Born in Trinidad of Indian descent, a resident of England for his entire adult life, and a prodigious traveler, V. S. Naipaul has always faced the challenges of “fitting one civilization to another.” Here, he takes us into his sometimes inadvertent process of creative and intellectual assimilation, which has shaped both his writing and his life.
In a probing narrative that is part meditation and part remembrance, Naiapul discusses the writers to whom he was exposed early on and his first encounters with literary culture. He looks at what we have retained and what we have forgotten of the classical world, and he illuminates the ways in which Indian writers such as Gandhi and Nehru both reveal and conceal themselves and their nation. Full of humor and privileged insight, this is an eloquent, intimate exploration into the configuration of a writer’s mind.
Naipaul's book is a pleasant, sometimes repetitive, hodgepodge of memoir, thoughts on books and writers, and reflections on history, especially India's. Simon Vance, who is highly skilled and experienced, narrates with intelligence, nuance, and feeling (sometimes just a bit too much feeling or emphasis). His very professionalism, oddly, calls attention to the fact that this is not the author reading these first-person observations. Vance's English accent, unlike Naipaul's, has no flavor of the Caribbean, or even the subcontinent. Even one who has never heard Naipaul, just from hearing his personal history, may find this reading, while technically nearly impeccable, actorly, bland, and inauthentic. But barring a personal reading, this is the best one can reasonably expect. W.M. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
The Observer...
“As ever, Naipaul's sentences are tightly coiled and muscular; they embody the very qualities they praise….His characteristic excursions into the byways of history and autobiography are often revelatory, opening up new vistas….this is a brilliant work from a man who more than anybody else embodies what it means to be a writer.”
About the Author
V. S. NAIPAUL has published more than twenty books of fiction and nonfiction. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001.
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