Quotes from book
The Enigma of Arrival

Name: The Enigma of Arrival
Author: V.S. Naipaul

The Enigma of Arrival: A Novel in Five Sections is a 1987 novel by Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul.

“I also bought a copy of The New York Times, the previous day's issue of which I had seen the previous day in Puerto Rico. I was interested in newspapers and knew this paper to be one of the foremost in the world. But to read a newspaper for the first time is like coming into a film that has been on for an hour. Newspapers are like serials. To understand them you have to take knowledge to them; the knowledge that serves best is the knowledge provided by the newspaper itself. It made me feel a stranger, that paper.”

V.S. Naipaul book The Enigma of Arrival

"The Journey", p. 115
The Enigma of Arrival (1987)

“The time before Islam is a time of blackness: that is part of Muslim theology. History has to serve theology.”

V.S. Naipaul book The Enigma of Arrival

Among the Believers
The Enigma of Arrival (1987)

“Men need history; it helps them to have an idea of who they are.”

V.S. Naipaul book The Enigma of Arrival

"The Ceremony of Farewell"
The Enigma of Arrival (1987)
Context: Men need history; it helps them to have an idea of who they are. But history, like sanctity, can reside in the heart; it is enough that there is something there.

Similar authors

V.S. Naipaul34

Trinidadian-British writer of Indo-Nepalese ancestry 1932–2018

Ilya Ehrenburg1

Russian-Soviet writer and poet None

A.A. Milne169

British author None

Doris Lessing94

British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer … None

Arthur C. Clarke207

British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, u… None

W. Somerset Maugham158

British playwright, novelist, short story writer None

Elias Canetti43

Bulgarian-born Swiss and British jewish modernist novelist,… None

William Golding79

British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Lite… None

Kazuo Ishiguro76

Japanese-born British author None

Derek Walcott17

Saint Lucian–Trinidadian poet and playwright None