Bobby and Linda (two whites), are returning to the safety of their compound along a road that is far from safe.

Things go from bad to worse when they stay at a Hotel, run by an old Colonel. There, they have dinner, and they witness a scene between the Colonel and Peter, his servant, who he accuses of planning his murder. Furthermore Bobby discovers that Linda was planning some extra marital activity with a friend along the way, and he becomes furious.

The two reach their destination, but not before witnessing the site where the old King was recently murdered, a philosophical Muslim planning to move to Egypt and the beginnings of a genocidal wave of violence. Bobby is beaten by the army at a check point, where he and Linda experience first hand the growing violence.

The story follows the conventions of a road trip with the reader becoming aware, as do Bobby and Linda, of the situation and how serious it has become. The necessity of a car trip by two whites through a dangerous section of Africa, where civil war is in the offing, leads to a lengthy, claustrophobic, tension-filled journey.

The contrast between the self-deluding Bobby, who claims to have some sort of authentic connection with “Africa,” and the cynical Linda is very effective. At one point Bobby says that “Africa saved his life,” while Linda gives the impression that Africa ruined hers. But, though Linda is open about her prejudices, Bobby is possessed of the same prejudices but hides them under a thin layer of patronizing tolerance.

Obsessed with savagery, cruelty, the human facility for violent sadism and unleashing horror, this story of a long drive to a place where there's "nothing to do" undertaken by two British acquaintances in a former African colony, is a worthy heir to Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness.

The Circus at Luxor (the epilogue) tells how the writer finally intervenes against the actions of an Egyptian ‘protecting the tourists’ from poor and begging local children. He cannot bear to see this man whipping the children when they come scrounging for scraps. Most of the tourists ignore them as if they were not even there, but the Italians bait them, throwing food to lure them over. The writer of the journal takes the whip from the security guard, and he submits – because really, nothing much has changed in post-colonial Egypt. It seems as though Naipaul believes that man’s inhumanity to man knows no cultural or political bounds. Those in power will always exploit those who are powerless..

In England, a brother takes advantage of a brother, patrons of a shopkeeper, one group of workers of another group. On a ship to Alexandria, two Lebanese, with the help of a German who in other circumstances would not have soiled his hands with them, turn on a poor ratty tramp. In Egypt, an Egyptian flunky lays his whip to the backs of children scrounging for uneaten sandwiches thrown on the sand by Italian tourists. What the author is saying is that neither customs nor color nor culture seems able to quiet that impulse to destruction, that murderous wantonness that is so much part of our makeup. Greed, vanity, stupidity, socio-economic status and racism rule everywhere