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A Writer's People: Ways of Looking and Feeling
V. S. Naipaul has always faced the challenges of "fitting one civilization to another." In A Writer's People, he takes us into this process of creative and intellectual assimilation, which has shaped both his writing and his life.
Naipaul discusses the writers to whom he was exposed early on—Derek Walcott, Gustave Flaubert, and his father, among them—and his first encounters with literary culture. He illuminates the ways in which the writings of Gandhi, Nehru, and other Indian writers both reveal and conceal the authors themselves and their nation. And he brings the same scrutiny to bear on his own life: his early years in Trinidad; the empty spaces in his family history; his ever-evolving reactions to the more complicated India he would encounter for the first time at age thirty.
Naipaul discusses the writers to whom he was exposed early on—Derek Walcott, Gustave Flaubert, and his father, among them—and his first encounters with literary culture. He illuminates the ways in which the writings of Gandhi, Nehru, and other Indian writers both reveal and conceal the authors themselves and their nation. And he brings the same scrutiny to bear on his own life: his early years in Trinidad; the empty spaces in his family history; his ever-evolving reactions to the more complicated India he would encounter for the first time at age thirty.
193 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
22 people are currently reading
320 people want to read
About the author
V.S. Naipaul
190 books1,787 followersV. S. Naipaul was a British writer of Indo-Trinidadian descent known for his sharp, often controversial explorations of postcolonial societies, identity, and displacement. His works, which include both fiction and nonfiction, often depict themes of exile, cultural alienation, and the lingering effects of colonialism.
He gained early recognition with A House for Mr Biswas, a novel inspired by his father’s struggles in Trinidad. His later works, such as The Mimic Men, In a Free State, and A Bend in the River, cemented his reputation as a masterful and incisive writer. Beyond fiction, his travelogues and essays, including Among the Believers and India: A Million Mutinies Now, reflected his critical perspective on societies in transition.
Naipaul received numerous accolades throughout his career, including the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded for his ability to blend deep observation with literary artistry. While praised for his prose, his often unsparing portrayals of postcolonial nations and controversial statements sparked both admiration and criticism.
He gained early recognition with A House for Mr Biswas, a novel inspired by his father’s struggles in Trinidad. His later works, such as The Mimic Men, In a Free State, and A Bend in the River, cemented his reputation as a masterful and incisive writer. Beyond fiction, his travelogues and essays, including Among the Believers and India: A Million Mutinies Now, reflected his critical perspective on societies in transition.
Naipaul received numerous accolades throughout his career, including the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded for his ability to blend deep observation with literary artistry. While praised for his prose, his often unsparing portrayals of postcolonial nations and controversial statements sparked both admiration and criticism.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
September 30, 2007
Words used to describe Naipaul's work in the jacket copy of this book: "Astonishing", "rich", "extraordinary", "compassionate", "rich", "elegant", "gentleness", "humour".
Words Naipaul uses to describe the work of other writers in this book: "Unwieldy", "ponderous", "overstated", "over-written", "shallow", "minor", "vain and mad".
'Nuff said.
Words Naipaul uses to describe the work of other writers in this book: "Unwieldy", "ponderous", "overstated", "over-written", "shallow", "minor", "vain and mad".
'Nuff said.
August 10, 2015
Insightful, but a little too disjointed and self-indulgent, not to mention grumpy. Naipaul's famous scorn for other writers' work is on full display here, to the extent that one performs a double take upon seeing a stray word of praise [he heartily approves of Madame Bovary though, thankfully, but takes down Flaubert's historical novel Salambbo]. His uncharitable views on Anthony Powell, a renowned novelist and Naipaul's mentor and friend in England, for instance, are really quite vicious. In addition, if you've already read Naipaul's India trilogy, especially 'An Area of Darkness' and 'India: A Wounded Civilization', the chapters about India and Gandhi will seem severely repetitive. The editor shouldn't have let such sloppiness pass. Overall, this one seems like a filler book Naipaul wrote to pass his time, reminiscing about days past, playing his inevitable role as the lion in winter.
March 13, 2008
Usually I manage to resist reading a review before I read any book. But, when it is reviewed as the main article at the London Review of Books, it becomes incredibly hard to ignore. And impossible, either due to the reaction to it or because of my admiration for the writer, if it is a Naipaul book. Through such travails of reading the book after having read about it, and, amidst reverberating echoes of such canon-shots booming between the pages, I finished Naipaul's latest book Writer’s people -Ways of looking and Feeling, last week.
The book deals with one of the expansive and original subjects one can read about in the post-modern world. Naipaul typically, with no allegiance to anyone and no belongingness anywhere writes about writing and the writers - whom he had read or come across in his lifetime; and how, with their ways of looking and seeing, they helped to shape his own way of seeing.
Admittedly, the book is quite airily written and lacks the eye for detail that one usually associates with Naipaul. Given the vastness of the domain chosen for the book, it is at best a selective summary. It is fragmented, flaky and even in the best of its pieces surprisingly incomplete. Also, I must add, for anyone who has keenly followed Naipaul’s works, it would not be a subject entirely unfamiliar. At least I wasn't when I read the book.
Though there are liberal transplants of sentiments from his earlier books ( we all know about the influence of Huxley’s Jesting Pilate and Vidia's positive takes on Gandhi and RK Narayan) The Writer's People book doesn’t fail to give you a clearer understanding of his perspective. Yet, somewhere while translating the cynicism into criticism, in a passage here and there, one finds his shameless malice unmasking itself . Many pages on Anthony Powell have little relevance and is presumably prompted by his personal differences that was between them. The chapter was, as Naipaul claims himself at the very beginning - difficult to write - making the reader who has read it wonder, what exactly was the need to go through such hardship? More so, at a premise when it is least pertinent? Difficulty or malice, whatever it is, the sentiment has been given the treatment it deserves by many a critics. However, that shouldn’t let us overlook other segments of the book: there are wonderful observations and assertive judgements on others which, as hard as they are to digest, cannot be reasonably refuted: The takes on Vinoba Bhave and Flaubert for instance. I haven’t read any Salvon so I cant make a valid personal judgement. And the well-known Walcott-Naipaul bitching duel that's been running on for a while also finds it's share in the book. Pity really.
