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A Turn in the South

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Globetrotting author V.S. Naipaul turns his eye to the American South in this fascinating, multifarious examination of culture and attitudes prevalent among blacks and whites from Tallahassee to Charlestown to Nashville.

The title is a bit misleading. "A Turn In The South" suggests a change or culture shift Naipaul is tracking, for better or worse, in the Southland. In fact, the story here can be summarized as more of the same, a region so steeped in tradition it's almost choking from it like kudzu. Naipaul is not particularly critical; in fact his book is remarkably even in tone and light in judgment. But if there's one message in this book, it's that the South remains the same, for good and ill.

Unlike the better-known Southern guidebook "Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil," Naipaul doesn't focus on just one city, He moves around, and you don't get a strong sense of place much of the time. People and ideas interest Naipaul more, and there are some wonderful portraits like the Forsyth County sheriff who says a racial crisis in his county is now "dead" because everyone involved got their 15 minutes in front of the camera and the black activist who promotes his civil disobedience arrest record to the point of carrying a toothbrush in his jacket pocket.

Writer Anne Seddons notes Americans are born protesters, "It's what we know how to do." Many talk raptly about their religious faith, which leaves the non-religious Naipaul respectfully puzzled. Naipaul makes clear that there is intelligence in the devout, and that even the more doctrinaire and conservative sects allow room for questioning and self-expression. This is something many Americans have a hard time picking up on.

When I told a relative I read this book, he recalled it was the one with the redneck in it. That's probably what "Turn In The South" is best known for, the account Naipaul gives of a zesty conversation with a self-styled "neck" named Campbell which provides a great deal of comedy and insight as he describes the men and women who make up the South's best-known subculture (though perhaps counterculture is a better word.)

"He's probably thinking, with that hair and beard, that he's God's gift to the world," Campbell tells Naipaul after spying a fellow redneck in a hotel lobby. "But he's just a neck. He's as lost as a goose. He's never been on a tiled floor in his life."

"Turn In The South" is not always so zippy. Naipaul moves carefully, and while he's great at relating dialogue, he's not as certain about what makes Southerners tick. He often pulls back and likens the Southern experience to that of his native Caribbean, which gets repetitive after a while and adds little. He's justly famous for describing cultures in India, Africa, and Trinidad, and this feels more like an attempt to broaden his palette than say something new.

But what's here has value and readability. Many of the characters stay with you, and since Naipaul doesn't linger on anyone for more than a few pages, often much less, there's a lot of narrative churn to keep your interest even when individual characters don't.

"Turn In The South" is a good, solid, refreshingly humble, and non-P.C. account of what makes the South tick, how, as Naipaul puts it, it is a place of "optimism in the foreground, irrationality in the background," and why, for all its faults, crimes, and travails, it is still a place people are proud to call home.

Naipaul went on a brief trip to the South of the US and wrote a travellogue on it. While I do not believe it is as good as the ones he has written on India and Islam, it was well worth the read. What he concentrates on is the struggle of people to realise themselves, to find an identity in the chaos of modern life. As he sees it, the plight of American blacks is very moving indeed, and beautifully written as always.

I think that where a lot of people get critical of this book is that they expect it to be academic and somehow definitive, rather than so personal. Naipaul is a novelist, so what you get is anecdote and impression, rather than a comprehensive approach. If that is what you expect, this is a very fulfilling reading experience.

REcommended.

V. S. Naipaul went to visit the American South with the intention of writing a book about race relations, but as he traveled from state to state, or rather from community to community, he found that racism was less the defining episteme of southern culture than a pervasive devotion to mythology--the core myths of fundamentalism, the myths of ante-bellum splendor and gallantry, the myths of special southern providence. Elvis, tobacco, and fatness are all integrated into Naipaul's perception of a South wallowing in self-mythology, a culture that abounds in self-consciousness without ever achieving relativism. Nonetheless, Naipaul finds, he likes traveling in the South, and in the end he writes a book which is as gentle and sympathetic to his subject as could reasonably be desired.
Not an American, neither White nor Black, certainly not a man of religion, Naipaul credits the comforts and strengths that religiosity brings to Southerners of both races, while he also identifies the stifling consequences. This is easily the most accurate and insightful portrayal of the South that I've ever read, not even excluding literary giants like Faulkner and Welty.
The writing style is remarkably casual, almost off-hand, not at all high-brow, yet the reader will find that Naipaul knows exactly what he wants to say and where he thinks the "turn in the south" will take us.

I bought this book after a fair amount of consideration. Most foreign writers, from Dickens to Camus, have visited the US and come away with nothing good to say. It become a rote right of passage for Nobel-bound authors to visit the US, find it lumpen and lame, and then bring out a margin travel book about the experience.

