"One of Joseph Conrad's earliest stories of the East Indies, from the 1890's, was about a local raja or chieftain, a murderous man, a Muslim (though it is never explicitly said), who, in a crisis, having lost his magical counselor, swims out one night to one of the English merchant ships in the harbor to ask the sailors, representatives of the immense power that had come from the other end of the world, for an amulet, a magical charm. The sailors are at a loss; but then someone among them gives the raja a British coin, a sixpence commemorating Queen Victoria's Jubilee; and the raja is well pleased. Conrad didn't treat the story as a joke; he loaded it with philosophical implications for both sides, and I feel now that he saw truly. In the 100 years since that story, the wealth of the world has grown, power has grown, education has spread; the disturbance, the "philosophical shriek" of men at the margin (to use Conrad's words), has been amplified."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Nobel laureates in LiteratureTravel writersEssayistsAcademics from the United KingdomNovelists from the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/V._S._Naipaul
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
V. S. Naipaul
Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (17 August 1932 - 11 August 2018) was a British writer of Indo-Nepalese descent born and raised in Trinidad. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001.
45 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by V. S. Naipaul →
Related Quotes
"We knew nothing but despotism. That is why the very rich Mughal empire could break up into nothing. Turn to dust at t…"
"It turns out now that the Arabs were the most successful imperialists of all time; since to be conquered by them (and…"
"What matters in the end in literature, what is always there, is the truly good. And — though played out forms can thr…"
"It [Islam] has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples. To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy y…"
"If a writer doesn’t generate hostility, he is dead."
"I have to stress that I was traveling in the non-Arab Muslim world. Islam began as an Arab religion; it spread as an …"
"The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves."
"Men need history; it helps them to have an idea of who they are. But history, like sanctity, can reside in the heart;…"
"I have told people who ask for lectures that I have no lecture to give. And that is true. It might seem strange that …"
"At the height of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, V.S. Naipaul saw it as ‘a new, historical awakening’, of ‘Indians beco…"