Customer Reviews

The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief (Borzoi Books)

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1 star:		(4)

 

 

In popular parlance, "mumbo jumbo" is a pejorative label for unintelligible technical language and/or for absurd magical blather. It's a useful term for discussing neoliberal economic theories, such as those of assorted Republican contenders for the role of heir-apparent. In V.S. Naipaul's latest travelogue, The Masque of Africa, Mumbo-Jumbo is a specific, recognizable supernatural personage, a vaguely menacing figure reminiscent of the Norse Loki or the Native American Coyote. The book is replete with such intriguingly 'fresh' details, traveler's snapshots of the quaint and curious. If you expect more than traveler's observation, I warn you, you've chosen the wrong book. Naipaul is quite forthright in subtitling his newest book as "GLIMPSES of African Belief." He's not a sociologist, not a historian, not in fact a scholarly writer of any sort; he's an intellectual tourist with an immense talent for turning his glimpses into delightful prose. Occasionally those glimpses are startlingly thought-provoking, but as a traveler, Naipaul is far more adept at asking questions and noticing anomalies than at systematic analyses. That has always been true of his travelogues, though his two books about journeys in Islam were tougher-minded than this book about a jaunt in Africa.

Naipaul makes his agenda plain: "... the theme of The Masque of Africa is African belief. I begin in Uganda, at the center of the continent, do Ghana and Nigeria, the Ivory Coast and Gabon, and end at the bottom of the continent in South Africa. My theme is belief, not political or economical life; and yet at the bottom of the continent the political realities are so overwhelming that they have to be taken into account." Whoa, Vidiadhar Sahib, that's quite an itinerary! It reminds me of the old joke about the American tourist in Europe: if today is Tuesday, this must be Belgium. But Naipaul has no intention of trying to be thorough or comprehensive; much as his writings have always wrestled with issues of 'belief', in Africa he is honestly a kind of bird watcher, peering through his verbal binoculars hither and yon, hoping to spot something randomly significant. Don't suppose that I'm scorning his method here! I relished this book a lot for its literary mastery, and I found it to be a more 'realistic' depiction of Africa as a place, more accurately descriptive than the bulk of books I've read about the continent as I've seen it myself on a few very short visits.

In his chapter about Nigeria, Naipaul writes: "I had a romantic idea of the earth religions. I felt they took us back to the beginning, a philosophical big bang, and I cherished them for that reason. I thought they had a kind of beauty. But the past here still lived. People like the contractor [one of Naipaul's Nigerian informants] were closer to it, and his words ... gave a new idea: the dark abyss of paganism. Others spoke of that as well, in their own way; and it seemed to me that people near the bottom, who responded more instinctively to things, had the greater fear. The fear was real, not affected, and I felt it was this, rather than ideas of beauty and history and culture... that was keeping the past and all the old gods close." Aha! A 'romantic idea' indeed, or else an astonishing naivete for a Nobel Prize winner! But my nose tells me that Naipaul is being disingenuous, setting himself up as his own straw man. He does that a lot in this book. Plays 'straight man' to his own sardonic self. In fact, he invents an image of himself as a casual traveler careful of his health and his budget, almost a knapsack wanderer. Don't fall for that! He's a renowned author of thirty books, including several best sellers. With his royalties and his Nobel winnings, he really doesn't need to be cautious about overpaying a taxi driver. And he doesn't just 'arrive' anywhere unannounced; his contacts are all in place and his introductions come from the highest levels. If he chooses to impress the reader with the risks involved in visiting a slum or a backwoods shrine, it's only for literary effect. He is, please remember, a very famous and recognizable man in his late seventies, and no African government would risk allowing a mishap to him.

So why? Naipaul is a born poseur whose whole career has been based on fictionalizing himself. Whether you find his poses charming or annoying will depend on you. There are honorable people in this world who despise Naipaul's aloof, judgmental objectivity. He has been lambasted by both liberals and conservatives, usually for NOT taking sides. My impression of him is that he cherishes or at least relishes individual human beings but dislikes the species at large. He has made his distaste for the two "world religions" of Islam and Christianity fiercely explicit, a stance not calculated to make him beloved. In his glimpses of Africa, he is obviously disposed to perceive the worst effects of missionary imperialism from either world religion. He declares: "Perhaps an unspoken aspect of my inquiry was the possibility of the subversion of old Africa by the ways of the outside world."

