PessIMIsM AND EXIsTENTIALISM IN V.S. NarpAauL ‘Serarin Rovpan-Santiaco ‘The philosophic and thematic strands, along with the autobiographical strand in VSS. Naipaul, represent structures that deal directly with theme and ideas, They enrich the narratives with subtle meanings, thoughts and semantic direction. The autobiographical strand functions as a marker of personal identity since Naipaul has been in quest of “self” since the beginning. In the same manner, the philosophic strand has been essential in the development of a Naipaulian discourse. The philosophic strand is associated closely with the existential ideas of nothingness and dissolution, which in turn are closely connected to a state of pessimism and nihilism ‘This aura or existential sense is thus the idea or driving force that envelops many of his narratives. This is also true of Naipaulian irony. The philosophic notion of nothingness and dissolution has permeated most of Naipaul’s writings beginning With his Trinidadian novels, especially The Middle Passage. This view has also developed further in some of Naipaul’s middle works such as Mr: Stone and the Knights Companion, The Mimic Men, and In a Free State. and in his later works such as A Bend in the River and The Enigma of Arrival. | prefer to call this a philosophic strand because the underlying currents and ideas can be classified as a variation of existentialist thought, perhaps post-1950s, that is, the ongoing existentialist thought to the present, especially as it pertains to post-coloniality. Naipaul’s use of this strand entails a deep pathos about life that many times ends in panic. Again, the great Naipaulian panic is brought forth. There is the mood and idea of decay and all that it can gather: dissolution, futility, corruption, and demise. It isa vision of the futility of life, especially in the post-colonial world. Lost colonials roaming across the post-colonial landscape, searching fora sense of identity, lost in a world that marginalizes them: their final destiny being desolation and dereliction. This Naipaulian philosophic strand projects the world as something that is constantly eroding and melting away. It constructs a deep pessimism about the world and its inhabitants who are viewed as totally absorbed in futility. Man is striving to understand his existence, trying to grasp it and find its rationale, but is failing at it. It is as Doerksen has written when describing the search for meaning in life as, “the futility of the search for the meaning of existence in both the past and the future” (108). It is important to point out that not only is this sense of futility and dissolution present in Naipaul’s fiction, but also embeds his travel literature and historical texts. Specifically, The Loss of El Dorado is certainly an existentialist history of the Caribbean where characters, plots and events are headed towards colonial dissolution and decay. It is not Naipaul's bad intentions and meanness: it is the existential pessimism and nothingness, this driving, psychic force that permeates his writings. In Naipaul’s writings there are images and terms utilized by early existentialist writers such as Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Emest Hemingway. Naipaul154 Journal of Caribbean Literatures uses these terms, concepts, and images, the most important being the images or concepts of, “nausea,” “nothing(ness).” and “panic.” Alll three form fundamental philosophical constructs in existential thought. Naipaul has articulated these in his own particular way. In Sartre’s Nausea, the protagonist Roquentin ponders the following about his existence: I glance around the room and a violent disgust floods me. .. With difficulty I chew a piece of bread which I can’t make up my mind to swallow. People. You must love people. Men are admirable. | want to vomit—and suddenly, there it is: the Nausea. So this is Nausea this blinding evidence? I have scratched my head over it! I've written about it. Now I know: I exist—the world exists—and I know that the world exists. That’s all. It makes no difference to me, It’s strange that everything makes so little difference to me: it frightens me... . (122-123) ‘This quintessential passage is echoed by Santosh in Naipaul’s “One Out of Many” from Ina Free State. The character, Santosh, is a post-colonial who has similar problems of existence. He declares: Iwas once part of the flow, never thinking of myselfas a presence. Then I looked in the mirror and decided to be free, All that my freedom has brought me is the knowledge that I have a face and have a body, that I must feed this body and clothe this body for a certain number of years. Then it will be over. (57-58) He has gained what Kumar calls “the freedom of an existential being,” with all of, the uncomfortable feelings and ideas that this may entail. But all three narratives in Ina Free State do not “solicit sympathy for a select few.” as Boxhill has noted, “it concerns itself with all mankind, even the insane and the perverted: it does not try to pinpoint the oppressors of mankind. The enemy is not simply slavery or coloni it is life itself, mankind itself” (81). It is the existential condition of humanity, and for Naipaul, it is not a bed of roses. Itis the existential angst in Santosh and Roquentin; the futility and the nothingness that gathers both of them into primordial existence. These disturbed sensations of the existential permeate many of Naipaul’s writings. Sartre’s “The Wall” is a story about political prisoners waiting for their execution at the time of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime. One of the characters, Tom, tells Pablo Ibbieta of the impending death that awaits them, something that will catch them off guard: “I’ve already stayed up a whole night waiting for something. But this isn’t the same: this [death, mortality] will creep up behind us, Pablo, and we won’t be able to prepare for it” (8). There is the sense of an ill feeling, a disturbing sensation, a nausea of the spirit. in these characters. Again, in Sartre’s “Intimacy.” the female protagonist. Lulu, is a disturbing character that provokes nausea in others. One is reminded ofPessimism and Existentialism in V.S. Naipaul 155 the many female characters in Naipaul that are presented in an unsavory manner such as Sandra in The Mimic Men, Linda in In a Free State, Jane in Guerrillas. Yvette in A Bend in the River, and finally, Willie’s females in Halfa Life and Magic Seeds. These women are projected as nauseating figures, as characters that invoke nausea and a general malaise. The image of nausea is, undoubtedly, fundamental in Naipaul’s writings. Camus’s stories, “The Guest” and “The Growing Stone” forming part of the text, Exile and the Kingdom, have similar philosophic underpinnings. Both stories deal with the philosophic angst of making decisions and choices, and how these can be interpreted as either betrayal or loyalty. Only one study need be examined to make the point. In Camus’s “The Growing Stone,” the image of nausea is displayed, as in “The Guest.” This story is set in the Brazilian jungle and the protagonist, D’Arrast, is a kind of consultant who is visiting these lonely outposts. He is also a character of exile. The poverty and ill conditions of the surroundings provoke in him malaise: “D’ Arrast breathed in the smell of smoke and poverty that rose from the ground and choked him” (177). During his visit he encounters a religious dance in a village in which the participants become possessed with spirits. D’ Arrast is upset at this and other primitive rituals. It is his existential reality that conflicts with the natives’. After participating involuntarily in the dance D’ Arrast is shaken from his foundation: “The heat, the dust, the smoke of the cigars, the smell of bodies now made the air almost unbreathable. He looked for the cook, who had disappeared. D’Arrast let himself slide down along the wall and squatted, holding back his nausea” (195). Finally, the narrator informs us of D’Arrast’s loathing over this “whole continent,” and how it provokes nausea and a sense of nothingness: “The whole continent was emerging from the night, and loathing overcame D*Arrast. It seemed to him that he would have liked to spew forth this whole country, the melancholy of its vast expanses, the glaucous light of its forests, and the nocturnal lapping of its big deserted rivers” (198). One is reminded of Santosh and Singh, and even of Salim in their situations and settings: the uneasiness, the plight, the futility of existence. ‘These characters all reflect a kind of mental and spiritual, even philosophical, desolation and dereliction, It is one of Naipaul’s main concerns in his narratives. The philosophic term and concept of “nothing” and “nothingness” is also of importance in existential thought, especially in Naipaul’s particular strain. It is a term that is constantly repeated in many existentialist writings. In one of Hemingway’s best read stories, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” the old waiter, who is a kind of alter-ego of the celebrated “old man,” offers the reader a soliloquy of exceptional existentialist nothingness: What did he fear? It was not fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada, Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as itis