Jottings - Slice of life - 226 ( Sir Naipaul - a significant life in letters ( 1932 - 2018))

Jottings - Slice of life - 226 ( Sir Naipaul - a significant life in letters ( 1932 - 2018))

Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, better known as VS Naipaul or "Vidia" to those close to him, quietly passed at his home in London just short of eighty six years of age. When Naipaul was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 2001, the literary world was surprised and elated at the same time. They were surprised because Vidia was a relentless critic, unsparing of thoughts and words, and wrote honestly about what he saw; they were elated because no one deserved the highest literary honor better then him for his sheer breadth of observation and sustained quality of writing. The flawless simplicity of his prose spread across 50 years in more than 50 books of fiction and non-fiction, his ability to look beneath the facade of colonialism and its after effects in both the colonizers and the colonized; the predicament of people caught between emancipation from the ruled and their own heritage, found a brutal and uncompromising voice in Vidia's writings. Each book he wrote bought him more accolades and even more controversies and criticism. Readers and critics grew weary of his output, but couldn't stop reading him for his wisdom. For truth has a way of asserting itself, and in Naipaul's works, truth hits us with blunt force - be it in his celebrated works of fiction, or travelogues , or musings on different cultures.

Naipaul is half Indian, raised in Trinidad and settled in England - his adopted country. His father, a civil servant gave him a taste for books and words. A diligent student during his school days in port of spain, he got a scholarship to study at Oxford, and he grabbed the opportunity. Quickly thereafter, he became a broadcaster for BBC, who loved his tobacco mellowed voice and good diction with a touch of the Caribbean twang. It was during this time, he began experimenting with short stories, and was later encouraged by Andre deutsch - a publisher who had a uncanny knack of spotting talent. Naipaul published his first full length novel "The mystic Masseuse" in 1955, and never looked back since. Though he publicly claimed that writing a book was painful, his output was prolific and acclaimed for most part.

In 1961, His produced his magnum opus, after three years of struggle and creative labor: "The house of Mr Biswas". Set in the Caribbean, it sketches the life of Mr Biswas as he matures and seeks emancipation from his dreary life. It is a thick book with nothing much happening in the first hundred pages; but beneath the flow of narrative, a perceptive reader will find a undercurrent of discontent slowly swelling up. It is a testament to the supreme artistry of Naipaul that he keeps a keen reader riveted to his pages, with observations and insights on daily life and inner turmoils to a point when the reader becomes the protagonist and starts thinking like him. Its a magical point in the novel when this happens. Very few writers - Tolstoy, Conrad and few others achieve that level of artistic immersiveness to shift the perspective of the reader so very completely. When I read this book for the first time , nearly ten years ago, I was surprised how involved I had gotten with this book with nothing spectacular happening in it. Like a Picasso painting, Naipaul slowly makes us see what he wants us to see, and then drops the veil away to make our own judgements. To achieve this effect in words is a class act. And Naipaul was a master of that art.

Naipaul believed the fiction can only express certain avenues of thought, and its relevance in modern times with so many intertwining cross cultural motifs may not do justice to his observations and creative labor. His interest in Non-fiction was always there. In 1962, after a year long sojourn in India, he wrote "An area of darkness", a scathing commentary on Indian conditions and aftermath of colonialism. The book wasn't received too well, and got a lot of flak; but it signified Naipaul's interest in Non-fictional writing - which he would pursue more diligently in later years. In 1979, after a creative hiatus of six years, Naipaul switched completely to writing travelogues and understanding the historical underpinnings of human civilizations in the light of rulers and ruled. His travels took him to middle east, Africa and South Africa. In each of these places, he lived, thought and wrote. In the annals of literature, seldom would one find a established novelist transforming themselves into essayists, except as an occasional diversion from fiction. In Naipaul case, he abandoned fiction to write non-fiction. he believed his thoughts would find better expression in essays, then in a novel. And so it remained till his last book published in 2007. He did write few novels in between, but those were heavily based on facts.

I cannot claim to have read all the books of Sir Vidia. But I have read enough to know the man and what he wished to point out. I love the simplicity of his style. He was not am elaborate stylist like Salman Rushdie, but his sentences are punctuated with an ease and effortlessness that comes to a man who knew what exactly he needed to say. Often, dialogues in his novel, would be pithy statements with no verbal ornamentation. But when he chooses to describe something, he writes with a mastery worthy of a Proust. As a writer, - like Hemmingway - Naipaul lived and wrote on his own terms, never buckling to popular demand. His works have provoked intense criticism and downright condemnations. But nothing has deterred the man. he continued to feel, think and write as he thought it right. And that integrity of purpose is what marks an artist of highest calibre.

In death, he leaves behind a rich body of work, whose significance will grow over time. Already some of his insights are making sense, and more will as time passes by.
I only pray that a younger generation of readers will acquaint themselves with his novels and essays, and more of his books are available on print and bookstores. It can be a transforming experience.

Merge peacefully into infinity, Sir Vidia.

God bless...

yours in mortality,

Bala