Reflections on reading part 4: a tribute to VS Naipaul, one of my favourite writers, who died 11 August 2018
“The world is what it is. Men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.” (VS Naipaul, A Bend in the River)
“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in the human situation.” (Graham Greene, Ways of Escape)
This is sort of a ‘bonus’ post in my series of ‘Reflections
on reading’, prompted by the death of a literary giant.
Also in this post: to re-read books? Or is life too short?
Also, as a teaser: I talk about my time as a human guinea
pig.
And, the beauty of reading and what you learn when you have
limited choice and no expectations.
And other writers whose death impacted me. And why it
hasn’t had the same impact when musicians or actors or other celebrities say
goodbye.
Obituaries are one genre I have yet to delve into though
I’ve long been a ‘fan’ of them, if that’s the right choice of words. Obituary
writers are some of the most gifted and talented out there, and a truly good
obit can really bring a figure to life (paradoxically). I’ve always been
particularly fond of The Economist’s obituaries, and many years ago, an
ex-girlfriend and I would play a morbid game every week, where we had to guess
the subject of the obituary. This didn’t count in the case of really big names,
the most predictable names - in a week where someone like Steve Jobs died,
where it was a 100% guarantee that he’d be the subject, the game didn’t count.
But otherwise, we didn’t actually pick a name, but merely a list of
‘characteristics’: male, West African, politician, Marxist-leaning; or female,
Chinese writer on post-colonial themes; or even something really out of left
field like male, Bolivian, anthropologist dealing with dying languages. Whoever
was closest won. There were plenty of squabbles over who was actually closer.
That game is long gone now but I’ve never lost my affection
for a well-written obituary, especially amongst literary figures. And for years
and years I’d always had this fear that if I went a few days without checking
the news, I’d miss the obituary of a figure who may have been significant for a
certain portion of the world, but not ‘big enough’ to be major front page news.
On Saturday, 11 August, VS Naipaul died. He was one of my
all-time favourite writers, and my favourite living writer. Rarely does it hit
me hard when a celebrity dies. Off the top of my head, I struggle to come up
with an example of someone from the world of cinema, music, sports or politics
whose demise affected me profoundly. But when it comes to writers, their
passing leaves more of a mark and leads to all sorts of deep, melancholy and
reflective thoughts. (at this point, a few friends may cry ‘foul!’ and call me
a hypocrite because there is a chance I might be forgetting someone, but for
the life of me, no one comes to mind.)
Somehow, I missed his death and only discovered it a couple
of days later, when the NY Review of
Books re-published a whole trove of his past reviews (my family was in town
and things were a bit on the hectic side, shall we say). From there, I found
all the other articles and tributes floating around the web. There are many and
even now, nearly a month later, there are still articles being written.
Writers have left more of an indelible and powerful mark on
my…’development’(?) ‘…upbringing’(?) and it’s with their passing that I find
myself going down a solipsistic journey into nostalgia about how impactful and
profound were their contributions to my own literary oeuvre.
Naipaul was unquestionably a literary giant, and it’s not
for me to run through a roll call of his honours and achievements. There have
been endless obituaries, tributes and reflections about his life and his work
over the past weeks, and though I’ve read quite a bit already, there are still
plenty more open tabs on my computer waiting to be digested. I won’t go too
much into the content of his writing – either you know him and care, or you’ve
never heard of him and don’t. He’s not the easiest writer to get into and
appreciate, though I’ve often recommended him as a writer, especially to
students, because of his beautiful, crisp diamantine prose and his lovely
command of grammar and language, especially his flowing yet unpretentious
style.
Amongst all the commentary on Naipaul’s life, much has been
said about his style of writing, but more about the themes of it. And the man
behind the writing, the personality that was Naipaul. Much of what has been
written about him is not kind at all, because by most accounts he was not a
very nice person, putting it mildly. He gave his biographer, Patrick French,
full access to his journals and those of his ex-wife, and his warts-and-all
account does not paint a pretty picture. It’s not easy to separate the author
from his or her works, and for many it was hard to overcome what an unpleasant cad
Naipaul was.
Out of many articles about Naipaul is this from the Financial Times:
How we judge VS Naipaul is a test of our culture: The Nobel laureate leaves behind one of the
greatest bodies of English prose — but how will history handle his politics? By
Janan Ganesh
A few choice excerpts just to give you a smattering of the type of person
Naipaul was:
The word “curmudgeon”
has peppered the obituaries of the Nobel laureate since he died last week. He
would have winced at the imprecision of the word. A curmudgeon skimps on
restaurant gratuities and tuts at modern music. To understand how far beyond
this Naipaul went in his personal dealings, consult Patrick French’s The World
Is What It Is. Now 10 years old, it remains the “frankest authorised biography
of anyone alive and in possession of their senses”, in the sound judgment of
one critic…
…What happens to his
reputation now is a test of our culture. He leaves us perhaps the greatest body
of English prose since the war…
…I hope Naipaul makes it through the sieve of politics to become a staple of the curriculum, and not just because we who took a circuitous route from the subcontinent to Britain have to stick together. His writing is too good to be withheld from the young. His range is too broad…
But I am here, selfishly, to talk about his impact on me. This
may probably only be of interest to a select few of my friends/readers, though
if you’re someone who often re-reads books and/or is interested in my life as a
human guinea pig, stick around for a few minutes.
