Rating: 
Summary: Area of Darkness that Enlightened Me
Review: I first read this book when I was 12 years old (23 years ago) and it amazed me on how an author who is a x generation Indian like myself feels when he returns to the land of his forefathers.
I vividly remember the first chapters regarding VS Naipaul's attempt to recuperate a bottle of liquor (Metaxas) amidst one of the worst things that India inherited from the British: -i.e their bureaucracy.
His description of Kashmir, wow ...transports you there and reminds us of a place bereft of the strife which we know of today especially thanks to those fundamentalists.
Brilliant Book...the first author who got me interested in reading serious stuff
Rating: 
Summary: more than good travel writing, great literature
Review: I loved the book from the beginning. The author's arrival in Bombay, the bureaucratic, typically Indian red tape he encounters, that's the way it is. But India is more for most foreigners and also for the author: A love - hate relationship all well described not omitting one detail and written in beautiful language. The book has drawbacks though: This is clearly a view by someone who was brought up in Trinidad and sees India in comparison with a colony. Some chapters especially tho one on the author's stay in Kashmir are never ending and tiresome to follow through. However all in all a must for India experts, lovers and others interested in this country. Not necessarily recommendable for tourists who intend to spend only a few weeks in that area of darkness, which did not even reveal itself to the author.
Rating:
Summary: more than good travel writing, great literature
Review: I loved the book from the beginning. The author's arrival in Bombay, the bureaucratic, typically Indian red tape he encounters, that's the way it is. But India is more for most foreigners and also for the author: A love - hate relationship all well described not omitting one detail and written in beautiful language. The book has drawbacks though: This is clearly a view by someone who was brought up in Trinidad and sees India in comparison with a colony. Some chapters especially tho one on the author's stay in Kashmir are never ending and tiresome to follow through. However all in all a must for India experts, lovers and others interested in this country. Not necessarily recommendable for tourists who intend to spend only a few weeks in that area of darkness, which did not even reveal itself to the author.
Rating:
Summary: still vivid, after nearly 40 years
Review: I picked this up out of curiosity and was astonished at the vividness of writing and perceptions. Normally, a travel book this old is simply too dated to be of relevance. Instead, in this book we are treated to a deep meditation on the country with Naipal's novelist's eye and his persepctive as one of the first great writers from the Third World. Indeed, if you know India, this is a travel book that predates touristic India, and so is an entry into history. But there are so many images that stick in the mind, flashes of humor and melancholy. I will always remember the pilgrimage he went on to see the "miracle" of an ice formation that appeared every year in the shape of a hindu god, though not in that year; the troubled American girl, Larene, who married a local musician in a moment of passion and was now attempting to ditch him; and the retreat in Cashmere, where Naipal got an incompetent cook fired in a fit of rage that he later regretted. Get it. One of the best travel books I ever read.
Rating:
Summary: still vivid, after nearly 40 years
Review: I picked this up out of curiosity and was astonished at the vividness of writing and perceptions. Normally, a travel book this old is simply too dated to be of relevance. Instead, in this book we are treated to a deep meditation on the country with Naipal's novelist's eye and his persepctive as one of the first great writers from the Third World. Indeed, if you know India, this is a travel book that predates touristic India, and so is an entry into history. But there are so many images that stick in the mind, flashes of humor and melancholy. I will always remember the pilgrimage he went on to see the "miracle" of an ice formation that appeared every year in the shape of a hindu god, though not in that year; the troubled American girl, Larene, who married a local musician in a moment of passion and was now attempting to ditch him; and the retreat in Cashmere, where Naipal got an incompetent cook fired in a fit of rage that he later regretted. Get it. One of the best travel books I ever read.
Rating: 
Summary: 1969 Travelogue...Does not hold good Today
Review: I read this book the first time in 1987. In the 19 years since it was written, India had hardly moved, stifled by Nehruvian bureaucracy and a cynical polity that simply invented more and more regulation to plunder India's economy. However, all this changed in the 1990s. Freed from the worst of the soviet-style regulatory burdens, India's economy and society has moved forward with a pace that is only surpassed by China's. It hasn't done so fast enough to solve deep-seated socio-economic problems that keep getting exacerbated by an ever-growing population, but compared to Mr. Naipaul's "Area of Darkness", India resonates with hope and its people with a deep impatience to get a move on to better times. Read this book for its historical context but don't delude yourself by thinking this is the India of today. For that, you need to refer to something more recent.
