Guerrillas | Writing Style & Techniques

Guerrillas Techniques/Literary Precedents

The most important literary influence on Guerrillas is Joseph Conrad, whose Nostromo, (1904), The Secret Agent (1907), and Under Western Eyes (1911) are portraits of revolutionary lands and cultures. Conrad, like Naipaul, was moved by social injustice, and yet he never described political actions, particularly radical ones, with any favor. To him all such actions were undermined by selfishness and weakness. Like Conrad, Naipaul condemns exploitation, such as the rape of the island by an American corporation, but he portrays Jimmy as even more despicable than the corporation. Although he is unsparing in his criticism of social injustices, Naipaul does not seem to believe that revolutionary movements are the answer.