Ancestry, Uncertainty and Dislocation in V. S. Naipaul’s Half a Life

Abstract

The discourse of roots and routes is now all pervasive in diaspora literature and beyond. First used by Paul Gilroy (1993: 19) in his discussion of the Black Atlantic, the pun-cum-metaphor has been re-engaged and rephrased in a number of ways. Thus, Jonathan Friedman (2002: 21–36) explains how critical studies have journeyed ‘From Roots to Routes’, James Clifford (1997: 3) elaborates on the various implications of both terms, and there is even a Jewish travel agency, ‘Routes’, that offers you ‘routes to your roots’ in Eastern Europe (‘Routes’, 2010). Meanwhile, Stuart Hall discusses roots as routes as some sort of opposition: ‘instead of asking what are people’s roots, we ought to think about what are their routes, the different points by which they have come to be now; they are in a sense, the sum of those differences’ (1999). However anecdotal it all might sound, the fact remains that the narratives of roots vs. routes, roots to routes, or roots as routes is increasingly popular among not only scholars of diaspora literature but also Christian charities, music projects or performance festivals. Therefore, it seems difficult, if not impossible, to use the pun in a way that has not been used before.