Guerrillas [Paperback]

V.S. Naipaul (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 12, 1980

Set on a troubled Caribbean island - where Asians, Africans, Americans and former British colonials co-exist in a state of suppressed hysteria - "Guerrillas" is a novel of colonialism and revolution. A white man arrives with his mistress, an English woman influenced by fantasies of native power and sexuality, unaware of the consequences of her actions. Together with a leader of the "revolution", they act out a gripping drama of death, sexual violence, and spiritual impotence. "Guerrillas" depicts a convulsion in public life, and ends in private violence. Place and people are evoked with an intensity unrivalled elsewhere. The novel comes with extraordinary force from the centre of a profound moral awareness of the world's plight. 'Impeccable prose, precise, austere, modulating always from place to people to dialogue with a fastidious reserve. "Guerrillas" seems to me Naipaul's Heart of Darkness: a brilliant artist's anatomy of emptiness, and of despair' - "Observer".

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Impeccable prose, precise, austere, modulating always from place to people to dialogue with a fastidious reserve. Guerrillas seems to me Naipaul's Heart of Darkness: a brilliant artist's anatomy of emptiness, and of despair' Observer --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Inside Flap

A novel of colonialism and revolution, death, sexual violence and political and spiritual impotence. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 292 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vintage Book ed edition (September 12, 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394744926
• ISBN-13: 978-0394744926
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,664,190 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterful depiction of social and moral breakdown...., September 23, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Sarasota, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guerrillas (Paperback)

Having just finished reading GUERRILLAS, I surfed over to read what others thought. The other reviews left me somewhat staggered and altogether bewildered. GUERRILLAS is set on a benighted and misbegotten Caribbean island in modern (that is to say, postcolonial) times. The novel is not set in Africa. Pointedly, the book's power derives in part from its portrayal of Caribbean rhythms, the oppressive and ominous atmosphere of the coconut plantation, the tribal background beat of "the reggae" (Naipaul's phrase). The second great strength of this novel is its depiction of human frailites, transgressions, and moral breakdowns. An expatriate English couple and a West-Indian would-be revolutionary are the three main characters, and the agonizing (and mostly self-destructive) sexual and philosophic choices they are faced with ring true to life. The compromises and rationalizations they make to themselves and each other result in their irrevocable mental and moral deterioration. The fragility of the social setting in which Jane, Roche, and Jimmy find themselves leads to infidelity, sexual abuse, murder, and what can be just as horrifying as any of these, the voluntary surrender of one's soul. Finally, the novel's powerful, profound ending arrestingly reveals the enigmatic and conflicted essence of postcolonial consciousness. GUERRILLAS is a minor masterpiece.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Analyses of Guerrilla, February 11, 2002

By 

Joseph - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guerrillas (Paperback)

Analyses of V.S. Naipaul's Guerillas

V.S. Naipaul's novel, Guerillas tells the story of Peter Roche, a South African resistance fighter, his mistress Jane, and a revolutionary leader Jimmy Ahmed. The book unfolds on a former British colony in the Caribbean during the 1970`s. This Island is inhabited with Asians, Africans, Americans and former British colonials. Racial and economic tensions are ever present and the islanders are said to "coexist in hysteria." Peter Roche has made his way to the island to "work," while his mistress, Jane, has come along to join Peter for her own reasons. From Jane's point of view, initially, Peter was a doer and had a cause. He was saint-like and gentle. However as the novel progressed, she began to see Peter in a different light. Furthermore, from his own perspective, Peter was a failure, and inadequate in the eyes of Jane, who he grew to seek approval from. It was Jane's ultimate rejection of Peter via her sexual indecencies that enabled Peter, in an attempt to salvage his pride, to overlook the forced sodemy and murder of his wife by Jimmy Ahmed.

