Ideas of Progress in A Bend in the River by Naipaul In his novel A Bend in the River, VS Naipaul paints a picture of Salim, an Indian man living in an isolated African city at the beginning of independence. Salim, as an Indian, has a unique perspective on the events of the time: in a sense he lives between two worlds. Having experienced the "civilizing" influence of British colonial rule, he comes from a culture more "advanced" than that of Africa but less so than that of the West. This hierarchy of progress is visible throughout the book, and the theme of progress is best illustrated in this passage from the opening of part four, immediately after Salim's return from London: So at last I had arrived in the capital. It was a strange way to get there, after such a tortuous journey. If I had arrived fresh from my city upstream it would have seemed immense, rich, a capital. But after Europe, and with London still close to me, it seemed fragile despite its size, an echo of Europe and, as if by fiction, at the end of all that forest. (247)...