What! Unspoken? More disingenuousness! Isn't it clear, Viadadhar my friend, that you deeply believe Africa would be a happier place if "we" had left it alone? And in that, I wouldn't disagree.

Honestly, Naipaul is far more distressed about the destruction of the forests and the decimation of wildlife than he is about the 'saving of souls' or the dependency of the global economy on African resources. Still, whether you share his values or not, you won't be bored as a reader by his subtle exposition of them.

The title of this book deserves some scrutiny. "Masque" is not a quaint British spelling of "mask", nor a synonym. It's a verb in one sense, meaning 'to wear a mask'. It's also a genre of musical theater, popular in aristocratic circles in 17th C England, an entertainment for the Elite often performed by the Elite themselves. Both senses are pertinent to Naipaul's book. Again and again, as part of his elite itinerary, Naipaul is shown spectacles of African pagan 'superstition' and ritual, some of them in full regalia, staged for him and for more ordinary tourists. And he enjoys the show. I imagine you and I would, also. A large share of the book is devoted to Naipaul's conversations with his informants from various social classes, his drivers, his hotel servants, his hired guides, but also several extremely protected elites, people like Winnie Mandela, Jerry Rawlings, and the presidents of various banks, who would not be accessible except as part of the Masque. Naipaul seldom reveals his stage machinery, seldom discloses how his contacts were prearranged. He's a sly impresario, this masquer from Trinidad!

I don't imagine that everyone will be satisfied with Naipaul's stance in this book. Those with the most earnest humanitarian concerns and those with the staunchest political opinions will probably accuse him of dilettantish trivialization. Let me say it plainly: this is an entertainment, a masque as artificial as Henry Purcell's "Fairy Queen". If it also stimulates insights, that's "valued added".

I was a sympathetic reader going in. I have read and admired V.S. Naipaul's fiction and nonfiction for decades. I anticipated his newest tome, The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief, enough to pre-order it. But I came away disappointed not only in the book but in the Nobel Prize-winning author as well.

It was bad enough that Naipaul skims the surface here in his investigation of traditional African religion. He seemingly conducted no scholarly research (there is none cited) and interviewed no experts, relying instead on anecdotal evidence taken from literary and political operatives and a few reputed and urbanized holy men, tribal chiefs and witchdoctors. But even then he might have pulled off this disorganized and eclectic travelogue if he had taken the time to actually write some decent prose. But it reads like a first draft, and as Hemingway said, "All first drafts are s***."

Here, for example, is a portion of the Nobel Laureate's account of his visit to the home of former Ghana president Jerry Rawlings:

"The house was well run. No word had been said but, to bridge the gap left by Rawlings and his wife, a well dressed waiter appeared with coffee and fruit juice. I went to the lavatory. I saw the family dogs in two big paved cages at the back of the yard. One cage had small dogs. The other cage had big dogs, a Dalmatian and various hounds, all fine and well exercised and happy. While I watched I saw them fed by a servant who entered the cages with their food. I could have looked at the feeding scene for a long time."

This was the sort paragraph I would love to come across when reading freshman compositions. I would have its author copy it on the chalkboard and then proceed to instruct the class in basic prose craft: When and how to combine sentences. How to vary sentence structure. Where to add sensory details that make a scene come alive. How to use action verbs instead of flaccid state-of-being verbs like "was" and "had." And then perhaps to talk about larger issues, such as developing a taste for what a reader might find interesting. Thus I would also instruct the Nobel Laureate.

I could cite scores of similar examples in the book, but I have more consideration for my readers than does Naipaul, apparently. Now pushing 80, he drags us from one superficial encounter to another, humorless, tired and at times admittedly frivolous. Driven not by desire to grasp and understand African belief but, seemingly, to fulfill a book contract obligation.

His powers of observation dimmed, he seems rather bored by his subject and the people he meets. Perhaps in part because he meets with the wrong people. Much of his reporting is hearsay rather than direct observation. A lot of talk without much point, and even Naipaul himself often questions the credibility of his sources. But the book is well subtitled, as all we get here are mere glimpses of traditional African religion, and no cohesive and revealing portrait.

