Conversations with V. S. Naipaul

by Feroza Jussawalla (Editor), V.S. Naipaul

Intense, controversial, unfailingly clever, V. S. Naipaul has won nearly every major British writing award, including the prestigious Booker Award (in 1971 for In a Free State ) and in 1990 was knighted for his literary accomplishments. Born of Indian parents in Trinidad in 1932, he has little sympathy for the land of his birth or forefathers. All that he puts under his microscope―nations, peoples, religions, or ethnic groups―are targets of his clear-sightedness, and he shows no patience with pretense or delusions.

This collection brings together interviews from a thirty-six-year span and reveals a witty, sometimes scathing talker with a free-ranging curiosity, but one who dreads intimacy and cherishes a solitary detachment. This collection shows the changing faces of this world-class author. In early interviews, mostly given to such fellow writers and colleagues as Derek Walcott and the poet Eric Roach, Naipaul is clipped, brusque, and clearly impatient with interviewers. More recent interviews, given primarily to journalists rather than literary figures, reveal a maturing Naipaul, often warm, passionate, and forthcoming about his private life.

Genres: Nonfiction

174 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Jayakrishnan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great collection of interviews with Naipaul between 1960 and the early 90s. He discusses his formation as a writer and the incredible panic that he had to undergo during his early days as a writer. He says he never had any natural talent and had to practice intensely to write the way he did. According to Naipaul, he never felt the freedom and safety that someone like Hemingway might have felt when he traveled across the world. He also speaks candidly about his sexual frustration, fears of third world culture taking over the West (where he says people have found a way to live side by side in peace), his irritation with Indian intellectuals who apply borrowed ideas to their own country, the limitations of Hinduism as a religion and his views on some societies which can never seem to get things right.

In one of his 90s interviews he severely criticizes America for fostering barbarians in Afghanistan. When asked why there are red dots on the foreheads of Indian women, he says it indicates that there is nothing inside their heads :) :) :).

He really nailed the problem with Indian society when he said "In India it is every man for himself, family for itself and a man has no responsibility except towards his own community".
This is an awesome book full of brilliant insights. Here is a truly original writer who has serious and well thought out opinions on everything. Naipaul recommends "the life of the mind" and even though Salman Rushdie denounced Naipaul's writing as “a novelist’s truth masquerading as objective reality", it is the truth of more people than Rushdie could ever imagine.

[Samir Rawas Sarayji · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've had a love/hate relationship regarding Naipaul, but I believe I can walk away now with a better understanding of his process and a bit more respect towards his abilities.

There is some good information here but the book suffers a lack of overall cohesion. It is arranged chronologically and so a lot of questions/themes are repetitive. However, that in itself is interesting because we can see how Naipaul has changed (or not) regarding his answers over a period of time. What irked me was that not all the interviews had an interview format, some read more like summaries, bogging down the experience a bit.

[Sunil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have to say one of the brilliant books I've read this year; yes I even liked it more than the celebrated Patrick French Biography. This is a compilation of all the interviews of Naipaul from sixties to nineties. Bought it for £16 and thought it was worth every single shekel. Reading these interviews and the insights made me want to run and grab the next available person while screaming 'This is it'.

This is one-man-clinical-precision-scrutinizing-machine having all the cultures and countries of the postwar world for breakfast, one at a time. Absolutely brilliant, loved the James Atlas interview for Vanity Fair in 1987, and many more wonderful ones. There was also an average one from 1965 by Derek Walcott, who pretends to catch the thoughts of Vidia while they are clearly sailing way past his head. In one question he even tries to put his own words, his own second rate understanding of the world unto Vidia and deserves what he gets.

Here's the question:

Walcott: Do you think that having lived in Trinidad, in a multi-racial society, has helped you to achieve a more balanced perception? For example, a writer brought up in Trinidad does not have the same racial belligerence as a Jamaican writer.the societies are different. In your work there a very delicate sense of humour. One finds this in Selvon also. Do you see your ability to laugh at certain situations, not with mockery necessarily, as part of having been brought up in Trinidad?

Vidia: I really don't know . . .

[Kaushil Patel · Rating 5 out of 5]

He’s interesting even when wrong, and devastating when right