Masque of Africa and Conversation between Cornelia Nixon and Marilynne Robinson

1. Conversation between Cornelia Nixon and Marilynne Robinson, in the Believer writers book. Haven't been able to complete the whole conversation yet. It is lovely to read two intelligent talented writers talk. Cornelia started off describing Robinson's sentences to have a rare kind of beauty, which is so true. Robinson reminds me a lot of Banville.

Anyway, the focus so far has been on Robinson's books Housekeeping and Gilead especially the religious, racist (counter-racist) themes in the novels. I had read most of, but couldn't manage to finish Gilead (2004 Pulitzer) in a reading group; However, I have enough idea of the book and it's characters to pick up the threads in conversation. Robinson has been explaining the idealists American northerners and their unsung social efforts to integrate the races in America. I am , I must say slightly embarrassed about how little details I know of Civil War in America.

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2. Masque of Africa

Sir Vidia is back in Africa, trying to explore what the book calls the – African Belief. This immediately makes me slightly antagonistic towards the book, for, I have no expertise in African beliefs, rituals and to be frank, the topic is not something that I find terribly exciting. Anyway, it is a Naipaul book and would have wonderful prose if not anything.

Naipaul has returned to Africa, arriving at Uganda that he had left in the 1960s; naturally much of the opening pages of the book is descriptive- often using the – entering the river twice - type of narrative consciousness. Uganda has changed and seems unfamiliar including his previous site of his residence which he struggles to locate to the capital and it's landscape.

The progression is slow, and I must say to my surprise, slightly haphazard. I expected to start off with encountering African beliefs right away. But Vidia is using broad strokes to paint the canvas – the first chapter is brilliant in a typical Naipaul tradition of the Bend: gathering all the information and arranging it into a pastiche, he introduces the arrival of external faith to indigenous populations, the political and the religious reasons for its acceptance etc.

The narration then moves into a parallel exploration of extant architecture, landscape, flora, fauna religion and most importantly history. Everything is just touched upon but not gone into, in a sense. There is a drawing back to history especially the predecessors of Amin and Obote – as he visits couple of tombs of Kabakas (Kasubi) and a waterfall. He often goes back to Stanley and Speke for historical references. There is a vivid description of one war between Sunna and the people of Busoga, which I quite enjoyed. Some touches about human sacrifices – which people seem to avoid / forget to tell him.

Prose is simple, effective and brilliant as you would expect from Naipaul (How does he continue to do that?) e.g there is one sublime sentence which has about a dozen simple words yet is truly profound in a post-modern sense. Visiting the Kasubi Tombs which is a UNESCO heritage site he writes – We picked up a guide there, or perhaps, we were picked up by him. Perfect.

Have done about 8 chapters, 50 odd pages ; the narration has started to unravel – he was arranged to visit a witch-doctor, the visit in itself was unremarkable, but he has been tricked by the local contact to pay him pounds instead of dollars as it was agreed...

New words learnt – Nil

Words reinforced – Moraine ( lovely, after a long time I had almost forgotten !)

Things of Interest, To Be Researched (TBR) – History of Raffia mat, Lives of John Speke and Henry Stanley

Trivia - Sunna had a pet dog; it was him who gave Uganda the heraldic device woman, spear and dog. ( I couldn’t find it online)

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