Rating:
Summary: Deep, disorganized insights into Naipaul's ancestral culture
Review: In his native Trinidad Naipaul had always somehow been of India without being Indian. After 12 years in London, and possibly in an attempt to regain some sense of his own roots, he decided to take a sabbatical year in India in 1962. This book is the fruit of that year. It begins inauspiciously enough with some amusing but not too jarring description of the endless troubles involved in bringing a bottle of liquor into India. We've all heard of India's elephantine bureaucracy, and Naipaul confirms to us that this is (was?) the case. Of much greater interest are the little fables he weaves to explain his view of how in India function is more important than action (i.e., ritual cleanliness is much more important than actual cleanliness) and gestures count more than reality (although this is common to many third world countries). Contrary to the impression a foreigner might have of chaos and aimlessness, India is in fact strictly regulated to a degree unknown in the West. Everyone has a place and a function, and such place and function are infinitely more significant to an Indian than what a Westerner's profession or skin colour might be to him. This provides a transition to another of Naipaul's interests, which is the nature of the relationship between the Indian Republic and the British Raj. According to Naipaul, the idea of Britishness is inextricably bound up with the Indian empire, and the British created themselves as an imperial people with a God-given mission, even as they created the Indians as a subordinate (inferior) race and state. Bound up with these deep meditations are the stories of his dealings with various landlords and hoteliers. Particularly amusing is his running relationship with the staff of a small hotel on Dal Lake, in Northern India, where he experiences the mutual dependency between masters and servants familiar to russian and ancient regime writers. He (the master) is often abused by the staff (the servants) and forced to perform meaningless or denigrating activities. The staff, however, treat him with an almost comical respect when confronted by third parties. Clearly the servants derive their respect from the respect shown to their master. The relationship is almost medieval. And this is Naipaul's next point. India is not a modern country because there is no sense of the passage of time, but rather passive acceptance of everything, and an escape into the land of imagination to compensate for what otherwise would be a reality too painful to bear (but again, this is also a feature of other third world countries such as that of Colombia, and a source of Magical Realism a la Garcia Marquez). The book's final part has a fascinating reflection on the nature of English writing on India and Indian writing. Naipaul disparages virtually all literary creation in the sub-continent (with a couple of minor exceptions including Narayan). He likes Kipling and has no clear opinion on Forster (he would eventually develop a strongly critical perspective on this author as well, deeply tinged by his antipathy to the writer's homosexuality). The ending is bleak, punctuated by his frightening falling in with a racist Sikh (who is a dead ringer for Europe's skinheads of a decade later) and a depressive visit to his grandfather's hometown, when he realizes that the distance between himself and India is unbridgeable. The backdrop is provided by the Chinese invasion and Indian defeat (this defeat is the last of endless defeats over the past millenium, and an emblem for them all). The book, although picturesque in some points is extremely bleak and really justifies Naipaul's famed ability to stare at reality in the face, and not flinch. Whoever believes Naipaul has singled the Muslims for special abuse (in such works as "Among the Believers" and "The Suffrage of Elvira") only needs to read this disconsolate book (his first of a couple) on his own homeland to confirm that Naipaul does not believe in playing favourites, and will shine the passionately cold light of his wit on everything that catches his eye. The book is in parts obscure and disorganized, but very insightful. This reviewer shared Naipaul's sense of grossness and void, as he contemplates utter misery and hopelessness (this is a feeling many peoples might have today: former Zaireans, Sudanese, Palestinians, Colombians, Bhurmans, to name just a few). His refusal to compromise is not fuelled by self-hatred (as has been suggested by some commentators) but rather by a powerful self-awareness. It's no wonder many Indians hated the book. Not being Indian, and not therefore needing to be appeased, I liked it very much.
Rating:
Summary: Naipaul defecates everywhere
Review: Naipaul defecates over all things Indian in "An Area
of Darkness", the book about his first visit to India
in 1962, when he was about 29 years old. The book
reveals his torment (some would say annoyance)
at seeing a poor, dirty India, burdened with the hangover of
a colonial mindset. He is shocked by the bureacracy. He is
shocked by the ability of Indians to unsee the obvious.
