Arlette and Andree, two West Indian women divorced by Ivoirian husbands, assist him in his speculations, and an American and an English expatriate, whom he gently analyzes. Similarly, he had written appreciatively of a British expatriate named Gault MacGowan, who had championed his father's career. And most of these ameliorating attitudes have carried over to the Ivory Coast. It was not the visionaries and idealists who made a go of it, but the ones who came for the sun and the good life. And for his friend Philip, ''Africa had become the starting point for speculation.
Reconciliation is one of the themes in each of the essays.
But Mr. Naipaul is a wild card. In a Free State,'' ''A House for Mr. Biswas,'' ''The Return of Eva Peron,'' ''Finding the Center'' - these are books written from a more varied intelligence than any other writer can now reliably muster.