Author:
Publication: Mid-Day
Date: October 13, 2001
In the work of V S Naipaul, who
has just been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the reader walks on
surefooted sentences into a place where the ground is suddenly uncertain,
the crust thin and broken, the familiar landmarks replaced by eruptions
that no one but the author seems to notice. Like many writers, Naipaul
is often a better guide to the world in his prose than in his spoken remarks,
which have resulted in accusations of homophobia and racism.
In nonfiction books like India:
A Wounded Civilisation, A Turn in the South, Among the Believers and India:
A Million Mutinies Now - works that are at once tongue-bitten and profuse,
the products of detailed reporting and an incisive imagination - Naipaul
balances his other oeuvre, consisting of novels, several of which are regarded
as being autobiographical in nature.
Whether he is exploring India, the
American South, the arc of Muslim nations or the contours of his own past,
you do not notice at first how stern a witness he is until you also notice
how patient an observer he is. Out of his close attention a sometimes profound
pessimism arises, ameliorated by the scrupulous care with which he notices
the details of the world around him. Many readers have found it strange,
even off-putting, that Naipaul, born in Trinidad of Indian parents, should
find so little personal allegiance to India, and some critics have argued
that he works in third-world stereotypes. He writes about the hippies who
claimed to know India and concludes that "they break just at that point
where the Hindu begins: the knowledge of the abyss, the acceptance of distress
as the condition of men." But then in fiction and nonfiction alike, Naipaul
is always looking for the place where one knowledge breaks off and another
- most often a harsher one - begins.
Many readers will wonder whether
by awarding Naipaul the Nobel Prize, which he richly deserves, the Nobel
committee is obliquely commenting on the consequence of the terrorist attacks
in early September. The fact is that at the moment almost any writer the
committee chose to name would feel like a comment on the state of the world.
But if you think of writers whom
it would he important to read on the subject of September 11 and its aftermath,
Naipaul would certainly be near the top of the list. His is an independent
voice, sceptical and observant.
The New York Times