He is shocked by the holy pretensions to cleanliness in
the midst of grime, dust and excreta (the last, Naipaul
seems to be obsessed with in this book, which contains
one of his famous lines: "Indians defecate everywhere.") While the book presents an outsider's mostly critical
view of India in the early years of Nehruvian socialism,
I strongly recommend it, especially to younger
people, because the writing is top class and does reflect
the India of 40 years ago. Younger Indians can appreciate
the opportunities and advantages they have today only
by contrast with the past. Independent India was but
an immature teenager when Naipaul wrote this book --
it is now 57 years old (in 2004) and not as groping and unsure. The first part of the book sets the context and motivation
for Naipaul visiting India. In these chapters, he offers
his early experiences and commentary on topics like
the colonial mindset, Gandhi, degrees of caste/class,
the hypocritical attitude of Indians towards cleanliness, etc. Surprisingly, the second part of the book about his stay in
Kashmir works really well. When I first saw the section,
I thought it somewhat peripheral to the rest of the book and
considered skipping it, but then I found it unputdownable
and read it in one sitting. Naipaul succeeds in painting
a wonderful picture of the Liward Hotel - all the characters
come alive, and anyone who's lived in India can recognize
the ambivalent development of his relationships
with the staff of the hotel. The account of his Amarnath yatra
to the Him-ling cave is gripping. About the beautiful Himalayan
mountains, he writes: "Later, I thought. Later, we would come
back and spend an entire summer among these mountains...
But, 'later' is always part of these moments." (Read "India: A Million Mutinies Now" for a charming
follow-on, 27 years later, when he goes back to Kashmir
and meets Aziz and Mr. Butt.) The third and last section has his views on Indian writing
in English and the damage the English language has inflicted
on India and her people. You have to wonder about this,
when 40 years later, India is ascending on the strength of
it's English-speaking classes, and even cricket matches
are routinely telecast with exclusively English commentary.
The book ends with a description of his visit to South
India and an account of his visit to his ancestral village. There are a few small pieces in the book which don't work
well and only interrupt the flow - for example, the
stories about the car-mechanic friend in the beginning,
and the racist Sikh friend towards the end. But these
pieces are surprisingly few. A minor point of confusion
for this reader was whether Naipaul was accompanied by
a friend during his travels. She is not explicitly
mentioned, but there is a passing mention of a
"companion", and "we" is used in a few places where
one would expect "I". Naipaul's shock at experiencing India is genuine.
But so is his anguish at the decay he saw in the
land of his forefathers.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling
Review: Naipaul spend a whole year making a journey in India and recorded his opinions in this book. But no, this is not mere an travel writing. This book reflects the India, or the third worlds, in Naipaul's eyes. On the whole this reflection is a mixture of pity, wonder, alas, and disgust. It is interesting to know the fact, as Naipaul stated in the book, that his ancestors came from India (And that's why he made this journey). And you will know all the pity, wonder, alas, and disgust mentioned above come from deeper feelings: confusion of identification, shame to accept one's root, struggle between despair and hope. This made this book far get beyond the shallow travel writing and became an extraordinary literature work. And the words are so strong, the paragraphs neat, the tone convincing. Even you know the whole book fills with the author's prejudiced view, this book is still an masterpiece. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling
Review: Naipaul spend a whole year making a journey in India and recorded his opinions in this book. But no, this is not mere an travel writing. This book reflects the India, or the third worlds, in Naipaul's eyes. On the whole this reflection is a mixture of pity, wonder, alas, and disgust. It is interesting to know the fact, as Naipaul stated in the book, that his ancestors came from India (And that's why he made this journey). And you will know all the pity, wonder, alas, and disgust mentioned above come from deeper feelings: confusion of identification, shame to accept one's root, struggle between despair and hope. This made this book far get beyond the shallow travel writing and became an extraordinary literature work. And the words are so strong, the paragraphs neat, the tone convincing. Even you know the whole book fills with the author's prejudiced view, this book is still an masterpiece. Highly recommended.
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