If I were to write a paper about this book it would address Naipaul’s depiction of women. As a woman, the book pushes me away, because the attitude is not a neutral but one with a negative cast, and since the author is so in control and aware of everything he is doing in the novel, and it is clear he is not making a social commentary, it reads disturbingly so that I distrust him and his characters. And who wants to spend time being held up in a book with a writer who is NOT ON YOUR SIDE?
Since I have already written on this topic a bit, right now I am less interested in debating the treatment, and starting to wonder if the reason I find Salim to be so creepy (his sexuality included) because he has no experiences with love. Through the book we are not shown many actions triggered by a “love force”. For Salim, marriage is a contract, sex is mechanical (even with Yvette) Family love is not present. The only relationship in the book that seems to be loving is between Shoba and Mahesh but every time their union is described by Salim he mentions (over and over) Mahesh sees himself as the man Shoba wants him to be.. or something of this nature, so it is not a true love concept that Salim sees, but a twisted perception of adoration and identity.
Perhaps Salim wanted to fall in love with Yvette and that was what began to draw him to her when he says, “My wish for an adventure with Yvette was a wish to be taken up to the skies, to be removed from the life I had--- “ (pg. 183) But then, she was ordinary too
170 and 140 Salim being bewitched by Yvette, drawn to her differences but afraid
Home is normally a safe loving memory. Pg 107 Salim says, “ Home was hardly a place I could return to. Home was something in my head. It was something I had lost.”
Loving slave/servant dynamic. Could this be the reason Salim gets so mad when he finds out 105, Metty has a child and a woman, love?
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