Character development in V.S. Naipaul’s Reading and Writing

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          Naipaul starts off reading and writing by talking about his early childhood experiences with wanting to become a great writer. He explains his lack of ability when it came to deciphering what he was reading by himself, which was something he only seemed able to do with the help of his father. He describes how his father was a self-taught journalist in Trinidad.  His way of describing his father is one that paints him, while not as traditionally one dimensional, as a character that is defined by some very specific qualities which the reader is to find interesting.

He describes how his father became a journalist through his own accord. His reading consisted of only reading the parts in a story that he found interesting, skipping the other parts in favor of starting another book. While this might have been his usual behavior, it is difficult to think that his father never actually read an entire book, or finished a story. What is more likely, is that Naipaul exaggerated some aspects of his father’s life, in order to make his autobiography more interesting to his readers. The intent here is obviously not to deceive readers about his true experiences, but to make reading about his life a more enjoyable experience, instead of a boring recounting of events.

Life is a Trip

     
        During Judith Feins trip through northern Spain she explores the popular pilgrim trail called the “Camino de Santiago”, which has its end in the Cathedral of Santiago de Campostela. During her travels she meets all the different people that decide to take the pilgrimage, which clashes with the idea of the stereotypical pilgrim in the average person’s eyes. The people walking the road come from all walks of life, from different countries, and profess beliefs in a variety of religions. Their reasons given for taking the pilgrimage range from spiritual, to more of a personal objective.

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During her trip Judith Fein also comes in contact with the people that help the pilgrims along the way. They provide directions, housing, etc. some due to their love for the idea the “camino”, and the process of discovery or awakening that they hope to inspire in others. It is because of this that Judith begins to question her ability to contribute to the “camino”, as she isn’t sacrificing much by staying at comfortable hotels, and using cars and other methods of transportation. But it is the realization that there is no “minimum” that has to be done to contribute, that her work as a writer was equally as valuable, that gives her confidence that she herself was also serving the pilgrims in a small way.

Thoughts on my Journey Journal

            If I compare my last few entries on my Journey Journal to those made in the first days of class, a slight change in tone and writing style is blatantly obvious. As I progressed through this assignment, my writing style got noticeably “looser” and much more free and comfortable. At the beginning I was a bit apprehensive about writing my unfiltered thoughts in a Journal, imagine “what if somebody read it?”, now that would be embarrassing. But those are just negative thoughts, they’re not based on reality since I know nobody would actually read it.

By reassuring myself of that, and that I could actually feel much better if I wrote down my feelings at least once a day, I managed to open up to myself about how I feel about the things that are bothering me in my day to day life. These aren’t things I’d feel comfortable sharing with anybody I know, so it feels good to have some sort of release for the pressure that builds up, especially in a high stress place like University. My compasses also reflected this positive change. Things like tests and homework started bothering me less mentally and made my emotional score higher as well since I didn’t worry as much. Finishing this project gave me a pretty good perspective on how much a person can improve themselves by just taking the time to make small changes, such as keeping a Journal. 

Carl Jung: Travels through North Africa

    Carl Jung was a renowned Swiss psychologist, perhaps most widely known for his concept of the “collective unconscious”, and his other contributions to related fields. Carl Jung was a man who kept extensive diaries of his travels, such as his journey through Africa discussed in class.  Through his writing it can be observed that Jung traveled through Tunisia with an open mind in order to better understand both the people that lived there, that he considered very different, and in some way himself.  As with any normal person, he wasn’t successful in completely eliminating any bias from his thoughts, but his writing tells us of his self-awareness with regards to his own prejudice, and gives valuable insight to the differences between his European point of view, and how he perceives the natives.

    Jung travels through the Saharan countryside with his guide, and is intrigued with the different attitude present towards gender and sexuality. In the village where they stop, he notices the stark separation of genders present throughout. This is not to say that Europeans didn’t have segregation of genders in some aspects at the time, but we can tell that it wasn’t anywhere near the level present in the Arab tribes. Another aspect found to differ even more was that of male homosexuality. The Arabs openly allowed these relationships, at one point even offering Jung himself to take part. This of course came as a shock to Jung, who had probably never seen such behavior openly in Europe. Instead of allowing himself to be overcome with prejudice at the thought of what at that time Europeans must have considered a great taboo, Jung instead keeps his composure and allows the reader an almost unbiased view of a star contrast between the Middle East and Europe at the time. If anyone reading this is curious about the history of Homosexuality in the Middle East, I suggest they start by reading the following link.