Abstract
Though Naipaul's geo-spatial dislocation from periphery to centre generates an optical distance that helps observe postcolonial reality objectively, he simultaneously attaches to the reality that he initially left behind. This can be termed `ex-timated' ctionalization, where the inner is intimately ex-centred with outer. This sense rises from Naipaul's territorial dislocation that does not indicate a decisive ontological detachment from the postcolonial reality that he is alienated with. His de-territorialization is unable to fully embrace the new metropolitan reality and forget the former completely, as shown mainly in ctional characters i.e. Salim (A Bend in the River) and Ralph Singh (The Mimic Men). This review considers The Mimic Mento explore this postcolonial situation, even though the symptom is visible even in his other novels, where major characters are positioned between tradition and modernity that emerged from post-colonial reality. While accepting the fact that his repetitive literary revisits to postcolonial Asia and Africa could provide the objective reality within the failed project of decolonization, a Zizekian analysis suggests that Naipaul could not eectively elevate himself from his Heidaggerian `out-of-joint' situation and exploit his `homelessness' to discover a better reality. Instead, he is ex-timately conned to an `ex-static' (or ex-centric) postcolonial situation that leaves him in the deadlock of `de-personalized objective narrations' and `situational consciousness' of Third World Literature. On the basis of the said extimated alienation of Naipaul's existential literary endeavor, this review suggests that to understand the postcolonial situation better, Zizek's idea of extimacy is of substantial signicance.
Highlights
Naipaul is stuck within the remnants of the failed imperialist project in the postcolonial world yet he exposes its present misery, political failures, anti-modern motives and totalitarian symptoms back to the European reader
On the basis of the above extimated alienation that exists within Naipaul’s existential literary endeavor, this review suggests thatthe postcolonial situation can be more meaningfully contextualized by using Slavoj Zizek’s idea of extimacy [Zizek, 2011] and it will in turn add more sophistication to the existing literary criticism and textual analysis
The semi-autobiographical novel The Mimic Men provides strong evidence about the ‘no-place-ness’ of a postcolonial subject whose existential crisis ends up in a deeper involvement in identity politics which is a common symptom in the postcolonial world
Summary
Naipaul is popularly known as a person who looks at the postcolonial reality from an outsider’s perspective [Chakraborty, 2011, Cader, 2008, Cudjoe, 1988, Feder, 2001, Joshi, 1994, Kelly, 1989, Park, 1996, Wijesinha, 1998] though he is more than an outsider His fictional and other works deeply engage in what can be termed as the formation of ‘identity politics’ [Hall & Gay, 1996, Hardt & Negri, 2000, Habermas, 2006] of the postcolonial subject after the Empire. In many of his texts, Naipaul emphasizes the significance of education in changing the transitional postcolonial man when he or she steps into modernity by getting rid of centuries old subjectivity
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