However, we do stumble across some fascinating tidbits about Islam in Africa: its practice of polygamy and opposition to the nuclear family, seen as selfish and ruinous to societies; the harsh realities of harem life; the use of Egyptian eunuchs as harem guards. Alas, these are contemporary, not historic accounts, albeit second-hand, as Naipaul was denied access to the harems. Nonetheless, one wishes he had devised a way to interview a eunuch or a concubine. He also reports the horrid yet compelling recent history of Uganda, as well as other African locales.

I suspect that Naipaul's agent and publisher encouraged him to write and publish this book, figuring to earn some fast cash off the venerated author. Had they, instead, been looking out for his legacy and reputation, they would have encouraged him to rework or, better yet, recycle his manuscript.

All the above reviewers have more opinions about V.S. Naipaul'a Nobel, writing, the editing of this book, the author's integrity, intelligience and knowledge than I.

I read the book non stop in two days. My overall impression was that Africa was hot and dirty and impossible. Naipaul conveyed the belief that animism never leaves the African soul, no matter how educted the brain, and that the reason Christianity accomplished inroads was its similiar belief in the power of spirits. Whether either point is true, others will have to say.

I liked the brief portrait of Winnie Mandela, a woman who has been much scorned and vilified. It gave me a different opinion of her, a positive change. And, it reaffirmed my thoughts about Bishop Tutu.

Most interestingly, Naipaul speaks to the destruction of a *legacy* by the commericalization of a leader's image. Listen up, Reaganites!

Underlying the spontaneous reporting we can detect Naipaul's careful preparation. His visits to religious leaders are set up through a grapevine of contacts. He arrives as a visiting head of the literary world, escorted by local officials of various kinds. He tries to observe protocol carefully, like he was calling on royals in Europe. During his first visits in Uganda and Nigeria, Naipaul seems to accept that African religion revolves around the old cults of kings and tribal leaders. Then he branches out to explore popular religion as a relationship with nature or a means of influencing personal fate. The trip through Gabon shows an especially appealing side of African natural religion. And the trip to South Africa shows folk religion at its most disoriented and grasping. Through it all, Naipaul pays attention to how people regard animals. He feels it is an important barometer of their humanity.

VS Naipaul's most recent book continues both his recent trend towards more spare expression and anecdotal travelogue. What you get here is fresh, interesting and helpful inasmuch as it presents a narrator seemingly lacking an agenda other than observing traditional African religion without any preconceptions. Of course, this echoes other moments of fake objectivity dating back to some of his first works. He's always been a bastard, but he writes beautifully. He's always been ambivalent in his views...that's why they're interesting. I lean more towards political progressives, but his sternness and misanthropic individualism demand attention. He clearly knows more about this subject than the narrator here shows. Disingenuous? Yes. Fascinating, deflating and morose? Indeed.

In popular parlance, "mumbo jumbo" is a pejorative label for unintelligible technical language and/or for absurd magical blather. It's a useful term for discussing neoliberal economic theories, such as those of assorted Republican contenders for the role of heir-apparent. In V.S. Naipaul's latest travelogue, The Masque of Africa, Mumbo-Jumbo is a specific, recognizable supernatural personage, a vaguely menacing figure reminiscent of the Norse Loki or the Native American Coyote. The book is replete with such intriguingly 'fresh' details, traveler's snapshots of the quaint and curious. If you expect more than traveler's observation, I warn you, you've chosen the wrong book. Naipaul is quite forthright in subtitling his newest book as "GLIMPSES of African Belief." He's not a sociologist, not a historian, not in fact a scholarly writer of any sort; he's an intellectual tourist with an immense talent for turning his glimpses into delightful prose. Occasionally those glimpses are startlingly thought-provoking, but as a traveler, Naipaul is far more adept at asking questions and noticing anomalies than at systematic analyses. That has always been true of his travelogues, though his two books about journeys in Islam were tougher-minded than this book about a jaunt in Africa.

Naipaul makes his agenda plain: "... the theme of The Masque of Africa is African belief. I begin in Uganda, at the center of the continent, do Ghana and Nigeria, the Ivory Coast and Gabon, and end at the bottom of the continent in South Africa. My theme is belief, not political or economical life; and yet at the bottom of the continent the political realities are so overwhelming that they have to be taken into account." Whoa, Vidiadhar Sahib, that's quite an itinerary! It reminds me of the old joke about the American tourist in Europe: if today is Tuesday, this must be Belgium. But Naipaul has no intention of trying to be thorough or comprehensive; much as his writings have always wrestled with issues of 'belief', in Africa he is honestly a kind of bird watcher, peering through his verbal binoculars hither and yon, hoping to spot something randomly significant. Don't suppose that I'm scorning his method here! I relished this book a lot for its literary mastery, and I found it to be a more 'realistic' depiction of Africa as a place, more accurately descriptive than the bulk of books I've read about the continent as I've seen it myself on a few very short visits.

