The Mystery of Arrival - The Essential Works of V.S. Naipaul

Author: (British) V.S. Naipaul
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: The Mystery of Arrival is autobiographical, as Naipaul transformed his own life into material for his writing. It depicts his great migration from Trinidad to England and his quiet life on a colonial-era estate in the south of England, imbued with a deep love for the rural canyons. It is a story of a colonial resident who has taken root on the ancient land of the oppressor. The early works of Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico titled The Mystery of Arrival are unremarkable but served as the inspiration for Naipaul's novel of the same name. According to him, they indirectly and poetically drew his attention to something in his own experiences. The traveler, the strange city, and the weathered life are the "mystery of arrival" that the writer Naipaul found for himself. Naipaul adopts a reconciliatory attitude toward the colonizers. Faced with the decline and abandonment of the countryside of the colonial power, his pen strokes are gentle yet tinged with sorrow. Here, the boundaries between the colonizers and the oppressed, the mainstream society and the ordinary laborers have blurred. He sees only a series of weathered lives and hasty travelers. Thus, he admires the unrestrained and rugged lifestyle of the farmer Jack, shows tolerance toward the affected-by-pretentiousness of the gardener Booton in his dress and his weak mindset of showing off to the poor, and sympathizes with the estate owner plagued by illness and his fading imperial glory. However, he is ultimately an immigrant writer without roots. Due to his identification with the colonial power, though he lacks the dilemma of the "homecoming," he still carries the alienation of the "outsider." His stance remains that of an observer, and his gaze is always detached.