In a Free State by V S Naipaul #Bookreview

V S Naipaul’s In a Free State, which won the Booker prize in 1971, is set in an unnamed African country (the author later wrote that it was a mixture of Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda) which has recently won its independence. Now there is conflict between the popular, but weak, king – who is in hiding – and the power-hungry president who runs the army. They are of different tribes and the enmity is old and deep.

free state coverThe power struggle, in its final throws, forms the backdrop to the story. But there are no obvious signs of these turbulent events in the capital, where the book opens and we are introduced to the central character, Bobby, who has been attending a conference.

He is driving south – where evidence of the unrest is all too apparent – to a government encampment where he lives and works as a civil servant. With him, hitching a ride, is Linda, the wife of a colleague. The pair belong to the white colonist class whose era is at an end and is now witnessing the dangerous divisions emerging in the new postcolonial nation.

The gated compound to which the couple are returning no longer offers the undisturbed security of the colonial years. As villages around burn and supporters of the king are rounded up, the increasingly fragile nature of the safety of their sanctuary becomes apparent.

The over-riding theme of the novel is one of displacement. In seeking, and winning, freedom the indigenous people are at odds with each other because of old tribal loyalties. The example of their former colonial masters won’t fit this new nation and this provokes resentment of the old regime and its representatives. As hostility rises to the surface the expats begin to pack their bags; Africa erupts around them, their idyll is over.

The principal characters, away from their native countries, experience an element of alienation aggravated by racial tension and sudden shifts of power around them. These elements feed into both the narrative and the exchanges of the road trip at the heart of this novel and have clearly influenced the personalities of the dysfunctional travellers over time.

Bobby is a troubled homosexual with a history of mental problems. His intense, unexplained, dislike for Linda bubbles under and sometimes boils over during the course of the journey. His companion’s superficial exuberance veils an unhappy marriage and a string of adulterous liaisons. An air of doom hangs over the whole as the drive becomes a race against time to reach safety as civil war threatens at every turn.

An encounter with an army convoy forces the couple to make an overnight stop in a crumbling lakeside hotel run by an eccentric retired British colonel whose nasty bullying of his native staff is redolent of the past relationship between colonial master and indigenous population. Pushing the symbolism further, it is clear that soon Africa will reclaim this decaying resort – abandoned by the expats who once saw a very different future there ­– and the raging colonel will fall at the hands of his resentful servants.

As the road trip continues it becomes clear that Bobby, Linda and all the other white expats can no longer rely on the status of privileged outsiders. Bobby’s brutal beating at the hands of one of the president’s soldier underscores the point that some of those who were once victims are now ready for revenge.

A sense of displacement

Naipaul’s biographer, Patrick French, offers this observation: “In a Free State is a disconcerting piece of writing, so taught and ambiguous that the author’s point of view is never apparent.”

Material for the novel came from Naipaul’s nine months in Uganda in 1966. At the invitation of the Farfield Foundation he took up the role of writer-in-residence at Makerere University.

The displaced international characters and restricted campus setting of the university are elements used in In a Free State and this sense of displacement was something the writer himself felt keenly on his return to London. Thousands of miles from his motherland – which he had left in 1950 – and between homes, Naipaul felt rootless. He began wandering the world.

In his introduction to the 2007 edition of the novel, Naipaul recalls how he often undertook the “spectacular day-long drive from Kampala in Uganda to Nairobi in Kenya.” The idea for the story came to him on one of the return journeys.

Memories of his Ugandan sojourn returned to him in 1969, when his wanderings had brought him to Victoria, British Columbia. Here he began writing the novel – a task that would be continued, and completed, in England.

free state naipaul
Naipaul: “Depression touches everyone in the novel.”

In 2007 Naipaul reflected: “In a Free State … was conceived and written during a time of intense personal depression that lasted two or three years.” The depression, he said, “touches everyone in the novel, the bar boys, the waiters and even the Africans seen on the road.”

