Karnataka - Bangalore

The world of the writer, as it is

— Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

Patrick French, author of ‘The World Is What It Is’, at the release function in Bangalore on Sunday.

Bangalore: It’s hard not to be judgmental about V.S. Naipaul. After all, his reputation as a writer of exceptional brilliance is matched, if not outdone, by his reputation as a man of rabid and politically-incorrect views.

That should make him a touchy subject for any biographer, especially for one who wants to present the man in all his complexity, but strictly resist the temptation to dole out opinions for readers to lap up.

Patrick French’s authorised biography of Naipaul, The World Is What It Is, sets out on this difficult mission.

Releasing the book here on Sunday at Reliance Timeout, French admitted that it was a temptation he fought against. He did, for instance, feel a “twinge of horrified surprise” as he read the diaries of Naipaul’s first wife, Patricia Hale, which reveal a particularly dark side of Naipaul’s personality.

But biographies which insist on morally judging the subject leave a reader “feeling queasy” just as hagiographies do, says French. To read and judge is, after all, a reader’s prerogative. French has had people coming back to him with varying reactions to his subject after reading the biography. They range from “greater loathing” for all his arrogance and depravity to “greater sympathy” in the light of the complex diasporic and personal history that creates a writer such as Naipaul.

A candid biography, says French, was possible because he had undeterred access to all of Naipaul’s personal material, including letters and diaries, and was allowed detailed interviews with Naipaul and his circle of friends and relatives. “Naipaul took part in the project, but detached himself from the consequences,” says French. So the subject himself has not had anything to say about this work, so far.

The excerpts French read from the book at the launch were interesting for the way they juxtaposed the writer’s personal life and his literary output. For example, Naipaul was having a “rather curious three-way relationship” with his first wife Patricia and his mistress Margaret Gooding as he was writing the novel, Guerrillas. One finds that he often “metamorphoses the material that arose from his life” into his novel, says French.

Would a reading of The World Is What It Is then alter the way we read Naipaul? French says that it might inevitably happen, as it has with many writers in the past. “We may return to the novels with a richer understanding of the circumstances,” he says.

For one, the sales of Naipaul’s novels have gone up ever since the biography was released.

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