Life is complicated and only the hypocrites will claim their own relationships and marriages are betterthan others. I am not VSN apologist but I ask you to intrspect your own lives too before casting stones at VSN.

1. Ignoring a woman you married? How many other men have and are doing this?

2. Beating a woman? Oh I see, this does not happen elsewhere, only VSN does it, and that is why we have domestic violence laws, programmes to educate women of their rights and protectives processes etc?

3. Visiting prostitutes? Hmmm….VSN must be the only guy to have done this and he must have slept with all the prostitutes in this world as no other man ever ever has visited a prostitute…

what I am saying is that this Nobel Proze winner obviously has had a life similiar to many others, only difference is it is publsihed and ours will never see the printers…he is no saint by any strech of the imagination and he does come across as being cruel and totally self interested – veryu clinical in meeting his own selfishness.

His writing showever blows the mind…I read one article that postulated he decided to have a full wash o fhis dirty laundry so that the public curiosity will be satiated and return to the value of his writings.

I think good writing can stand on its own and be appreciated regardless of the political views of the author. I can read Gore Vidal without also approving of or enjoying his admissions of sodomy. Or must I mention every time I say I like Vidal’s biographical work, that I disapprove of his gayness?

As for literary skill, the problem with reading Naipul is that all you get “is Naipul” even when he is reporting what others have to say, he interrupts the discussion, tries to controls the meaning of words and invariably superimposes his own bias opinions upon the utterances of others. This makes his literature, in terms intellectual stimulation, excruciatingly bland and a boring .

If that hostility derives from his experience in the West Indies, it still doesn’t explain anything. Rather it reinforces his image as a pompous and sexist maniac who is incapable of making moral judgements no matter how well how his jaunty mind produces prose in between incontrollable spasms. He has written books but he has never thought out anything good.

Actually, Naipaul’s hostility to black people- and there’s not much evidence that he is more hostile to black people than to the rest of the human care, actually- probably derives from the West Indian environment of his childhood.

Give me a Robert Browning over a Shelley or Ted Hughes anyday.

Naipul is amusing though in his own vitriolic way for the sheer audacity of his racism. (I think once asked on what the tikka on a Hindu woman’s forehead represented he said ‘My head is empty’!)

Ditto Baybers about being muslims offended. Although ‘Among the believers’ was a bad PR moment you just gotta keep your chin up and resist the temptation to burn things. haha (j/k). The worst is when these foes are actually talented you can’t attack them for bad writing

other options-
1. Call said writer ‘callous bastard’
2. Read some Edward Said.
3. Cry in a corner for a little bit
4. Find a talented writer with opposing views or better yet one who elegantly tears apart said writer for you.
5. Enjoy feeling angry/provoked/outraged- it’s probably intended and maybe even come to accept different perspectives. Life is not all about ideologies and political persuasions after all. (This is a last option and not recommended:)

“If I cannot be first on the race ladder, then I will be second”

that is why I think he is so savagely racist against people with skin darker than his.

Let me just say that India, like Brazil, is one of the most racist places on the planet. The masses have bought into the post-conquest narrative. People literally advertise in newspapers that they want “fair brides”. A failure of humanity. This seems to be the trend in countries that surround it as well. A pitiable state indeed. However, there is no form of institutionalised racism. Hopefully, with time this problem will disappear.