The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul

Author - Patrick French ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Hardcover Book item from Knopf was reviewed on 23-Oct-2008.

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1) Hardcover Book The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul by Knopf. The much anticipated and eagerly awaited biography of the Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul by Mr. Patrick French is now in print. It is fascinating, gripping, deeply shocking, humorous, and hugely entertaining as well.

Readers who shook their heads in disbelief when they read Mr. Paul Theroux´s "Sir Vidia´s Shadow" can now read this book and shake their head some more in disbelief at some of the cruel and unpleasant incidents described here in raw and unvarnished detail. Given an opportunity to comment and suggest changes to the manuscript, Mr. Naipaul, to his credit, did not suggest any changes and allowed the book to be published, wrinkles, blisters, cuts, gashes, bruises and scabs intact, which is precisely the reason that this book is so gripping and shocking to read.

The details of Mr. Naipaul´s life, often, are not very pleasant to read. In fact, I cringed when I read some of the passages here. Even though I had read about several of the unflattering incidents in various articles, books, and also on the Internet, I was quite shocked, nevertheless, when I read those passages here. This biography confirms that, yes, Mr. Naipaul is a great and fascinating writer, but he is also a flawed man.

Mr. Naipaul comes across as a funny, witty man, a racist, misogynist, a married man with a young mistress whom he beat up many times, a man who patronized prostitutes, and also a writer who experienced racism from other writers such as Evelyn Waugh. If you have read any of his novels and non-fiction, while reading this biography you will vividly recall some of the brilliant passages from those books, especially "A Bend in the River", "The Enigma of Arrival", and "A House for Mr. Biswas". I did.

To write a biography of this great but much maligned and misunderstood writer and novelist, and a living legend, it takes a competent writer with good command over the English language, to complement and reflect Naipaul´s elegant and mellifluous prose. After all, Naipaul is universally acknowledged as the world´s preeminent stylist of English prose. Mr. Patrick French doesn´t disappoint the readers. Written in crisp, clear, and lucid prose, the book fascinates and captivates the reader from the very beginning:
"He likes the look of the sixteen-year-old girl behind the counter, Droapatie Capildeo. Not realizing she is a daughter of the house, he passes her a note. It is discovered, the formidable Soogee intervenes, and on 28 March 1929 Seepersad and Droapatie are married at the warden´s office in Chaguanas. They have a daughter, Kamla, the following year, and on 17 August 1932 their son Vidyadhar is born. He is named for a Chandela king, the dynasty which built the magnificent Hindu temples at Khajuraho in northern India. His name means "giver of wisdom."

Actually, there is a minor error here. The name Vidyadhar doesn´t mean "giver of wisdom"; it means "one who possesses knowledge", the root word Vid, from Sanskrit, means "to know" and dhar means "to hold" or to possess. It´s indeed a very apt name for a great writer like V. S. Naipaul.

"The World Is What It Is" is like a wonderful and potent medicine; it is brightly colored and slightly bitter, and it might even get stuck in your throat, but once swallowed it will open your eyes and compel you to see Mr. Naipaul in new light, and also make you think and ponder and shake your head long after you have finished the book. This book is a marvel.




¤

2) Hardcover Book The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul by Knopf. I take several objections to the previous reviwer´s criticism: it shows a serious lack of understanding and feeling.

Patrick French´s biography is essential in understanding Naipaul, the man, behind Naipaul, the writer, who is so famously divisive and often caricatured. Unlike Paul Theroux´s "Sir Vidia´s Shadow" which is a bit fictionalized and sometimes factually wrong, French draws extensively on interviews and correspondences to narrate a realistic account of Naipaul´s life until the late 1990s (French doesn´t chronicle the Nobel Naipaul won in 2001).

Naipaul´s life is full of violent relationships with people, places, and history. French doesn´t let this material degenerate into sensationalism or melodrama. Remarkably, French also doesn´t budge in to Naipaul´s forceful personality and holds him responsible for his behavior towards
several people. It is quite fascinating to read French´s account of some event which is at odds with Naipaul´s own skewed recollection of the same event.

Unlike the other reviewer noted, French does connect the dots between Naipaul´s life and work. For ex, Naipaul´s affair with Margaret enabled him to write the sex scenes in "A Bend in the River," not to mention the rejuvenating effect it had on Naipaul´s life and work.

Overall, this book is far from a dissappointment. I enjoyed reading it as much as Naipaul´s books. I can think of no better compliment.¤

3) Hardcover Book The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul by Knopf. Ideally, a biography should penetrate into the subject´s psychology, and provide insight into the subject´s society and times; it should tell us what drives and fuels, what angers and scares, what pleases and pains the subject, and what makes him relevant and meaningful to the people and culture around him. Failing that, a biography should be a compelling and interesting narrative, employing fictional devices to render a subject knowable and human. Failing that, a biography ought to be sexy and scandalous, revealing shocking and disturbing details that show how perverted and perverting money, fame, and power really are. Failing that, it should be at least well-written. Failing all of these things, a biography should choose at the very least to be short.

Running at 499 pages Patrick French´s authorized biography of the Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul is a very breezy and very business-like affair, very straight and very matter-of-fact, and ultimately very dull and very trivial.

Mr. French had complete and total access to all of V.S. Naipaul´s papers, friends, and the great man himself. Sometimes this can be a very good thing but often this is usually a bad very thing. Reading the book we can tell that Mr. French, a young writer who -- like the young Naipaul once -- has won many accolades reserved for young writers, is in awe and fear of the very blunt and very opinionated Naipaul, and the result is the book is without opinion, without personality, and without life.

The book is a chronology and a litany. It follows Naipaul from his childhood days in Trinidad, to his Oxford days, to his marriage to an Englishwoman Pat, to his rise as a literary eminence, to his sordid violent life-long affair with an Argentinian woman named Margaret, to his sudden fame and fortune, ending with his second marriage upon Pat´s death. It lists and names all of Naipaul´s famous friends and patrons, and accounts and chronicles all of Naipaul´s writings.

At no point in the book does the author grapple with and try to understand the contradictions and complexity of Naipaul´s character, and how his inner demons and pain would mold and determine his writing. Mr. French matter-of-factly tells us that suffering from depression Naipaul once made a half-hearted attempt to kill himself as a young man living in England, and just leaves it at that. Mr. French devotes the second half of his book primarily to Naipaul´s intensely violent affair with Margaret, whom he loves and hates passionately. He beats her. They have great sex. They break apart, swearing never to see each other again, and then suddenly they´re back together again. This is all juicy gossip but what does it tell us about the man and the writer? Mr. French´s writing is so cold and so lifeless we´re led to believe that nothing in Naipaul´s life has any real significance at all.

This book is a great disappointment for the audience that it is supposed to serve: the Naipaul readers who want to understand the man behind the writing. And the man is an endlessly fascinating individual. First and most important, Naipaul suffers from intense self-loathing. As a British colonial from Trinidad he tried hard his entire life to negate his heritage and upbringing -- bluntly calling the colonies hopeless and irredeemable, and befriending conservative members of the British aristocracy who appreciate his self-hatred. Naipaul´s proclivity for prostitutes and the fact his love life oscillated between the polar extremes of his loyal and devoted wife Pat and his crazy and sexy mistress Margaret meant his views on women and sex were skewed. And how about that Naipaul never had children? These are very interesting and important facts and circumstances of Naipaul´s life that must have had tremendous impact on his writings, and Paul French fails miserably in connecting the dots.¤

4) Hardcover Book The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul by Knopf.

Since V. S. Naipaul left his Caribbean birthplace at the age of seventeen, his improbable life has followed the global movement of peoples, whose preeminent literary chronicler he has become. In The World Is What It Is, Patrick French offers the first authoritative biography of the controversial Nobel laureate, whose only stated ambition was greatness as a writer, in pursuit of which goal nothing else was sacred.

Beginning with a richly detailed portrait of Naipaul’s childhood in colonial Trinidad, French gives us the boy born to an Indian family, the displaced soul in a displaced community, who by dint of talent and ambition finds the only imaginable way out: a scholarship to Oxford. London in the 1950s offers hope and his first literary success, but homesickness and depression almost defeat Vidia, his narrow escape aided by Patricia Hale, an Englishwoman who will devote herself to his work and well-being. She will stand by him, sometimes tenuously, for more than four decades, even as Naipaul embarks on a twenty-four-year affair, which will awaken half-dead passions and feed perhaps his greatest wave of dizzying creativity. Amid this harrowing emotional life, French traces the course of the fierce visionary impulse underlying Naipaul’s singular power, a gift to produce masterpieces of fiction and nonfiction.

Informed by exclusive access to V. S. Naipaul’s private papers and personal recollections, and by great feeling for his formidable body of work, French’s revelatory biography does full justice to an enigmatic genius.

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 20-Nov-2008, 14000440579781400044054, 830-660-730-250-571-051-8

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