In his chapter about Nigeria, Naipaul writes: "I had a romantic idea of the earth religions. I felt they took us back to the beginning, a philosophical big bang, and I cherished them for that reason. I thought they had a kind of beauty. But the past here still lived. People like the contractor [one of Naipaul's Nigerian informants] were closer to it, and his words ... gave a new idea: the dark abyss of paganism. Others spoke of that as well, in their own way; and it seemed to me that people near the bottom, who responded more instinctively to things, had the greater fear. The fear was real, not affected, and I felt it was this, rather than ideas of beauty and history and culture... that was keeping the past and all the old gods close." Aha! A 'romantic idea' indeed, or else an astonishing naivete for a Nobel Prize winner! But my nose tells me that Naipaul is being disingenuous, setting himself up as his own straw man. He does that a lot in this book. Plays 'straight man' to his own sardonic self. In fact, he invents an image of himself as a casual traveler careful of his health and his budget, almost a knapsack wanderer. Don't fall for that! He's a renowned author of thirty books, including several best sellers. With his royalties and his Nobel winnings, he really doesn't need to be cautious about overpaying a taxi driver. And he doesn't just 'arrive' anywhere unannounced; his contacts are all in place and his introductions come from the highest levels. If he chooses to impress the reader with the risks involved in visiting a slum or a backwoods shrine, it's only for literary effect. He is, please remember, a very famous and recognizable man in his late seventies, and no African government would risk allowing a mishap to him.

So why? Naipaul is a born 'actor' whose whole career has been based on fictionalizing himself. Whether you find his poses charming or annoying will depend on you. There are honorable people in this world who despise Naipaul's aloof, judgmental objectivity. He has been lambasted by both liberals and conservatives, usually for NOT taking sides. My impression of him is that he cherishes or at least relishes individual human beings but dislikes the species at large. He has made his distaste for the two "world religions" of Islam and Christianity fiercely explicit, a stance not calculated to make him beloved. In his glimpses of Africa, he is obviously disposed to perceive the worst effects of missionary imperialism from either world religion. He declares: "Perhaps an unspoken aspect of my inquiry was the possibility of the subversion of old Africa by the ways of the outside world."

What! Unspoken? More disingenuousness! Isn't it clear, Viadadhar my friend, that you deeply believe Africa would be a happier place if "we" had left it alone? If so, I wouldn't rush to disagree with you.

Honestly, Naipaul is far more distressed about the destruction of the forests and the decimation of wildlife than he is about the 'saving of souls' or the dependency of the global economy on African resources. Still, whether you share his values or not, you won't be bored as a reader by his subtle exposition of them.

The title of this book deserves some scrutiny. "Masque" is not a quaint British spelling of "mask", nor a synonym. It's a verb in one sense, meaning 'to wear a mask'. It's also a genre of musical theater, popular in aristocratic circles in 17th C England, an entertainment for the Elite often performed by the Elite themselves. Both senses are pertinent to Naipaul's book. Again and again, as part of his elite itinerary, Naipaul is shown spectacles of African pagan 'superstition' and ritual, some of them in full regalia, staged for him and for more ordinary tourists. And he enjoys the show. I imagine you and I would, also. A large share of the book is devoted to Naipaul's conversations with his informants from various social classes, his drivers, his hotel servants, his hired guides, but also several extremely protected elites, people like Winnie Mandela, Jerry Rawlings, and the presidents of various banks, who would not be accessible except as part of the Masque. Naipaul seldom reveals his stage machinery, seldom discloses how his contacts were prearranged. He's a sly impresario, this masquer from Trinidad!

I don't imagine that everyone will be satisfied with Naipaul's stance in this book. Those with the most earnest humanitarian concerns and those with the staunchest political opinions will probably accuse him of dilettantish trivialization. Let me say it plainly: this is an entertainment, a masque as artificial as Henry Purcell's "Fairy Queen". If it also stimulates insights, that's "valued added".

