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Title: Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples by V.S. Naipaul ISBN: 0-375-70648-8 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 07 December, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.33 (80 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A very clear example of Islam in the 90's
Comment: I'm impressed that Naipaul came up with this book after 17 years of his sequel his "Amoung the Believers". Sad to say that his book is banned in Malaysia like any other books that seems to be a challange to Islam. Even worse is that muslims everywhere are quick to say that he's bias or prejudiced towards muslims eventhough the real fact is that he's investigating the impact of the islamic religion in different cultural background.
As a Chinese-Malaysian, I totally agree of the facts that he discovered about Malaysia. Islam has been tearing apart Hindu, Buddhist, Christian families by promoting their faith discrimination on the converted people. Furthermore I would like to add that even after 17 years no progress or development had been acheived by those particular muslims in his interviews. Sad to say that those books by the apologists of Islam is making their way in the bookstore while any books that proves to be a challange are kept hidden. Take for example Ibn Warraq's "Why I am Not a Muslim", "Origin of the Quran" and Anwar Hekmat's "Women and the Koran".
Rating: 5
Summary: A travelogue of stories and societies
Comment: Beyond Belief is Naipul's chronicle of a journey through the world of recently converted Islamic states: Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan. It's true that Naipaul wades into the Islamic world with his semi-western preconceptions. But then again, who doesn't come into this world with their own preconceptions.
However, Naipaul has such a keen ear for narrative and character that frankly, it doesn't matter. Although Naipul makes many authorial intrusions in the book, he allows his subjects to speak clearly enough that their own values come through. However, Naipaul is never simply judgemental. When judgements are made, they are almost always made in order to weave a personal history into the context of the society.
Indeed, Naipaul's position shifts and changes, owing more to the tensions in these Islamic nations rather than post-colonial tendencies. The bias for western liberal democratic states is only a surface bias.
What comes across is a rich tapestry of stories that illuminate the social tensions from conflicting organisations of society. In rural pre-industrial villages, there is the warm support network of families versus the rigid, often violent, caste hierarchy and ignorance of other societies. In literate industrial states, there is the massive expansion in life opportunities and individual expression versus the necessity of adopting a transcendent monolithic belief structure (in the shape of islam), which obliterates village life. Finally, there is the inklings of an emerging liberal democratic sentiment that is linked with a nascent prosperous middle class with the associated traumas of existential angst, divorce and living in a world devoid of god-given meaning. Sometimes Naipaul panders to a naive Roussean praise for rural life. Other times, he acknowledges the improvements brought about by literate industrial authoritarian regimes.
However, Naipaul serves a lot of ammunition against Islam for its ahistorical rewriting over the rich variety of local communities. This may have something to do with Naipaul's sensibilities as a novelist. Although some of it is warranted, Naipul ignores the comparison these trends have with those that also occured in Europe during the building of the European nation states in the nineteenth and eighteenth century. Christianity too went through a process of conversion, colonisation and rewriting to rival what is happening now in these Islamic states. The industrial revolution wreaked havok across rural colonies across Europe. This process may be more universal than Naipul depicts it.
For some who have criticised the book for its lack of focus, this may have something to do with the structure of the book as a travel book. It is not a text-book. If taken as a travel book of ideas and social narrative, it is superb. Having backpacked somewhat myself, travelling can all too often become a shuffle of postcard pictures. Naipaul represents the very best of what such travels can bring - a serious attempt to grapple with the how others truly live and see the world.
Rating: 3
Summary: Worth a read
Comment: I will break the mold and give this book 2.5 stars! I read Beyond Belief two years ago, and recently, I read two of Naipaul's other books, Among the Believers and India: A Wounded Civilization. When I read Beyond Belief, I was very impressed with it. It seemed an original way to observe everyday people and, through them, learn about and analyze their culture. The book is not an easy read, as none of Naipaul's books are. But it has a captivating narrative.
However, more recently, I picked up the other two books that I mentioned before. Reading those two books, it seemed that Naipaul writes in a continuum, moving from one country, culture, religion to another. The fact that they are separated by time, distance, tradition etc do not make any difference to his analysis and lead him to the same conclusions, as if his mind was already made up. I found this trait in all three of his books I have read.
I will say a little more about his book India: A Wounded Civilization. I was born in India and spent the first twenty years of my ife there. To be fair, Naipaul has a very sharp mind. He picks up things too subtle for most people. Many of the questions he raises are sharp and deserve to be thought on. In many instances in the book, I felt that his observations were so penetrating that I felt naked. However, Naipaul has one fatal flaw. He is obsessed with the negative. In all the three books that I have read of him, I could not find a single positive thing he said about the five countries he wrote about. In more than seven hundred pages, not a single positive thing about people who constitute about one third of humanity. Sure these countries have problems, all kinds of problems, and too many of them. However, it is very hard to believe that there is nothing about any of these peoples that is inspiring and good. I can site many things. But Naipaul was completely blind to any positive traits. And so his credibility as an objective observer is betrayed.
I give his book 2.5 stars because what he sees, he sees it really well, but he only sees half of it! So take what you can from the book, but remember, it is not the full story.
Comments welcome at [email protected]
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Title: Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey by V.S. Naipaul ISBN: 0394711955 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 July, 1982 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: India : A Wounded Civilization by V.S. Naipaul ISBN: 1400030757 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 08 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: An Area of Darkness by V.S. Naipaul ISBN: 0375708359 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 09 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Middle Passage by V.S. Naipaul ISBN: 0375708340 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 08 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul ISBN: 0375707166 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 13 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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