It may have been an overstatement when Paul Theroux, remarking upon the rootlessness and restlessness of V.S. Naipaul, characterized him as being among the homeless, former colonials who "travel because they belong nowhere." "They cannot settle," he continues, "they are constantly moving - in a sense they never arrive - and much of their travel is flight."
In short, Naipaul exists not only amid "transplanted people who can claim no country as their own," but, as Theroux maintains elsewhere, "It is evidence of the uniqueness of his vision, but a demonstration of the odds against him, that no country can claim him."
Naipaul himself, as an Indian in the West Indies and a West Indian in London, may not see himself quite as this ever-floating bundle of free-floating anxiety. Perhaps, then, it is emblematic fight more than nomadic flight that sees him belonging everywhere, claimed by everyone. And, far from rudderless, Naipaul responds in kind, guided by an empathetic aim to, as noted in the presentation speech with which he was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Literature, "understand the principle of every person's life, the decisive thing that makes him what he is."
Moreover, enticement and ambition early on drove a single-minded Naipaul to seek out the writing life he craved by leading him to move to England from his home in Trinidad, and to travel "from the periphery, the margin, to what was to me the centre; and it was my hope, that, at the centre, room would be made for me."
And so it was, as an unassuming but insistent Naipaul insinuated himself through four decades of distinguished and at times controversial fiction and nonfiction, in works such as A Bend in the River, A House for Mr. Biswas, Half a Life and An Area of Darkness, largely marked by prose of elegance and fluid, matter-of- fact clarity. The simple but not simple-minded humanism of an exilic writer of diverse yet discriminating tastes, illustrating the idea that God and the God-awful is in the details, constitutes the hallmark of The Writer and the World, a collection of 20 wide-ranging essays, some long out-of-print, introduced and selected by Pankaj Mishra. Spanning the 1960s through the 1980s, The Writer and the World covers ground with journeys into India, Africa and the Americas, and makes the rounds politically, socially and artistically - everything from Steinbeck in Cannery Row to King Mobutu in the Congo, and anything to illuminate problems and conditions centering around colonialism, race, religion, war, modernity and the Third World.
Article comments
1 - Mayank Austen Soofi
A thoughtful review that takes us to the world of Sir V S Naipaul, often called one of the greatest living writers in English language. If I speak for myself - Naipaul is a kind of writer who uses words to ‘clear’ the scene he is describing for us. He lays out a minute detailing of each aspect and goes on to unravel a person, a society, a country, and sometimes a religion, in a manner so simple that one is not left with any choice but to admire the disarmingly simple and elegant style of his narration.
This man has a very powerful control over his language. I admire him.
2 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Thank you and have a nice trip--Gordon