This paper attempt to re-appraise the so-called `objective` vision of V. S Naipaul through analyzing the way the Third World nations and their cultures are represented in the author`s diverse fictions and non-fictions. What has motivated the research is the need to respond to two particular tendencies in recent criticism on the 2001 Nobel Prize laureate. One is to read postmodern features into his work, according to which Naipaul`s work articulates the postmodern thesis that no one occupies the position the origin(al). The other critical tendency is to draw universal lessons or experience from the author`s work. According to this second tendency, Naipaul`s work is more or less about `the mankind`s fundamental experience of temporal and spatial displacement` or `an existential allegory of the modern condition.` This paper argues that although it seems undeniable that `rootlessness` constitutes the common thesis of Naipaul`s diverse texts, the theme itself is very much `rooted` in a very specific historical context. To focus on rootlessness as the author`s main theme, whether by universalizing and existentializing the author`s texts or by seeking postmodern analogues within them, runs the risk of backgrounding the very history that gave birth on the author`s sense of rootlessness. And the history in question here refers to both the legacy of the past colonialism with which ex-colonies are still grappling and the ever-growing influence of neocolonialism. What this paper ultimately maintains is that the Third World nations portrayed in Naipaul`s work, including Trinidad, are after all what he saw, and that a just appraisal of his work is possible only when one tries to look into what this Trinidad-born English author failed, or did not choose, to see.
(0)
(0)