I would like to discuss what are considered natural boundaries and what are considered artificial boundaries in Naipul's book. The specific divisions between societal convention and superstructure of the places mentioned in the novel interest me because they seem at times to transition outside of geographical space. The novel seems to delineate between place and space. Non-places as defined by Marc Auge are places that do not hold enough significance to be defined as anything other than space. An airport, a McDonalds, a hotel room all look familiar to the inhabitant even though the actual geography is hazy.
The experience of flying, for Salim, is disorienting in a way that demonstrates the airport as a non-place. "It was like being two places at once. I woke up in London with little bits of Africa on me..." (227) The Bigburger is described as coming already equipped as if it had popped out of the ground cartoonishly: "They don't just send you the sauce, you know, Salim. They send you the whole shop." (98) The domain's cartography is also unrecognizable to its inhabitants. "Our ideas of men were simple; Africa was a place where we had to survive. But in the Domain it was different. There they could scoff at trade and gold, because in the magical atmosphere of the Domain, among the avenues and new houses, another Africa had been created." (119) Africa in a sense is a space more then just a place. The whole of the population of Naipul's book make up what is Africa and that in a sense can not be superimposed over (the absurdity rests with the attempt).
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