Roche, the new and latest of lovers seemed to offer the chance of some salvation. Jane sees in Roche a man of action, someone with a vision and the ability to achieve. Roche had written a book about his experiences in south Africa. He had survived the ordeal of torture but had kept alive some zeal for radical change which prompts Jane to join him on the adventure which totally destroys her.
The guerrillas of the title are no more than a group of bitter young men misled by the pathological Jimmy Ahmed, a mulatto Chinese with dubious credentials, who thinks of himself as a revolutionary prophet.
The scheme in the woods, christened by the leader Thrushcross Grange, is shambolic and as anti-utopian as they come.
Jane is fascinated by Jimmy Ahmed. Roche's ineptitude and his limitations become too apparent for the misguided Jane who decides to return to her old lifestyle back home in England, but not before she has had her flirtation with Jimmy Ahmed.
Naipaul is the master of depicting the impact of impending disaster on the psyches of those caught up in circumstances beyond their comprehension on the one hand, but which are a real threat to their livelihood and well being on the other. Jane's flirtations end in disaster and humiliation. The native brutally rapes her before handing her over to his younger protegee to kill as a token of love. Roche, whose days on the island were numbered anyway, quickly covers up what is left of Jane's belongings and heads West to pursue attempting to survive in Europe with one more burden added to his already heavy weight of guilt and failure.
Naipaul's prose is impeccable as usual, and his nihilism reaches new heights with this novel. Roche is literally roach-like: he is a man whose cynicism has carried him beyond values.
A world wihout values is, by definition, a world devoid of meaning!!