Peter Roche was a South African freedom fighter. Though he was white, he readily fought for the black man and even risked his life for apartheid. He authored a book about his experiences in South Africa. He was tortured by the South African government and was asked to recount his memoirs in a book. It was under these pretences that he had met his mistress Jane. She was in the publishing business and used his book as an excuse to get to know him. Jane was portrayed as a character that lived through her men. She seemed incomplete without a man. Further, it seemed as if she was searching for a rich, powerful, handsome man that could finance her life and make her a complete person. When the novel began, she had found this in Peter. According to Jane, he was intelligent, well known in London, and was a "doer." Jane saw Peter as an individual with a cause and therefore looked up to him. She even said that she found him "handsome." Her life before Peter was a colorful one, filled with different lovers, and even a marriage. This shows her reliance on men and her feelings of incompleteness without a significant other.
Naipaul doesn't fully disclose Peter Roche's experiences in South Africa. Further, the novel doesn't comment on his political ideologies, or what affects the torture had on Peter physically or psychologically. It can be assumed that the South Africans' broke him down. However, he willingly put himself in a position that he knew would warrant severe penalty if caught. Even though he was freed by the government and able to live a hassle-free life in London, he chose not to do so. This shows that Peter was searching for something to do with his life. He came to the Caribbean island to be a hero. He wanted to set in motion some sort of change that could help the people of the island. He wanted to be looked up to and respected. However, as time passed on in the island, he felt more and more isolated. He began to realize that his presence on the island was a source of tension and controversy. People on the island had not read his book, and the little fame that he had had in London was nonexistent on the island. Further, he worked for a company, Siblich that used to be heavily involved in the slave trade on that exact island. It was generally thought among the people that in hiring Peter, the firm was attempting a public relations ploy. Peter therefore became disillusioned with his role on the island. He wished that, "His life had taken another turn." (204) He no longer knew why he was there and what he was to do with his life.

Peter's failure at making a difference on the island drove him to look for comfort in Jane. She however, had become withdrawn from him and no longer cared what he did. She "detached herself from his failure and his job." (97) She spent most of the hot days drunk off of "rum punch" or having an affair with a sexually perverse man named Jimmy "Leung" Ahmed. Jimmy was a mulatto (half Chinese half black) who married mysterious English women and lived in London near Wimbledon. Since then, he had moved to this island and become the leader of the "Revolution for land," which was the major opposition group to the present government. He lived and led his operations out of a commune called Thrushcross Grange that had many black boys living on it. Peter's company, Sablich, was apparently giving aid to Jimmy's movement. Jimmy, however, fantasized most of the day in his writings about his life; who he was and who he would be. He fantasizes about his shortcomings and his race and his inadequacies. He also thought of Jane and invited her over to his house. He "had intercourse with her," even though it seemed that he also enjoyed having sex with Bryant, one of the boys on the commune. It wasn't clear until the end, but Jimmy and his boys were the "Guerrillas," and were part of the resistance movement. However, the American inhabitants of the island refused to let the resistance take hold of the government. That would jeopardize their bauxite mining and would be economically disadvantageous. So, the guerrillas' attempts at rioting were futile and the army quickly contained them
. After Jane's relationship with Peter began to brake down and tensions on the island became great, she decided to leave and move back to London. Jane, "had come to the end of a cycle...and [was going] to get started on another" relationship. She went to say goodbye to Jimmy. He then precedes to sodemize her and brings her to Bryant who "cuts her up" and kills her.
Later that day, Roche comes to see Jimmy and sees Jane's "sahara" lighter. He immediately smells foul play and realizes that Jimmy, or the boys have murdered Jane. He runs away and goes back to his home on the Ridge. He finds her passport and her ticket and rips up the ticket. He is willing to overlook the murder because if he acknowledges it, he will be brought to shame. In order to keep his sanity, he must get rid of Jane. Her rejection of him is too much for him to handle. His feelings of failure coupled with his rejection by the people of the island were a slap in the face to Peter. Having to come to terms with Jane cheating on him, looking down on him, and leaving him would have been to hard for him to cope. So, in a way, he welcomed Jane's murder, as it allowed him to continue living.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Sad (and oh so slow) Lesson in Politcal Psychology, July 9, 2002

By 

a reader (friendship heights) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guerrillas (Paperback)

Even though it's barely 250 pages, it took me months to finish Guerrillas. The novel's island is a place of poverty and decay, and Naipaul uses long and labored descriptions to make us actually feel the stagnant despair. Unfortunately, the descriptions don't so much paint a picture in our mind's eye as simply exasperate our patience.

What's more, for the first two-hundred pages almost nothing happens. Our characters find themselves on the sidelines, powerless, and perhaps unwilling to do anything for the impovrished people whose suffering seemed to draw them across the Atlantic to begin with.

Style further follows substance because the novel, like its characters, seldom attempts to understand the suffering of the island's racially oppressed people. We have no account of the problems of their current government or the specifics of their colonial history. Their suffering is treated only as part of the landscape as seen through the eyes of an outsider or tourist. Our protagonists claim to be on the island to affect positive change, but it's their underlying self-interest that concerns Naipaul most and serves as the novel's primary conceit. Slowly, he uncovers the seemingly bottomless vanity and vulnerability of his characters. Eventually he strips sympathy from sufferering and righteousness from social activism (while dabbling in more-than-a-little misogyny).

It's outlook isn't sunny, but the novel is both memorable and effective. I can see how others would disagree, and I can't recommend it to the casual reader unless he's particularly interested in the tension between liberalism and self-interest.