In all, personally the book was a welcome, coming during the hackneys and baloneys I have been letting myself read over the last few months. From a larger view, it wasn't an incredibly outstanding book but neither was it a dull put-aside. Which other writer would research to tell you that an Indian Bullock-cart did 24 miles a day in 1890s? And going back to the reviews, after having read the book was - sort of irony of relevance – because the book is all about ways of looking.
It’s always amazing to see how reviews on Naipaul often aid to propagate their own perception of him; the most commonest transference that goes into his reviews are that he is an arrogant, provocative prude who defines himself by criticism. But readers, who are able not to let themselves carried away by their own prejudices and loyalties often, if not eventually, bring themselves to admire his work - fiction and otherwise. But, for almost repeating his own old material and the apparent offence he has wrapped it in, I am not sure if that would happen with this book.
The book deals with one of the expansive and original subjects one can read about in the post-modern world. Naipaul typically, with no allegiance to anyone and no belongingness anywhere writes about writing and the writers - whom he had read or come across in his lifetime; and how, with their ways of looking and seeing, they helped to shape his own way of seeing.
Admittedly, the book is quite airily written and lacks the eye for detail that one usually associates with Naipaul. Given the vastness of the domain chosen for the book, it is at best a selective summary. It is fragmented, flaky and even in the best of its pieces surprisingly incomplete. Also, I must add, for anyone who has keenly followed Naipaul’s works, it would not be a subject entirely unfamiliar. At least I wasn't when I read the book.
Though there are liberal transplants of sentiments from his earlier books ( we all know about the influence of Huxley’s Jesting Pilate and Vidia's positive takes on Gandhi and RK Narayan) The Writer's People book doesn’t fail to give you a clearer understanding of his perspective. Yet, somewhere while translating the cynicism into criticism, in a passage here and there, one finds his shameless malice unmasking itself . Many pages on Anthony Powell have little relevance and is presumably prompted by his personal differences that was between them. The chapter was, as Naipaul claims himself at the very beginning - difficult to write - making the reader who has read it wonder, what exactly was the need to go through such hardship? More so, at a premise when it is least pertinent? Difficulty or malice, whatever it is, the sentiment has been given the treatment it deserves by many a critics. However, that shouldn’t let us overlook other segments of the book: there are wonderful observations and assertive judgements on others which, as hard as they are to digest, cannot be reasonably refuted: The takes on Vinoba Bhave and Flaubert for instance. I haven’t read any Salvon so I cant make a valid personal judgement. And the well-known Walcott-Naipaul bitching duel that's been running on for a while also finds it's share in the book. Pity really.
In all, personally the book was a welcome, coming during the hackneys and baloneys I have been letting myself read over the last few months. From a larger view, it wasn't an incredibly outstanding book but neither was it a dull put-aside. Which other writer would research to tell you that an Indian Bullock-cart did 24 miles a day in 1890s? And going back to the reviews, after having read the book was - sort of irony of relevance – because the book is all about ways of looking.
It’s always amazing to see how reviews on Naipaul often aid to propagate their own perception of him; the most commonest transference that goes into his reviews are that he is an arrogant, provocative prude who defines himself by criticism. But readers, who are able not to let themselves carried away by their own prejudices and loyalties often, if not eventually, bring themselves to admire his work - fiction and otherwise. But, for almost repeating his own old material and the apparent offence he has wrapped it in, I am not sure if that would happen with this book.
September 10, 2018
..vi ho trovato questi versi (straordinari) di Walcott, che non ricordo di avere letto altrove (dannazione!).
the fishermen rowing homeward in the dusk are not aware of the stillness through which they move
(I pescatori di ritorno all'imbrunire non hanno coscienza del silenzio dentro cui si muovono).
trovo che siano bellissimi, e profumano delicatamente di Virgilio.
tacitae per amica silente lunae. i critici ancora si interrogano se la notte in cui gli achei sorprendono i troiani c'era o non c'era la luna; Walcott no, non si interroga, il silenzio interiore dei pescatori al termine della notte e quello esteriore del crepuscolo non possono essere disgiunti, e si mescolano. Forse la razionalità può respingere quest'immagine, la poesia no.
the fishermen rowing homeward in the dusk are not aware of the stillness through which they move
(I pescatori di ritorno all'imbrunire non hanno coscienza del silenzio dentro cui si muovono).
trovo che siano bellissimi, e profumano delicatamente di Virgilio.
tacitae per amica silente lunae. i critici ancora si interrogano se la notte in cui gli achei sorprendono i troiani c'era o non c'era la luna; Walcott no, non si interroga, il silenzio interiore dei pescatori al termine della notte e quello esteriore del crepuscolo non possono essere disgiunti, e si mescolano. Forse la razionalità può respingere quest'immagine, la poesia no.
May 14, 2017
Naipaul is famously ungenerous and harsh, but he is also always worth reading. I have never read Anthony Powell, so I cannot say if his comments about Tony are unfair or not, but his insights about Gandhi and Nirad Choudhry (and "that fool, Vinoba Bhave") are pure gold. And you will learn more about classical Rome from this book than you can from entire books on the subject. And a must read for anyone thinking of becoming a full time "writer".. What happens now that his own" universal civilization "has elected Trump as president, who knows.. But I would pay to read what he has to say about that too..whatever his shortcomings, he is not a 2nd rate poseur or regurgitator of fashionable nonsense .. Definitely worth a read.
February 8, 2015
The minor danger is that Naipaul, the Exile exemplar, might be himself turning into an 'over-written-about' country.
Otherwise, he does here serious harm to Anthony Powell's life-work, calls A Passage to India w/o meaning, destroys Flaubért's Salammbô, and educates about the making of Mahatma Gandhi.
Otherwise, he does here serious harm to Anthony Powell's life-work, calls A Passage to India w/o meaning, destroys Flaubért's Salammbô, and educates about the making of Mahatma Gandhi.