1 Sometime between 1997 and 2002, my good pal Dr Wasabi
Islam recommends Naipaul to me, and he tells me to start with A Bend in the River, his post-colonial
tale of an Indian Muslim in an unnamed African country. (along with this book,
his other ‘must-reads’, and perhaps the consensus most timeless works are A House for Mr Biswas, Mimic Men, Miguel
Street, In a Free State, The Loss of El Dorado and The Enigma of Arrival). This, along with my discovery of the late,
great Polish journalist/travel writer Ryszard Kapuscinski’s The Soccer War and Shadow of the Sun, awakened an interest in African history and
politics, especially West Africa.
Like Naipaul, Kapuscinski led a less than savoury personal
life. Both of their biographies make for uncomfortable reading and force you to
re-think the value of their work. This was and has been mentioned endlessly in
tributes to both of them.
In 2002, I start my Masters in International Relations at
Edinburgh. Prompted in part by my love of Naipaul (and Kapuscinski), I end up
focusing my research dissertation on post-colonial West African politics.
2 Autumn 2003: I’m jobless after graduation, deciding on
the next steps in my ‘career’. What the hell to do with a Masters in IR with a
focus on post-colonial West African politics? Thanks a lot, Naipaul.
I apply for a job at Waterstone’s bookshop in Belfast. With
massive student loans from my undergraduate degree, and now from my Masters, I
can’t afford to dilly-dally and I need whatever job I can get. My first
infusion of cash – bad pun intended here – came from willingly submitting my
body as a medical guinea pig for medical trials. It paid handsomely.
During my Waterstone’s job interview, I am taken around the
bookshop and asked some pretty tricky questions. I had no idea interviewing for
a job in a bookshop would be this challenging. Some of the questions stump me
and I feel like I’m floundering in my attempts to land this job. The pay isn’t
great, but the idea of working in a bookshop thrills me.
The final question: my interviewer, who is tall, bald and
towers over me, yet is one of the nicest, warmest people I’ve ever met, intimidates
me. ‘Can you recommend two books to me? Describe them for me, tell me why I
should read them? Try to think of two books that many people haven’t read.’ I
freeze for a minute.
The first was easy: Master
and Margarita (which, at that time in Belfast, almost no one had read, as I
would find out every time I recommended it from that day on). The second? I had
to think for a bit longer: A Bend in the
River.
He was particularly impressed with the second book and I
got the job. To this day, it’s still probably the best job I’ve ever had.
3 It’s 2004, my Waterstone’s job has ended, and I need a
job related to my degree. My aforementioned obituary-game-playing ex-girlfriend
and I end up going to Nigeria to work. Dodgy job, dodgy NGO, dodgy country,
fantastic, unforgettable experience. It all goes back to Naipaul. (She hated
Kapuscinski, and considered him a fraud, which may or may not have been the
reason we split up.)
4 Onto 2005, my first teaching job, in Lviv. It’s been an
amazing year to date (April 2005: I decided to become an English teacher, doing
my teacher training in Prague), but I went to Lviv with mixed feelings – I was
all over the place emotionally – after a whirlwind late August romantic
encounter in Chicago that almost kibboshed my plans to go to western Ukraine.
Still, I went and it was a great decision, though I was mopey and maudlin and
as my birthday came around – it being near the start of the school year, the
director of my school gave me a gift. After just a few days of exhaustively
exploring Lviv, I realized there were no English books to be found anywhere in
shops. Nothing. I had 5-6 books with me and I thought ‘there’s no way I’m getting
through an entire year here without any books!’ I don’t think e-books existed
yet and I had no internet access. This depressed me to no end.
It was a book she’d given me. I unwrapped it: Area of Darkness by Naipaul, his first
travelogue about his trip back to his ancestral homeland of India. I was
delighted. And baffled as to how she knew I liked Naipaul. And where she got
the book from. Despite my best efforts, she wouldn’t budge and refused to
divulge the source.
(‘Roughly
characterizing Naipaul’s travel books, one might say that they are beautifully
written, in his highly controlled lyrical-realist style; the character
portraiture is deft and the selection of significant detail is inspired. They
are deeply pessimistic about the prospects for the nations newly freed from
Western colonialism.’ Naipaul’s Mysterious Africa, Norman Rush, NY Review of
Books)
I’ll stop there. I’ve only made it up to 2005, but if I go
through every year until the present, we’ll be here all day. Or at least I
will.
An interlude on the joys of discovering unexpected reading
treasures
Luckily for me, it wasn’t long before I discovered the
British Council library, which had a small but intriguing selection of books. I
hardly cared: it was heaven!
