Irving Howe admires Naipaul's "almost Conradian gift for tensing a story", the psychic and moral tension of the novel, and its "serious involvement with human issues". Howe rejects the notion that Naipaul is an apologist of colonialism. He contrasts the foreground space occupied by Salim with the background acts set in motion by the Big Man. The Big Man never appears but finds a voice in Raymond, the white intellectual who gets dumped later. Howe bemoans the fact that, as he sees it, Naipaul offers no hope, and that he allows "the wretchedness of his depicted scene" to become "the limit of his vision".