With Naipaul your mileage may vary, but you always know what you are getting. Here you get him revisiting some of his old African haunts, being escorted around like the famous travel writer that he is, meeting with African royalty, Winnie Mandela, witch doctors and various other representative figures of African life.

This is very loosely organized, the "belief" narrative not very convincing, so it winds up being mostly a well-written travelogue. As usual Naipaul has his idiosyncrasies -- he is obsessed with cleanliness or the lack thereof, Western civilization and colonialism, and seems peculiarly occupied with money -- everyone he meets wants some, or so Naipaul suspects.

Not essential in my view.

Any new book by VS Naipaul is an event to look forward to.
VS Naipaul's latest book The Masque of Africa is his observations of African belief as he moved from Uganda to Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Gabon ending in South Africa. Naipaul finds that Africans are still very much concerned with indigenous belief, spirits and medicine man.

Naipaul's trademark travel writings are his sharp observations of human behaviour and his sardonic wry humour. You won't find the history background in his writings.

Naipaul is 78 this year. That could explain why his writing here is less dense; shorter and simpler sentence structure compared to say his India trilogy written in his much younger and perhaps angrier days. However it is still a joy to read Naipaul's elegant prose.

I was expecting a condescending hatchet job, given the tone of Naipaul's recent writings on Third World affairs. But he is still too observant and objective a writer for that, instead illuminating the themes of decay, sprawl, the artificiality of First World cultural overlays, and the sometimes malevolent persistence of native spiritual attitudes. His Trinidadian roots give him a sense of affinity with the common African folk, and he has come away with a rewarding book of travel reportage.

He records generous excerpts of first-person narratives from a wide range of types. I admit I expected many of these to be presented as self-damning, but most of them are respectful and insightful. Some of the speakers present spot-on explanations of the African plight, how their ancient traditions, swamped by modernity. have warped into mere markers of local identity. Darker strains of tradition persist, as at one point Naipaul is informed of a local sacred spot being used for ritual child sacrifice.

The implication is left to stand that the Christian missionaries were invaders and usurpers. As one intellectual says, "My people had a civilisation. It was very different but it was their own ... The missionaries took away our land, religion and customs ... they brainwashed us ... When a person or race comes and imposes on you, it takes away everything, and it is a vicious thing to do." Here, Naipaul's self-confessed ignorance of Christianity betrays him. Inundated with the continent's relentless horrors, it is hard to remember to ask, not why there is so much strife, but why isn't there more. The Christians themes of love and brotherhood have indeed gentled Africa's inter-tribal hostility to an extent. An east African pastor of my acquaintance once told me how mutually hostile the tribes of his country were, attacking each other on sight, until the Christian message seeped into their souls.

He pronounces some people and locales hopeless, which doesn't sit well with naturally optimistic American readers. But he also records the continents astounding diversity--real diversity, among its different lands and cultures and attitudes, and mercifully distinguishing them from the insipid New Age faux-shamanism of the First World. Highly recommended.

This book is a disappointment. I cannot understand why it is so well-regarded in some quarters.

The first reason it disappoints so can be summed up in the author's own words. He states, of Rian Malan's work, "The reader has to be sent away with a feeling of purpose, of something achieved." That is precisely what this book does not accomplish. The author spent a few months in Africa, moving, apparently aimlessly, from place to place, allegedly seeking a profound understanding of African traditional religious belief. He records his random interaction with this person and that person, his disjointed experiences in this place and that place, giving us accounts that barely rise to impressionistic records of what he saw and heard without ever shedding any light on the ostensible subject. As an objective investigation, the book is utterly lacking, containing not a shred of verifiable information or data at all related to his subject. As an emotional expression, the book is dull, flat and pedestrian; his most powerfully felt responses are expressions of concern for the welfare of the stray kittens he encounters from time to time and his near panic whenever it occurs to him that the politics of a given encounter may require him to cough up some cash.

The second reason it disappoints is that it is so badly written. He simply shows no gift for or skill with language. His writing has no rhythm, no music, no flair, no style. He neither takes pleasure in words and language nor gives pleasure through them. He gives us the flat, dull, lifeless reportage of a journalist assigned to a boring beat forced to write at a fourth-grade level. The single most inescapable responsibility of the writer is to hold the attention of the reader; this reader found himself forced to hold his own attention on the book, which did nothing to assist the effort. I do hope someday to find a really good book on African traditional religion; this one most assuredly does not fill the bill.