Sir Vidia’s unsleeping ghost

I happened in the way of people who buy books by the box at garage sales and thrift stores to have just read Paul Theroux’s “Sir Vidia’s Shadow” on the ferry to Vancouver and back. It is a wonderful, warm, nasty portrait of a great writer by a brilliant writer. Now V. S. Nailpaul’s authorized biography is out and Theroux, whose pen was stilled by Britain’s libel laws, has the opportunity to consider his mentor more accurately.

Now French’s biography amply demonstrates everything I said and more. It is not a pretty story; it will probably destroy Naipaul’s reputation for ever, this chronicle of his pretensions, his whoremongering, his treatment of a sad, sick wife and disposable mistress, his evasions, his meanness, his cruelty amounting to sadism, his race baiting. Then there is the “gruesome sex”, the blame shifting, the paranoia, the disloyalty, the nasty cracks and the whining, the ingratitude, the mood swings, the unloving and destructive personality. paul theroux, the times

Oddly, I can forgive Naipaul his sins on the basis of his non-fiction “Among the Believers” which is flatly the best description of the Islamist lunacy I have ever read and his utterly brilliant, “A House for Mr Biswas”.

But it seems pretty much settled fact that the man was a shit.

Written by jay on April 16th, 2008 with 3 comments.
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Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Rod Blaine
#1. April 16th, 2008, at 4:20 PM.

Well, if Naipaul criticised Islamists,, that proves he was a RACIST!!!!!!

What part of Ireland did his own family originate from?

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com john begley
#2. April 16th, 2008, at 10:52 PM.

the extreme view of course is that there ARE no fictions in the novel form…i happen to agree since every day brings some new wonder or mendacity…or nobility to my awareness..

anyway i cleaved the teller from the tale many and many a year ago…..im my ‘umble opinion one neither excuses nor amplifies the other.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com CJ
#3. April 22nd, 2008, at 9:24 AM.

Fiction never lies; it reveals the author totally.
-V.S. Naipaul, The Killings in Trinidad

An awful lot of writers and other intellectuals are dirtbags. Don’t let it stop you from reading pretty much any Naipaul book you can get your hands on. Many of the less-celebrated ones are excellent. All of the political and social observations stand the test of time. My personal favorites are A Bend in the River, Among the Believers, India: A Wounded Civilization, The Mimic Men, The Middle Passage, Return of Eva Peron/Killings in Trinidad (published together in a paperback you can probably pick up for a song), and Biswas.

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