There is none of this Naipaul's book, which, true to the title, is concerned with the Southern states. Anyone familiar with Naipaul's other travel works will recognize the form: This is not a book about the writer in a strange place; this is a book of stories about people and their experiences with home. Naipaul meets lay preachers and famous writers (Eudora Welty) and bible-thumping Southern politicans. He meets the self-described, proud "rednecks" (who fascinate him: Only a foreigner, and perhaps only VS Naipaul, could beautify these people, and in them find a sort of culture and heroic resistance in their Cat hats and beer guts). Race, religion and the tragic Southern history are the dominant themes of this book. If you read it, you will come away with a new sense of Southern history and Southern people. It may not be the truth, but it's close to it.

"A Turn in the South" is one of my favorite books. It's memoir like style is evocative of the best of Naipal. Couple that with his talents as a journalist and his keen eye for controversy and you have a solid travelogue that addresses important topics of Southern culture.

When V.S. Naipal, raised in Trinidad of Indian parents, makes a wide swath through the Deep South he plunges headlong into its controversies while making notable mention of what makes it beautiful and different. This is typical Naipal, his views on colonization and the freedom granted to people who no longer live under dominion of the conquering powers would get him into much trouble were he, say, professor of English at Duke University. But being both a minority and a former colonial subject he can freely say what others might cower away from.

For example, in "A Turn in the South" Naipal travels to Missippi to visit Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute. If you've read "Up from Slavery" you know of Washington and his school built to educate the recently-freed negro to whether the vicissitudes of living in the dominate apartheid white culture. That was a grand accomplishment indeed. But what does Naipal highlight when he rolls into town? It is the drunken, unemployed black men hanging literally at the door of this great school. It is this irony which makes this section of the travelogue so pleasurable to read.

Another great section is Naipal's journey to Atlanta, Georgia the self-proclaimed "black mecca"--the "city that is too busy to hate". Seeking to dig beneath the glass and steel veneer of the downtown skyline Naipal seeks out the most controversial local political character Josea Williams. For those who do not know him, Mr. Williams is the Al Sharpton of the South, a race baiter par excellence.

As a South Carolina native I am pleased that Naipal chose Charleston, South Carolina for a stop over. He visits one of the local plantations as the guest of the editor of "The News and Courier"newspaper whose family owned the plantation since the days of slavery. Naipal's visit is not critical as might be the case with people in the non-South diaspora. Yankee writers like John Steinbeck--read "Travels with Charlie"-- tend to dismiss the region as backward, unenlightened, and owing reparations. But Naipal's jaunt is whimsical-written in the Magnolia and Moonlight voice that Naipal points out is what pleases the Southerner. Naipal is dead-on accurate when he says that to a Southerner "history is religion". We believe deeply in our heritage and decorate our landscape with commerative plaques and Confederate flags. The plantation that Naipal visits is just one oversized monument to our ante-bellum lore.

In my mind this is among the great travel essays comparable to those of Mark Twain's trip around the world, Gustave Flaubert's journey to Egypt, and D.H. Lawrence's time spent in Italy. I can't end here without mentioning that Naipal's brother Shrinivas wrote an excellent travelogue of Africa--equally filled with controversial vignettes--called "East to West".

Naipaul reminds us of the creepy, unlikely, weird but true links among the southern cities, Africa, Caribbean slave trade, that there was a triangle of economic dependency and competitiveness. He also gives a readable account of the intrigue and competition among the colonial powers.

While these are captivating narratives and cutting commentaries on the south from a decidedly non white, non black, non American, still, I think he is best at fiction.

To explain, I was uncomfortable by the long, long quotation from real life-style writing, as though he is not adding but is merely coldly retelling what some local guide person told him. It's like Naipaul is admitting that he hasn't internalized and sublimated the experience, just regurgitating what some dude told him, and he can't take responsibility for the horrors they've conveyed.

I am guessing the very talented fiction writer sometimes takes long breaks from what he does best because he needs to regroup and use different parts of his brain.

I purchased this book for a graduate class in literature. We used it to discuss the nature of the south and its various traditions. Naipaul has a unique view as a person of color and yet not a southerner.

This book gives you an insight into the Southern way of life. It is difficult for people brought up outside of this region to understand the culture, subculture and counterculture. Naipaul is not judgmental and assembles his encounters with locals and people's experiences into a grand painting of the South. His style is similar to his other travelogues. He is less critical than his other travelogues however, which makes this book slightly bland. He doesn't unleash his scorching criticism like say of India in India: A Wounded Civilization. The book remains relevant today and can offer some backdrop to newer political movements in the United States.

This is one of the best modern books about the South. Naipaul's travel books are like movies - they make you feel like you have been someplace. Like you have absorbed the people and their culture. If you want to know about the American South in the late 20th century, read this book.

The nuances and details picked up in the book are so familiar, and is a testimony to Naipaul's power of acute observation. Anyone interested in a quick yet meaningful snapshot of the South's mindset will find this book both informative and very enjoyable reading. The book delves into many of the issues and stereotypes that grip the South and brings out the complexities that sorround those issues. Overall a sympathetic look at the South, but also a quick rejoinder to Southerners that some of their attributes are not so charming and are in fact a detriment to intellectual and economic progress.