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Bhabha’s own “location” of identity via the Persian minority of Mumbai.5 Bhabha’s “locating” culture begins with his assertion: “It is the trope of our times to locate the question of culture in the realm of the beyond.”6 And he emphasizes the way we define our “presence” by noting the prevalence of the prefix “post” as it is applied to “modernism,” “feminism,” “colonialism,” and so on. To Bhabha, “the beyond” is a new horizon. We may recall de Certeau’s argument at the opening of “Histoire et psychanalyse” and consider Sir Vidia’s “identity” as a breviary of how to “cannibalize history.” Indeed, it is as though Bhabha forcefully reads between the lines of Naipaul’s public pronouncements to inscribe a de Certeauvian “historiography” over his old self.7 What is more, if we juxtapose Naipaul’s recent use of both the persona and oeuvre of W. Somerset Maugham in his novel Half a Life, with Naipaul’s own parallels with the author/other (one of the earliest significant recognitions Naipaul received was the Somerset Maugham Award in 1961), we find Naipaul the richer for it. Maugham’s homosexuality and self-imposed exile superficially complicate what is an otherwise vigorously conventional cynicism. Nonetheless, Maugham‘s firmly stated opinion about the rising generation of the 1950s (“they are scum”) presages Naipaul’s caustic assessment of contemporary culture. Maugham was, of course, only dismissing the title character of Lucky Jim and those of his ilk, but his remark was taken as a condemnation of the entire younger generation––though Kingsley Amis won the Maugham prize, too. Finally, if we want to test the ironic, adjacent placement of Naipaul and Maugham, we should recall Clifford Geertz’s construction of the moment of comprehension of another culture as akin to getting a joke.8 The “joke,” here, is the perception of Sir Vidia as self-anointed conservator of all the tradition invoked by Maugham‘s “Companion of Honour” motto: “in action faithful and in honour clear.” (Maugham chafed at this “honour.” He saw it as almost an insult