I’ve talked about this before, but when you’ve got little
to no choice, you end up reading stuff you’d never expect to. As much as I
missed being far from book sources, it was bliss to discover and unearth some
gems. Among the highlights, and I can say with a high degree of certainty that
I’d never have read most of these had I much more choice:
A Suitable Boy, Vikram
Seth
The Leopard, Lampedusa
A Confederacy of Dunces, John
Kennedy Toole
An Artist of the
Floating World, Ishiguro
On the death of writers
It’s been about a month now from the time I started writing
this post. In that time, no other celebrities come to mind when I think of passings
that have hit me. It seems like only writers have this effect on me.
Naipaul’s death has had the impact it has because of how
long he has been with me in my reading life: roughly 20 years. I knew the end
was coming but it still lingers.
Other writers and academics worth mentioning: Eric Hobsbawm
(1917-2012), my favourite historian, who I started reading at university and
who forced me to look at history in a whole new light, from ‘the other side’;
Kapuscinski (1932-2007) – after his death, I actually received emails of
condolences from a few friends, such was his impact on me; Christopher Hitchens
(1949-2011) – though I didn’t necessarily agree with him on many issues, his is
the voice I miss the most in our current troubling times. I miss his acerbic
and coruscating wit, his wry and prescient insights and his sobering and
abrasive commentary. And Paddy Leigh Fermor (1915-2011), one of the greatest
travel writers of all-time, and who lived life the way it was meant to be
lived: full of recklessness, adventure and epic conquests, in love and war and
all matters literary.
When writers I love move onto a better place, I immediately
feel the urge to go back and reread one of their most influential, powerful
works.
So it could soon be time for my 4th reading of A Bend in the River, though I’d prefer The Enigma of Arrival (it’s a few
thousand miles away from me and will have to wait a few months).
In conclusion: books worth rereading
Is life too short to reread books? What are the books that
get reread the most? Are there certain books that just shouldn’t be reread?
The magic of rereading books is their impact on whatever
stage of your life you’re at. A rereading can bring new insights, new emotions.
You see things you never saw before, both good and bad. Among the books I’ve
reread at least 3 times, not including the books/short stories I’ve read to my
daughter 22 times already:
Shadow of the Sun,
Kapuscinski
Master and Margarita, Bulgakov
(and different translations)
Madame Bovary, Flaubert
Notes from Underground,
Dostoyevsky
The Heart of the Matter, Graham
Greene
Earthly Powers & A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
The Sheltering Sky, Paul
Bowles
Cat’s Cradle & Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
The Book of Laughter
and Forgetting & The Unbearable
Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
Books like Lord of
the Flies and Catcher in the Rye,
much like John Hughes films, have to be read when you’re a teenager and I’d
never go back to them. One of my favourite books is If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller
by Italo Calvino and the 2nd time I read it, it had little
impact on me and I got little out of it. There’s a time and a place for
particular books I suppose.
Finally…
Do I see any of myself in Naipaul? In this, yes:
‘In a way my reputation has become that of a curmudgeon.’
Postscript
The Economist obituary of Naipaul:
The opening paragraphs of a NY Review of Books review of In
a Free State, from December 1971:
'Naipaul is a colonial
brought up in English schools, on English ways, and the pretended
reasonableness of the English mind. He lives in the no longer overbearing
mother country without much hope in or attachment to anything but English
prose. He is an exile who in England is an Indian, in America unknown, in
Trinidad a pre-nationalist Anglophile intellectual, and since he had been
everywhere, so to speak, from the moment he was born, he has had no reason to
stop traveling. In a world where the number of displaced persons is finally
identifiable with the storminess of our planet, Naipaul is an exile who writes
about nothing else—in the most clipped, elegant, subtle English prose. Naipaul
writes about the many psychic realities of exile in our contemporary world with
far more bite and dramatic havoc than Joyce brought to that stage Jew Leopold
Bloom.
In this new book, one
of his very best, he has sharpened and tuned, on five different examples of
contemporary wandering, his already prodigious sense of fiction. No one else
around today, not even Nabokov, seems able to employ prose fiction so deeply as
the very voice of exile. If “our” fiction began with the raw merchants settling
into their overstuffed interiors, the brilliance of fiction today would seem to
depend on a sense of displacement which so many smart American novelists who
have never been put to the actual test have already played with in their more
theoretical novels.
What makes Naipaul hurt
so much more than other novelists of contemporary exodus is his major image—the
tenuousness of man’s hold on the earth. The doubly unsettling effect he
creates—for the prose is British-chatty, proper yet bitter—also comes from the
many characters in a book like this who don’t “belong” in the countries they
are touring or working in, who wouldn’t “belong” any longer in the countries
they come from, and from the endless moving about of contemporary life have
acquired a feeling of their…’ (Displaced Person, Alfred Kazin, NY Review of Books
Photo credits: BBC, Toronto Sun
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