Volume 52, Number 7 · April 28, 2005
Where the Fun Starts
By John Lanchester
Magic Seeds
by V.S. Naipaul
Knopf, 280 pp., $25.00
V.S. Naipaul's books are not Fabergé eggs. They are not made out of, and not intended for, detached aesthetic contemplation; they are passionately engaged with the world. They have also proved to be, in at least two ways, prophetic. First, what at one point seemed a lonely body of work can now be seen as explaining an entire field of study that is known as Postcolonialism, which examines the writing, politics, history, and modes of thought of the developing world. Postcolonialism as a field is dominated by left-leaning academics, with whom Naipaul has almost nothing in common; but he is nonetheless a crucial, minatory, alarming writer for anyone with any interest in the field, not least because he dissents from all its orthodoxies.
Review, 3668 words
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