February 13, 2013
General consensus is that I should look for the merits of this book beyond the apparent arrogance and malice of the author. But, frankly, even with arrogance and malice put aside - this book is very shallow and it is much less than what it could have been, considering the writer is so learned.
Don't get me wrong, book is very readable, I finished it in a day. But when I picked it, it expected to learn about writing, a writer's influences and so on. The book focuses on how a writer's outlook can be different- however, the way it is done is an irritant to me. Instead of talking about positive influences, laudable influences, Naipaul has instead chosen to pick up few writers, their works and bash them up on their 'ineffectiveness and mediocrity'. Only Walcott and Gandhi seemed to be two people who hadn't earned his complete ire. If Flaubert's 'Madame Bovary' was briefly praised, then he was bashed paragraph after paragraph for 'Salammbô'.
His writing of Derek Walcott, which I thought was much generous, considering Naipaul's malice for Anthony Powell (I couldn't really understand the relevance of that particular criticism) led to famous Walcott-Naipaul feud. Walcott wrote a poem called Mongoose for Naipaul and presented at a litfest: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/...
He praised Walcott's first book and writes:
'From this situation he was rescued by the American universities; and his reputation there, paradoxically, then and later, was not that of a man whose talent had been all but strangled by his colonial setting. He became the man who had stayed behind and found beauty in the emptiness from which other writers had fled: a kind of model, in the eyes of people far away.'
Naipaul concentrates on disparate views and then dwells into Indian view of looking and yet not seeing anything. He so generously informs us how Gandhi has no knowledge of world, maps before he left for London. Other than Ramayana told by his maid, he was unaware of history, cultures and scripture and how everything Gandhi was result of events in his life. Wow, man, we needed Sir Vidya to tell us that. He further goes on to foretell how India will never have another since no one will have opportunity to such 'exposures' in London and South Africa. Sheer genius!
Rahman, writer of 'Autobiography of an indentured Indian laborer' and Nirad C Chaudhari were two other authors who were further bashed up for their 'perspectives'. So much for an educative book, you learn, but you learn with lot of malice. And then Sir Vidya succinctly summed up how Indian literature scene was dry and unpromising. :sigh:
Book lacks a detailed eye; it is more written as an argument to a pre-defined conclusion based on personal biases. More than perspectives, book tells more about the writer who is dour, pompous and malicious at times.
Don't get me wrong, book is very readable, I finished it in a day. But when I picked it, it expected to learn about writing, a writer's influences and so on. The book focuses on how a writer's outlook can be different- however, the way it is done is an irritant to me. Instead of talking about positive influences, laudable influences, Naipaul has instead chosen to pick up few writers, their works and bash them up on their 'ineffectiveness and mediocrity'. Only Walcott and Gandhi seemed to be two people who hadn't earned his complete ire. If Flaubert's 'Madame Bovary' was briefly praised, then he was bashed paragraph after paragraph for 'Salammbô'.
His writing of Derek Walcott, which I thought was much generous, considering Naipaul's malice for Anthony Powell (I couldn't really understand the relevance of that particular criticism) led to famous Walcott-Naipaul feud. Walcott wrote a poem called Mongoose for Naipaul and presented at a litfest: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/...
He praised Walcott's first book and writes:
'From this situation he was rescued by the American universities; and his reputation there, paradoxically, then and later, was not that of a man whose talent had been all but strangled by his colonial setting. He became the man who had stayed behind and found beauty in the emptiness from which other writers had fled: a kind of model, in the eyes of people far away.'
Naipaul concentrates on disparate views and then dwells into Indian view of looking and yet not seeing anything. He so generously informs us how Gandhi has no knowledge of world, maps before he left for London. Other than Ramayana told by his maid, he was unaware of history, cultures and scripture and how everything Gandhi was result of events in his life. Wow, man, we needed Sir Vidya to tell us that. He further goes on to foretell how India will never have another since no one will have opportunity to such 'exposures' in London and South Africa. Sheer genius!
Rahman, writer of 'Autobiography of an indentured Indian laborer' and Nirad C Chaudhari were two other authors who were further bashed up for their 'perspectives'. So much for an educative book, you learn, but you learn with lot of malice. And then Sir Vidya succinctly summed up how Indian literature scene was dry and unpromising. :sigh:
Book lacks a detailed eye; it is more written as an argument to a pre-defined conclusion based on personal biases. More than perspectives, book tells more about the writer who is dour, pompous and malicious at times.
April 16, 2012
It's my fault to began reading V.S. Naipaul from his non-fiction essays not from his great novels awarded prestogious Nobel Prize. In the first non-fiction books I couldn't find the spirit of his genious, mastery of his language, marvelous gift og writing. After finishing this book, which was also collections of essays I must admit I had been wrong. I've found in it evidence of his talent, especially in descriptions, language – simple and accurate. And because of it the subject which was rather not inspiring, and could be described even boring,under writers pen changes in the story with deep meaning.
Some chapters are simply rewviews. I was holding my breath like reading full of characters original stories.
Author touches also some important subjects. How difficult as somebody grew up in a remote place to became a full form writer, because such a person is devoided of all world literary and cultural heritage and is like somebody hung in vacuum.
He writes also about phenomenon of popularity of Indian writers on the West. Naipaul accuses them of writing books which are only sentimental journeys to the past, skillful told family stories, without social and historical background of the country. They don't see real India but they have idealistic picture of this land. Naipaul went to conclusions that Indian writers in exile must instead of escape, face to complicated problems of modern India and also very complicated past of this country. Only then contemporary Indian writers can gain a remarkable place in world literature.
Some chapters are simply rewviews. I was holding my breath like reading full of characters original stories.
Author touches also some important subjects. How difficult as somebody grew up in a remote place to became a full form writer, because such a person is devoided of all world literary and cultural heritage and is like somebody hung in vacuum.
He writes also about phenomenon of popularity of Indian writers on the West. Naipaul accuses them of writing books which are only sentimental journeys to the past, skillful told family stories, without social and historical background of the country. They don't see real India but they have idealistic picture of this land. Naipaul went to conclusions that Indian writers in exile must instead of escape, face to complicated problems of modern India and also very complicated past of this country. Only then contemporary Indian writers can gain a remarkable place in world literature.
