Arrival Mystery - Colossus Library - Naipaul Core Collection

Author: V.S. Naipaul
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: The Mimic Men is autobiographical, as Naipaul transformed his own life into writing material. 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 Arrival of the Birds are unremarkable, yet they served as the inspiration for Naipaul's novel of the same name. According to him, they drew his attention to something in his own experiences in an indirect, poetic way. The traveler, the strange city, and the weary life are the "arrival mystery" 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 weary lives and hasty travelers. Thus, he admires the unrestrained and bohemian lifestyle of the farmer Jack, shows tolerance toward the affected snobbery of the gardener Booton in his dress and his weak mindset of pretending to be rich to the poor, and sympathizes with the estate owner plagued by illness and the fading glory of his once-mighty empire. However, he remains an immigrant writer without roots. Due to his identification with the colonial power, though he lacks the dilemma of the "homecoming," he still feels the alienation of the "outsider." His stance is ultimately that of an observer, and his gaze remains detached.