Stephen VasciannieCARIBBEAN NOVEL-WRITING has a significant exilic component. From the early post-World War II days, V.S. Naipaul, Lamming, Mittelholzer, Selvon and others all produced their public statements of imagination and reality from foreign shores, and, almost inevitably, those foreign shores were closely linked to imperial London.
No doubt, there are strong sociological factors that explain the gravitation of Caribbean writers to London in the middle of the last century, not the least being the presence of a critical mass of publishers, literary critics, and opportunities to pay the bills through literary endeavours while each novel passed through its gestation period. Impor-tantly, too, London represented a large market for literary products: it was not quite like the selling of bananas and rum, but early novelists from the Caribbean must have been acutely aware that most of their readers were denizens of the metropole.
This last factor the location and orientation of the novelist's main audience may also have influenced the nature of the early literary output, but we cannot always be certain. What is clear, however, is that the Caribbean heritage of the early writers, and their presence in Britain, prompted them to combine their diverse cultural experiences in narratives that would appeal to both British and Caribbean audiences.
Naipaul, for instance, is reasonably explicit on the point. In a recent discussion of his own work, Reading & Writing: A Personal Account, he recalls that at the end of his Oxford days he spent five months "in a dark Paddington basement" put up by a poor elder cousin. In that period no writing came forth, but Naipaul continues:
"And then one day, deep in my almost fixed depression, I began to see what my material might be: the city street, from whose mixed life we had held aloof, and the country life before that, with the ways and manners of the remembered India. It seemed easy and obvious when it had been found; but it had taken me four years to see it" (p. 25).
Thus emerged the uniquely West Indian characters who inhabited Miguel Street. In other works, published in what may now be regarded as Naipaul's openly autobiographical phase, he has elaborated on his reliance on West Indian themes, but the link to the metropole remains undeniable. Briefly, we may note that this combination of West Indianness and London living is also expressly acknowledged in Selvon's Lonely Londoners, and other works in which Moses makes his life through cold weather.
The presence of London in early West Indian literature gives rise to several divergent themes for analysis. However, one theme that immediately comes to mind concerns the attitude of the novelist to the West Indies and to West Indian characters. In this regard, Naipaul, for instance, has been repeatedly criticised as racist in his outlook, with writers as diverse as Derek Walcott and Paul Theroux apparently sha-ring this view and, indeed, even in Naipaul's early writings, including A House for Mr Biswas and The Middle Passage, there is the underlying theme that these Third World people from the West Indies are an appropriate subject for generalised laughter.
RACIST?
Does this, in itself, make Naipaul a racist? Perhaps not, though some of his comments are difficult to reconcile other than on racial grounds. I am reluctant to use his written work as strong evidence of racism, however, because, arguably, Naipaul has simply been engaged in his own version of truth-telling, and though some of his truths may be painful, they may have foundation in reality.
But, surely, you may suggest, it must be possible for Naipaul to speak his truths without being so offensive, and surely, he must realise that by holding up a bright and shining light upon the negative aspects of Caribbean reality he has actually created a misleading picture of the diversity that prevails in the region of his birth. Yes, these may be valid political criticisms of the novelist's work, but they seem to misunderstand the nature of literary presentation. It may be that Naipaul feels no obligation to paint a picture of pleasantries throughout the Third World, because for him the predominant features are not pleasant - are we suggesting that he should temper his perspectives because of the sensibilities of his audience?
More recent writers with Caribbean roots have had to consider this question, and in most instances, they have remained true to their artistic impulses. Take Jamaica Kincaid, for instance: if you come to A Small Place without other exposure to Kincaid, you may well be bothered by the tone of this non-fiction piece: Kincaid subjects life in her native Antigua to ridicule, and takes no prisoners along the way. Similarly, in Annie John and other works, whether autobiographical or not, there is rarely a complimentary word about Caribbean life. (At the Bottom of the River may be an exception to this, for, it is probably too metaphysical to prompt agreed interpretations as to what it says about the West Indies).
And, again, Caryl Phillips, born in St. Kitts, with early roots in England, and now apparently a confirmed trans-Atlanticist, has had his own reasons to be cynical about life in his homeland. Admittedly, in A State of Independence, Phillips depicts aspects of life in the Caribbean in sympathetic terms, but, at the same time, he notes ridiculous behaviour in various places. In his essay, entitled "St Kitts: 19 September, 1983", recently republished in A New World Order, Phillips again shows even-handedness, but the negatives about St. Kitts-Nevis still emerge in a way that could cause the sensitive to take offence.
So the point is that we should leave our novelists to follow the rhythm of their own drums. Along the way, they may well cause us to cringe, but for every V.S. Naipaul, there may be a Roger Mais, and the reader can take her or his choice; for each Jamaica Kincaid, too, there may be an R.K. Narayan. Each has a place. I wonder, though, if the London connection really has a future, for as Caribbean writing from the Caribbean has come into its own, the flowers from exile have fallen into short supply.
Stephen Vasciannie, a UWI lecturer, is currently Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge University in Britain.