March 2, 2015
The piece I enjoyed the most in this collection of essays, all bound together by themes of looking and feeling, was about India, and it is amusingly titled: "Looking and not seeing - the Indian way".
Salim, a little known author of a book called Jeevan Darshan, leaves India and goes to Surinam back in the early 20th century. 20 years later a young Indian from South Africa returns to India with a vision of his own. Naipaul encounters a mattress-maker in the ancestral home of his grandmother in Trinidad, who after an inquiry from the curious author about India replies, much to the other's intrigue, "there was a new railyway station". Years later, Naipaul's mother visits her ancestral home in India and is unhappy with what she finds there. Then there is Naipaul's own disillusionment famously captured in "An Area of Darkness". Taking these experiences as references Naipaul charts a map of the ways of looking, of what these people learn(or not learn) about the country they call their own.
Also, what he has to say about Gandhi in this book has to be read by every serious reader. Naipaul has the intelligence here to see Gandhi, not as a Mahatama (which the author is not denying), but as a young man troubled by his lack of understanding of the world, his strands of self-development, the circumstances that brought about that change (because it could have turned out differently), making him almost an ascetic, paving way to a revolution that was not only political but spiritual too.
Salim, a little known author of a book called Jeevan Darshan, leaves India and goes to Surinam back in the early 20th century. 20 years later a young Indian from South Africa returns to India with a vision of his own. Naipaul encounters a mattress-maker in the ancestral home of his grandmother in Trinidad, who after an inquiry from the curious author about India replies, much to the other's intrigue, "there was a new railyway station". Years later, Naipaul's mother visits her ancestral home in India and is unhappy with what she finds there. Then there is Naipaul's own disillusionment famously captured in "An Area of Darkness". Taking these experiences as references Naipaul charts a map of the ways of looking, of what these people learn(or not learn) about the country they call their own.
Also, what he has to say about Gandhi in this book has to be read by every serious reader. Naipaul has the intelligence here to see Gandhi, not as a Mahatama (which the author is not denying), but as a young man troubled by his lack of understanding of the world, his strands of self-development, the circumstances that brought about that change (because it could have turned out differently), making him almost an ascetic, paving way to a revolution that was not only political but spiritual too.
November 6, 2017
Ignore the idiotic subtitle and Naipaul's reputed bitchiness toward ex-friends. He's hardly fair toward Anthony Powell—whose reputation as the English Proust is much more unfair to Proust—but you can't write upper-middlebrow schlock, as Powell did, and expect no one to notice, as Powell also did. Naipaul is even more uncharitable toward Derek Walcott, who himself was hardly charitable to Naipaul. (After praising Naipaul's early work, Walcott in a review for The Enigma of Arrival called his reputation "a farce.") Still, I have to agree with a lot of this book's criticisms, especially of Walcott, who can be equal parts genius and sentimental-pretentious, and of MFA programs. Naipaul whines that they Americanize third-world writers, who go on to churn out dense paragraphs of pointless description stuffed with flashbacks and aerated by purposefully unimportant dialogue.
September 14, 2011
I started with this sometime back, and when work life got hectic, kept it aside, to pick up again recently, in two minds whether I should. I ended up rereading parts I had read, and while I was tempted to take away a star for Naipaul being what he is -- leaving a bad taste here and there, sweeping in his judgements here and there -- I'm going to keep all five, mainly because of the way he redeems himself in the last chapter, towards the end, where he mercilessly (well, that's to be expected of him, still) dissects contemporary Indian writing scene. A chapter, if not the whole book, that's a must read for any aspiring Indian writer (or non-Indian for that matter, but more so for Indian).
The book has a digressive character, and seems to spend a lot of time on things that seem inconsequential, but then, almost every time, become consequential to the book's subject, that itself is quite sweeping in it's scope.
I know lot of guys who do not pick up Naipaul because of his image, or because he 'turns them off' due to his prejudices. I myself am tempted (more so with his non-fiction writing, his fiction I wouldn't turn my back on in any case). But the value that he bring to table is just too much to throw it away because of the unease. And I'm glad I did not succumb to that temptation, at least with this book.
The book has a digressive character, and seems to spend a lot of time on things that seem inconsequential, but then, almost every time, become consequential to the book's subject, that itself is quite sweeping in it's scope.
I know lot of guys who do not pick up Naipaul because of his image, or because he 'turns them off' due to his prejudices. I myself am tempted (more so with his non-fiction writing, his fiction I wouldn't turn my back on in any case). But the value that he bring to table is just too much to throw it away because of the unease. And I'm glad I did not succumb to that temptation, at least with this book.
September 16, 2019
Good book. It's about the life of writer's that how they live, feel and think and talk with each other?
May 5, 2008
V.S.Naipaul has always been interested in the disparate ways in which different cultures 'think' and 'see'. He has written about them at various times in his many books. This book is specially devoted to this subject. He deals with the way of 'seeing' by the Indian culture, by the British and by the Caribbean.
However, as he ages, Naipaul is not able to bring back his brilliance which was easy to see in his younger years. This book has some summary dismissals which do not do any good to him as a thinker. For example, statements like 'India has “no autonomous intellectual life” and its fiction, successful though it may be, is still largely mimicry and “imitation” is so sweeping. There are similar acid remarks on Waugh, Flaubert, Anthony Powell and so on.
He categorises the Indian way as 'looking' but not 'seeing'. In many ways, I found this a powerful way of describing the Indian outlook and I can recognise myself in his description as an Indian. He shows that though Gandhi lived many years in London, he had 'seen' little of the English life. He also dismisses Vinobha Bhave as a fool which may not be far off the mark, though!
I could not fathom as to what he says about the English way of looking in the chapter so named. He writes mostly of Anthony Powell and is quite grateful to him for helping him as a young writer making his mark in London. However, Naipaul does not find his writing to be of high quality. But the chapter is full of others who were 'English friends' of Powell and were nice to him in front but called him a 'writer of no quality' behind his back. Is Naipaul saying that this deception is the 'English way'?
He writes about Derek Walcott, the Nobel Laureate from the Caribbean. Naipaul says that Walcott had one good book of poems as his early book. But the 'spiritual emptiness' of the Caribbean had nothing else left in it to inspire him to produce another good work.
All in all, it wasn;t a pleasant book to read. I wonder whether William Dalrymple is right in saying 'The wisdom, the warmth, the humour, and, above all, the compassion have all gone from the prose; what we are left with is the bitter and desiccated husk of that once lively, warm and surprising writer from the village outside Port of Spain.'.
However, as he ages, Naipaul is not able to bring back his brilliance which was easy to see in his younger years. This book has some summary dismissals which do not do any good to him as a thinker. For example, statements like 'India has “no autonomous intellectual life” and its fiction, successful though it may be, is still largely mimicry and “imitation” is so sweeping. There are similar acid remarks on Waugh, Flaubert, Anthony Powell and so on.
He categorises the Indian way as 'looking' but not 'seeing'. In many ways, I found this a powerful way of describing the Indian outlook and I can recognise myself in his description as an Indian. He shows that though Gandhi lived many years in London, he had 'seen' little of the English life. He also dismisses Vinobha Bhave as a fool which may not be far off the mark, though!
I could not fathom as to what he says about the English way of looking in the chapter so named. He writes mostly of Anthony Powell and is quite grateful to him for helping him as a young writer making his mark in London. However, Naipaul does not find his writing to be of high quality. But the chapter is full of others who were 'English friends' of Powell and were nice to him in front but called him a 'writer of no quality' behind his back. Is Naipaul saying that this deception is the 'English way'?
He writes about Derek Walcott, the Nobel Laureate from the Caribbean. Naipaul says that Walcott had one good book of poems as his early book. But the 'spiritual emptiness' of the Caribbean had nothing else left in it to inspire him to produce another good work.
All in all, it wasn;t a pleasant book to read. I wonder whether William Dalrymple is right in saying 'The wisdom, the warmth, the humour, and, above all, the compassion have all gone from the prose; what we are left with is the bitter and desiccated husk of that once lively, warm and surprising writer from the village outside Port of Spain.'.
October 26, 2012
Naipaul's ways of looking and feeling are different and interesting. I really enjoyed all the chapters on India. He makes many acute observations about the country and its figures. His assessment of Gandhiji's true greatness is incisive. So are his snide and hilarious remarks about those he considers fake -- my word, not his -- like Nirad C. Chaudhuri and Vinobha Bhave. It's the sort of thing one would say only to a close friend, but Naipaul never bothers to be tactful or politically correct. The other chapters, on the Romans and Greeks, I must say, left me cold.
This book also made a very deep impression on me in terms of looking at heritage. I was really touched (and shamed) by his remarks about India's indifference to her diaspora. He is right to accuse us of never claiming our own, except the rich ones in the First World. The contract labour that went out to Mauritius and the West Indies and so on looked to the mother country as a lost paradise, while we just went on with our lives, fighting our battles big and small and drudging our daily grind, without giving them another thought. At least, I am sure their families did, but not the country as a political entity. Reading this book, I realize for the first time what India meant to them, and the great loss of culture for the succeeding generations, who never knew their ancestry. It also made me realize that we, who have stayed home, often know little more about our heritage than those who left. We are proud to belong to one of the longest unbroken civilizations in the world, but how much do we really know about it? What are doing for it? This short book has really opened up a whole new world of ideas to me.
This book also made a very deep impression on me in terms of looking at heritage. I was really touched (and shamed) by his remarks about India's indifference to her diaspora. He is right to accuse us of never claiming our own, except the rich ones in the First World. The contract labour that went out to Mauritius and the West Indies and so on looked to the mother country as a lost paradise, while we just went on with our lives, fighting our battles big and small and drudging our daily grind, without giving them another thought. At least, I am sure their families did, but not the country as a political entity. Reading this book, I realize for the first time what India meant to them, and the great loss of culture for the succeeding generations, who never knew their ancestry. It also made me realize that we, who have stayed home, often know little more about our heritage than those who left. We are proud to belong to one of the longest unbroken civilizations in the world, but how much do we really know about it? What are doing for it? This short book has really opened up a whole new world of ideas to me.
Read
February 5, 2009Critics have always, understandably, had a difficult time separating V. S. Naipaul's personality from his work, and the author's arrogance and solipsism often come under fire, particularly when he attacks fellow writers. For example, in an essay on fellow Nobel laureate and Trinidadian Derek Walcott, Naipaul questions his countryman's recent output. As the Philadelphia Inquirer points out, however, Naipaul "blithely ignores the fact that the same point has been made about his own work." A good measure of Naipaul's genius with language might be the reason why, despite reviews sometimes savaging the author's beliefs, critics nearly always find time to praise Naipaul's writing, "effortless, without strain, clear, and authoritative" (Providence Journal). Although A Writer's People will not be remembered as Naipaul's best book, he clearly hasn't lost his knack for drawing a crowd.
This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
September 15, 2021
In this book, Naipaul's overall theme is"seeing and not seeing" in literature. Rahman Khan (some indentured laborer Surinam 1860s ex Indian did not see). Aldous Huxley (Kanpur Indian National Congress 1925) saw a lot. Gandhi (in his fine autobiography -because of distance and crystallization, narrated in Gujarati and written by close associate in English - did not "see" London.
I review excerpt from one essay of Naipaul's in this themed collection.
Called India Again: The Mahatma and After, it is loosely structured on Naipaul's analysis of a) Vinobha Bhave b) Nirad Chaudhuri - a book analysis of the ethnographic and (incredibly long book) Autobiography of an unknown Indian. and c) Naipaul's coda, or conclusion.
Below is the coda.
Each paragraph is hard-hitting.
"Sixty years after independence that problem is still there. India has no autonomous intellectual life. Of the many millions who independence has liberated a fair proportion now look away from India for ultimate fulfilment. They look in the main to Britain and the US. Immigration rules have changed, but the place is still not crowded out with Indians. That is where the better jobs are, where Indians are well thought of, and that is where people of a certain level wish to live and marry - and make cookies and shovel snow off the pavement in winter - and educate their children".
"As much as Chaudhuri did (though he kept it quiet, almost until the end), they wish to shake India off, shake off what they see as the retarded native element in dhotis and caste-marks, temple-goers, to use a kind of shorthand, bad at English, and as an element getting bigger and politically more dangerous by the year. In their new setting the people who have got away wish to dress more stylishly. They wish to wear their own contemporary equivalent of Chaudhuri's regency gear. It is their solution to the problem of India, which is really the problem they have with India."
(And Sir Vidiya, what is the problem You have with India? - reviewer's rhetorical question)
(Follows below the most incendiary strike against fellow writers and their craft)
"Out of India's improved English education there has come a crop of novels - a fair number are also by Indian expatriates, mainly from the United States -and there is a new one almost every month These novels are by and large autobiographical. Every Indian who looks within himself finds the matter of a family story, with great characters, daddyji<> and <>mamaji<> and <>nanee<> and <>chacha<>,against a background of the extended Indian family. Since no Indian can have two extended families, these novels appear to be rationed, one per writer. One writer, one book: it may not build a literature, but it is a system that allows new writers and new families to come up all the time."
(Weak and spiteful end to the para- reviewer's paranthetical note)
"Is this writing just old--fashioned Indian boasting? Or are these books to be seen as part of a new Indian literary wakening, matching Bengal's of a hundred years ago, helping India to help its more complicated self, to develop an autonomous cultural life, to bridge the gap between native and evolved? "(NATIVE, really?)"Or do they belong more to the publishing culture of Britain and the United States? The question has to be asked, because no national literature has ever been created like this, at such a remove, where the books are published by people outside, judged by people outside, and to a large extent bought by people outside."
"....19th c Russian writing created an idea of the Russian character and the Russian soul. There is no equivalent creation, or the beginning of one, in Indian writing. India remains hidden. Indian writers, to speak generally, seem to know only about their own families and their places of work. It is the Indian way of living and consequently the Indian way of seeing. The rest of the country is taken for granted and seen superficially......
"The education of the new Indian writers-and nowadays some of them have even been to writing schools-also gets in the way. It seems to them they have the most enormous choice when, in imitation of the successful people who have gone before, they settle down to do their own book. They are not bursting with a wish to say anything; nothing is going to force itself out in its own way; they are guided in the main by imitation. Should they be Irish or German and indulge in wordplay? Should they be South American and see magic everywhere? Should they be like the late Raymond Carver and pretend they know nothing about anything? Or should they simply talk it over with their teacher at the writing school? This is where India begins to get lost. The writing school's India is like the writing school's America or Maoist China or Haiti.
"India has no means of judging. India is hard and materialist. What it knows best about Indian writers and books are their advances and prizes. There is little discussion about the substance of a book or its literary quality or the point of view of the writer; Much keeps on being said in the Indian press about Indian writing as an aspect of the larger modern Indian success, but literary criticism is still hardly known as an art. The most important judgements of an Indian book continue to be imported."
I am saddened that an accomplished and critical writer like Sir Vidia will use his bully pulpit to put down a nation of up and coming writers instead of offering a hand, or seeing if there is indeed "discussion about the substance of a book or its literary quality or the point of view of the writer" in current India. He likely did not look hard enough.
Indian writing will go on. I think it is in safe hands A 19th c Russian like myth it may never create, but whatever comes out of it, even if Naipaul were open enough to see and appreciate and sift through the salt, tears and blood that puts words on paper, he is a bit late, for he is dead.
I review excerpt from one essay of Naipaul's in this themed collection.
Called India Again: The Mahatma and After, it is loosely structured on Naipaul's analysis of a) Vinobha Bhave b) Nirad Chaudhuri - a book analysis of the ethnographic and (incredibly long book) Autobiography of an unknown Indian. and c) Naipaul's coda, or conclusion.
Below is the coda.
Each paragraph is hard-hitting.
"Sixty years after independence that problem is still there. India has no autonomous intellectual life. Of the many millions who independence has liberated a fair proportion now look away from India for ultimate fulfilment. They look in the main to Britain and the US. Immigration rules have changed, but the place is still not crowded out with Indians. That is where the better jobs are, where Indians are well thought of, and that is where people of a certain level wish to live and marry - and make cookies and shovel snow off the pavement in winter - and educate their children".
"As much as Chaudhuri did (though he kept it quiet, almost until the end), they wish to shake India off, shake off what they see as the retarded native element in dhotis and caste-marks, temple-goers, to use a kind of shorthand, bad at English, and as an element getting bigger and politically more dangerous by the year. In their new setting the people who have got away wish to dress more stylishly. They wish to wear their own contemporary equivalent of Chaudhuri's regency gear. It is their solution to the problem of India, which is really the problem they have with India."
(And Sir Vidiya, what is the problem You have with India? - reviewer's rhetorical question)
(Follows below the most incendiary strike against fellow writers and their craft)
"Out of India's improved English education there has come a crop of novels - a fair number are also by Indian expatriates, mainly from the United States -and there is a new one almost every month These novels are by and large autobiographical. Every Indian who looks within himself finds the matter of a family story, with great characters, daddyji<> and <>mamaji<> and <>nanee<> and <>chacha<>,against a background of the extended Indian family. Since no Indian can have two extended families, these novels appear to be rationed, one per writer. One writer, one book: it may not build a literature, but it is a system that allows new writers and new families to come up all the time."
(Weak and spiteful end to the para- reviewer's paranthetical note)
"Is this writing just old--fashioned Indian boasting? Or are these books to be seen as part of a new Indian literary wakening, matching Bengal's of a hundred years ago, helping India to help its more complicated self, to develop an autonomous cultural life, to bridge the gap between native and evolved? "(NATIVE, really?)"Or do they belong more to the publishing culture of Britain and the United States? The question has to be asked, because no national literature has ever been created like this, at such a remove, where the books are published by people outside, judged by people outside, and to a large extent bought by people outside."
"....19th c Russian writing created an idea of the Russian character and the Russian soul. There is no equivalent creation, or the beginning of one, in Indian writing. India remains hidden. Indian writers, to speak generally, seem to know only about their own families and their places of work. It is the Indian way of living and consequently the Indian way of seeing. The rest of the country is taken for granted and seen superficially......
"The education of the new Indian writers-and nowadays some of them have even been to writing schools-also gets in the way. It seems to them they have the most enormous choice when, in imitation of the successful people who have gone before, they settle down to do their own book. They are not bursting with a wish to say anything; nothing is going to force itself out in its own way; they are guided in the main by imitation. Should they be Irish or German and indulge in wordplay? Should they be South American and see magic everywhere? Should they be like the late Raymond Carver and pretend they know nothing about anything? Or should they simply talk it over with their teacher at the writing school? This is where India begins to get lost. The writing school's India is like the writing school's America or Maoist China or Haiti.
"India has no means of judging. India is hard and materialist. What it knows best about Indian writers and books are their advances and prizes. There is little discussion about the substance of a book or its literary quality or the point of view of the writer; Much keeps on being said in the Indian press about Indian writing as an aspect of the larger modern Indian success, but literary criticism is still hardly known as an art. The most important judgements of an Indian book continue to be imported."
I am saddened that an accomplished and critical writer like Sir Vidia will use his bully pulpit to put down a nation of up and coming writers instead of offering a hand, or seeing if there is indeed "discussion about the substance of a book or its literary quality or the point of view of the writer" in current India. He likely did not look hard enough.
Indian writing will go on. I think it is in safe hands A 19th c Russian like myth it may never create, but whatever comes out of it, even if Naipaul were open enough to see and appreciate and sift through the salt, tears and blood that puts words on paper, he is a bit late, for he is dead.
July 9, 2017
A remarkable book about writing from the man who, as the Observer says, ‘more than anybody else embodies what it means to be a writer.’ Though the ideas in the book, a sort-of condensation of a lifetime of thinking deeply about these particular topics, are in themselves extraordinary, it is still the writing that seems to take your breath away. There is a weight in the tone and the narration, a certain seriousness. He is not requesting your attention here, he is demanding it. And a couple of pages into the book, you have given in completely. He never lets you go until the last page is turned and you breathe a sated sigh of content.
This is a great writer writing about the things he knows and understands best. Read.
This is a great writer writing about the things he knows and understands best. Read.
April 14, 2019
Considero que, si uno es capaz de separar de forma crítica los juicios desmedidos -muchas veces injustos y también insinceros- de los aprendizajes verdaderos de Naipaul, este libro es un tesoro. Cada ensayo está escrito con encanto: ninguno sigue la estructura tradicional, sino que se atiene a las leyes de la evocación y del pensamiento. Naipaul regresa a su vida en Trinidad, a los años de aprendizaje en Inglaterra, a sus lecturas y a sus modos de leer, a la India, tan distante y tan cercana para él. En gran medida, el mérito de este libro es que el autor sostiene sus valoraciones personales y no negocia aquello que siente y opina (cada uno evaluará y decidirá si se queda con las conclusiones de Naipaul o las deshecha -a mí, por ejemplo, no me satisface del todo su lectura de "Salambó").
March 12, 2009
Naipaul has his sharp edges (During an interview with an author, he began a question, "But getting back to your wretched book—" ouch.) He also is a spectacular thinker and writer.
But the Flaubert portion of this writing baffles me. It seems to be him summarizing Flaubert's Salammbô in order to illustrate why it doesn't equal the brilliance of Madame Bovary.
A detailed summary as a criticism? odd.
But the Flaubert portion of this writing baffles me. It seems to be him summarizing Flaubert's Salammbô in order to illustrate why it doesn't equal the brilliance of Madame Bovary.
A detailed summary as a criticism? odd.
December 28, 2013
I enjoyed the critique of the other writers. However, as usual, I think it is a telescopic view and overgeneralization when it comes to extrapolating the view of the culture from the view of the writers. I somehow did not find the coherence that would tie one chapter to the other and come to a strong conclusion. The initial chapters were very interesting. However, did not understand what he wanted to say when he critiqued "The Autobiography of an unknown Indian"... or some such...
October 24, 2020
Another beautifully written and thoughtful offering. Everytime I read Naipaul I enjoy the opportunity to pause and reflect, for he has a uniquely different (well different to me) way of seeing and interpreting the world. I can especially relate to how you can live a life and yet not be able to discuss or describe it.
Read it again in October 2020 and, if anything, I enjoyed it even more the 2nd time around!
Read it again in October 2020 and, if anything, I enjoyed it even more the 2nd time around!
March 26, 2010
After reading this book and Finding the Centre back to back, I felt I had been unreasonable in thinking him arrogant. Showed me how media opinion tends to seep in.
May 17, 2010
It was interesting to learn about some of the South Asian diasporic writers that Naipaul discusses, but there is too little insight and too much bitterness.
November 21, 2012
Interesting biographical information about Naipaul's humble beginnings in Trinidad. All the more remarkable, but understandable, is the brittle, somewhat pompous voice that develops over the years.
April 20, 2025
V.S. Naipaul’s A Writer’s People: Ways of Looking and Feeling is a reflective, often meandering meditation on literature, influence, and cultural inheritance. Less structured than his major works of fiction or reportage, this slender volume functions as a kind of intellectual memoir—Naipaul looking back across his reading life, his career, and the people and places that have shaped his sensibility as a writer. While its form may appear casual and elliptical, the book is bound by Naipaul’s characteristic clarity of prose and, more importantly, his uncompromising gaze.
At the heart of A Writer’s People is Naipaul’s inquiry into what it means to be a writer from the periphery—Trinidad, in his case—navigating the gravitational pull of metropolitan literary traditions while forging an authentic voice. He writes with reverence but also a kind of surgical honesty about the writers who influenced him—Derek Walcott, Gandhi, Flaubert, Conrad—and is unafraid to critique their limitations, especially in how they perceived and depicted the colonial or postcolonial world. His treatment of Gandhi, for example, is a fascinating combination of biographical interpretation and literary analysis, suggesting that Gandhi's early life and writing betray a tension between self-discovery and cultural performance.
Naipaul’s strength in this book lies not in sustained argument but in acute observations and moments of intellectual honesty. He returns repeatedly to the notion that writers must train themselves to see clearly, without ideological fog or sentimentality. This concern is particularly evident in his reflections on Caribbean literature and his critique of the linguistic and cultural pretensions that, in his view, inhibit its full flowering. At times, this stance can come across as austere or dismissive, especially in his appraisal of peers like Walcott. Yet Naipaul’s underlying point—that the writer must break free of borrowed voices and self-mythology to truly see and describe the world—is compelling and consistent with his broader oeuvre.
While A Writer’s People lacks the narrative drive or thematic heft of Naipaul’s best works, it offers a unique glimpse into the mind of a writer who has always occupied a difficult and sometimes controversial space in the literary world. It is both an elegy for the formative energies of youth—“Whatever its flaws, a writer’s first novel had a lyrical quality which the writer would never again recapture,” he writes—and a considered statement on the burdens and responsibilities of artistic vision. For readers interested in Naipaul’s thinking about literature, culture, and his own legacy, this is a quiet but revealing coda to a remarkable career.
At the heart of A Writer’s People is Naipaul’s inquiry into what it means to be a writer from the periphery—Trinidad, in his case—navigating the gravitational pull of metropolitan literary traditions while forging an authentic voice. He writes with reverence but also a kind of surgical honesty about the writers who influenced him—Derek Walcott, Gandhi, Flaubert, Conrad—and is unafraid to critique their limitations, especially in how they perceived and depicted the colonial or postcolonial world. His treatment of Gandhi, for example, is a fascinating combination of biographical interpretation and literary analysis, suggesting that Gandhi's early life and writing betray a tension between self-discovery and cultural performance.
Naipaul’s strength in this book lies not in sustained argument but in acute observations and moments of intellectual honesty. He returns repeatedly to the notion that writers must train themselves to see clearly, without ideological fog or sentimentality. This concern is particularly evident in his reflections on Caribbean literature and his critique of the linguistic and cultural pretensions that, in his view, inhibit its full flowering. At times, this stance can come across as austere or dismissive, especially in his appraisal of peers like Walcott. Yet Naipaul’s underlying point—that the writer must break free of borrowed voices and self-mythology to truly see and describe the world—is compelling and consistent with his broader oeuvre.
While A Writer’s People lacks the narrative drive or thematic heft of Naipaul’s best works, it offers a unique glimpse into the mind of a writer who has always occupied a difficult and sometimes controversial space in the literary world. It is both an elegy for the formative energies of youth—“Whatever its flaws, a writer’s first novel had a lyrical quality which the writer would never again recapture,” he writes—and a considered statement on the burdens and responsibilities of artistic vision. For readers interested in Naipaul’s thinking about literature, culture, and his own legacy, this is a quiet but revealing coda to a remarkable career.
May 20, 2021
Meh. He claims "My purpose in this book is not literary criticism or biography" but that's all it really is: him airing his dislike of this book or that author (rather lackadaisically, at that) and what largely amounts to gossip. Notably, he criticizes the writing of his *friend*, Anthony Powell, in suggesting that success "perhaps had corrupted him... there was a strange new vanity in the writer" and all I could think was pot-calling-kettle.
There is an undercurrent of cynicism throughout. A few good turns of phrase here and there, and a smattering of vignettes with potential, but not nearly enough wit to save this from being just the ramblings of a past-his-writing-prime egotist still plagued by insecurity. Whatever insights this book is supposed to provide, they weren't worth wading through an exceptionally amateurish daisy-chain of histories, anecdotes, and speculation.
There is an undercurrent of cynicism throughout. A few good turns of phrase here and there, and a smattering of vignettes with potential, but not nearly enough wit to save this from being just the ramblings of a past-his-writing-prime egotist still plagued by insecurity. Whatever insights this book is supposed to provide, they weren't worth wading through an exceptionally amateurish daisy-chain of histories, anecdotes, and speculation.
January 16, 2021
آدمهای یک نویسنده، نخستین بار در سال 2007 منتشر شد. وی. اس. نیپال، برندۀ جایزۀ نوبل ادبیات، در این خودزندگینامۀ جذاب به نویسندگانی میپردازد که اولین تأثیرها را بر او گذاشتند: دِرِک والکات، گوستاو فلوبر و البته پدر خودش. او همچنین از نخستین مواجههاش با فرهنگ ادبی سخن میگوید و راه و روشهایی را تشریح میکند که نویسندگان هندی از طریق آنها، زندگی خود و مردم کشورشان را به تصویر میکشند. علاوه بر این، نیپال با نثری جذاب و آشنا، زندگی خودش را نیز از نظر میگذراند: سالهای ابتدایی زندگیاش در ترینیداد، بخشهای نامعلوم در گذشتۀ خانوادهاش و واکنشهای دائماً در حال تغییر و تکامل او به پیچیدگیهای روزافزون هند که اولین بار در سی سالگی با آن روبهرو شد.
January 14, 2025
First book of Naipaul’s I have read. Quite impressed by his prose and elegance, however, as he moves away from anecdotal and historical commentary, the book gets a bit lost in unproductive criticism. Naipaul is quick to throw around ‘Orientalist’ as a valid way to criticise other works, yet for me his tone and position in relation to his own experiences and Indian culture is permeated with Orientalism and a wish to be seen as European. Not really sure what the point of this book was, but it was an interesting read nevertheless.
October 26, 2017
A grumpy, ungenerous soul. Yet, what a writer and the biting observations!
November 9, 2021
Una obra de corte autobiográfico centrada en la visión del escritor, su familia, sus amigos y los escritores y libros que le han hecho cuestionarse la literatura. Tremendamente interesante.
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