Why I admire V.S. Naipaul.

[KlatooBNikto]

First a little background for those who have not heard of him.V.S. Naipaul has been described as the greatest living writer in the English language today, a well deserved reputation that was reinforced when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature a few years ago.A prolific author of fiction, nonfiction,travelogues and many essays in some of the best periodicals in the world have solidified his reputation.

He was born in Trinidad of Indian parents and was educated at Oxford.His essays on the relationship between the colonial masters and their subjects are characterized by keen observation, profound insights delivered in the most elegant prose by any author writing.He has turned these insights into his travelogues in India,Latin America,Africa, the Middle East and the American South.In each setting he has come up with unique observations that have authenticity and the resonating ring of truth.

Naipaul has been attacked for being overly pessimistic about the Third World ( An Area of Darkness, he has called it),the Muslim World
( the world of the Believers) and Latin America ( a violent and barbaric hotbed).But no one has been able to challenge the basic truth of what he says, a truth he conveys dispassionately in the most elegant prose.The clarity of that prose would have pleased Orwell who saw the connection between the clarity of prose and truth.

As one example, I have been discussing the mistreatment of Asian women brought in as indentured servants into many rich Arab households and subjected to cruel treatments ranging from rape, beatings, battery and even murder.Naipaul has dealt with Muslim societies penchant for misogyny in a way you will never find in any mainstream media and he warned us in 1980 of the potential for violent explosions against Western mores injected into these societies.The book AMONG THE BELIEVERS-AN ISLAMIC JOURNEY is one of my favorites because it shows what a single observer with an eye for detail can tell us and no one tells it better than Naipaul.

My favorite Naipaul quote:Those who observe learn;those who don't, have obsessions.

[knowbody0]

1. thank you

[varun]

2. Perhaps VS Naipaul needs to visit his ancestral home India

more often...

This "Third World" nation is not the same as what he describes in most of his novels (he wrote them many decades ago).

[KlatooBNikto]

4. His observations mostly concern people, their interactions and

what drives the society.I do not believe on those matters India, or for that matter many societies, change that much in a few decades even though they may acquire the trappings of modernity as India probably has done.

[mitchum]

3. His late brother Shiva was no slouch either

[Kickin_Donkey]

5. I got hooked on V.S. Naipaul in college ...

when a political science professor assigned the long essay on Mobutu's Zaire in the book "The Return of Eva Peron."

He's a brilliant prose writer. But I do have misgivings about him after I learned he's extremely conservative in the Tory/GOP sense of the word.

[KlatooBNikto]

6. He has always said that ideology is not one of his fixations. And his

statemnt has always been that a writer's job is to tell the truth as he sees it.In that Naipaul is the best.