The impartiality of the writing is deliberately contrived. The author said: “I was not responsible for the world I was discovering. I was recording what I had discovered. I had no point of view. I think I just laid out the material, the evidence, and left people to make up their mind.”


V S (Vidia) Naipaul, who died in August 2018 aged 85, was born in Trinidad, the descendant of Hindu Indians who immigrated to the island as indentured servants. His father was a journalist and author. Vidia won a scholarship to Oxford in 1950 and settled in England, though he travelled extensively. Knighted in 1990, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001.

Recommended fiction by the same author: A House for Mr Biswas (1961), The Enigma of Arrival (1987), Half a Life (2001). Non-fiction: An Area of Darkness (1965).

Edward Colley

A lifetime working with words and I'm still moved by them – or rather by what good writers can do with the slippery monkeys. A book can be a refuge, an escape, an adventure, a laugh ('I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.'), a heart-breaker (poor Tess!) ... I can't imagine life without a book (or two) on the go. My favourite read, by a mile, in the past 12 months: East of Eden by John Steinbeck. An epic masterpiece. Runner-up: The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham by Selina Hastings. Hefty but not heavy.

9 thoughts on “In a Free State by V S Naipaul #Bookreview

  • Pingback: Brilliant and beastly: the enigma of VS Naipaul : BookerTalk

  • January 18, 2019 at 3:31 pm
    Permalink

    I think that “The Enigma of Arrival” which is semi-autobiographical is his masterpiece but I loved “In a Free State” and its sad ambience because as Michael Gorra in his “After Empire…” put it , it is a book “about fear” and in my opinion this fear has to do with the fear of not belonging anywhere, the fear of loosing one’s cultural identity, the fear of dislocation. Themes that haunted Naipaul’s work.

    Reply
    • January 18, 2019 at 4:14 pm
      Permalink

      The author’s own history, I guess, informs these themes of dislocation – of not belonging. The ‘The Enigma of Arrival’ is written in the first person but the narrative leaves me with the impression of someone looking on, dispassionately, objectively, as though examining the life of the principal character from a distance.

      Reply
      • January 19, 2019 at 9:51 am
        Permalink

        I totally agree ‘The Enigma of Arrival’ brings to perfection Naipaul’s talent as an observer. He becomes an observer not to his surroundings only but he observes himself as well. Salman Rushdie said for the book that it is ‘autobiographical in the sense that it offers a portrait of the intellectual landscape of one who has long elevated the life of mind above all forms of life’.

        Reply
  • January 17, 2019 at 7:22 pm
    Permalink

    He also wrote A Bend in the River, which I didn’t think was as great as some of the reviews make it out to be. However, In a Free State sounds really good. Might have to consider revisiting him.

    Reply
    • January 17, 2019 at 9:05 pm
      Permalink

      I agree. ‘A Bend in the River’ was absorbing but it didn’t knock me out. ‘A House for Mr Biswas’ was much more entertaining though my personal V S favourites are ‘The Enigma of Arrival’ and ‘Half a Life’. ‘In a Free State’ is worth a read; it’s not very long!

      Reply
  • January 16, 2019 at 10:42 pm
    Permalink

    Naipaul started a storm about the misogyny of his remarks about women writers, but your review reminds me that he was, notwithstanding, a very fine writer, and In a Free State (with its ambiguous title) is one of his best.

    Reply
    • January 17, 2019 at 9:01 pm
      Permalink

      Hi Lisa. A fine writer indeed but a problematic personality. I’m currently half way through Patrick French’s acclaimed biography and Naipaul doesn’t come across very well as a person, even from this neutral, objective perspective. A difficult man to like I think but his works are intriguing and I’ll keep reading them.

      Reply
      • January 18, 2019 at 12:32 am
        Permalink

        Yes. It’s books and the ideas in the books that interest me, not the behaviour of the person who wrote them.

        Reply

We're all friends here. Come and join the conversation

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: