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Reading and Writing: A Personal Account
by
V.S. Naipaul
I was eleven, no more, when the wish came to me to be a writer; and then very soon it was a settled ambition. But for the young V. S. Naipaul, there was a great distance between the wish and its fulfillment. To become a writer, he would have to find ways of understanding three very different cultures: his family's half-remembered Indian homeland, the West Indian colonial s...more
Hardcover, 64 pages
Published
February 28th 2000
by New York Review Books
(first published 1968)
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The downside is that this is a disorganized, meandering book that doesn't seem know whether it's an autobiographical recounting of Naipaul's early life or a somewhat cautionary tale for would be writers. And at only 64 pages, is there really any room for wandering?
Probably yes. The upside of this little volume is that the short sections that soar make up for the parts that ping pong around. Naipaul's vision is spot on when he writes about capturing your own past to create literature ...more
Probably yes. The upside of this little volume is that the short sections that soar make up for the parts that ping pong around. Naipaul's vision is spot on when he writes about capturing your own past to create literature ...more
A writer who does not boast about his life - I liked it. What I especially liked was his speech for getting the Nobel Prize for Literature, although he picked up the same topics he already referred to in his essays forming the autobiography.
V.S.Naipaul has a writing style that I think many people can identify with. Enjoy it - and don't hesitate to read it if you have no idea who Naipaul is. He'll tell you in here.
V.S.Naipaul has a writing style that I think many people can identify with. Enjoy it - and don't hesitate to read it if you have no idea who Naipaul is. He'll tell you in here.
In interviews and in this slim collection, one overwhelmingly gets the sense that Naipaul would be insufferable in person. He seems incapable of seeing the world from anyone else's viewpoint. This is not a comment on his fiction - I'm aware most of my favorite novelists are jerks - but it made for poor reading here. Steer clear, friends, steer clear.
Naipaul is so complex. He has a point of view. This book, for me, more than any other of his works, showed me why he writes as he does. And his discussion of the origin of the novel at the book's end is beautifully written.
Naipaul is reportedly not a nice man, but these essays are quite nice.
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Awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Literature "for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories."
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