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Eloquent and developed. I will have to read more of Naipaul. I identify with him quite a bit.
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Reading & Writing: A Personal Account
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I was eleven, no more, when the wish came to me to be a writer; and then very soon it was a settled ambition. But for the young V. S. Naipaul, there was a great distance between the wish and its fulfillment. To become a writer, he would have to find ways of understanding three very different his family's half-remembered Indian homeland, the West Indian colonial society in which he grew up, and the wholly foreign world of the English novels he read.
In this essay of literary autobiography, V. S. Naipaul sifts through memories of his childhood in Trinidad, his university days in England, and his earliest attempts at writing, seeking the experiences of life and reading that shaped his imagination and his growth as a writer. He pays particular attention to the traumas of India under its various conquerors and the painful sense of dereliction and loss that shadows writers' attempts to capture the country and its people in prose.
Naipaul's profound reflections on the relations between personal or historical experience and literary form, between the novel and the world, reveal how he came to discover both his voice and the subjects of his writing, and how he learned to turn sometimes to fiction, sometimes to the travel narrative, to portray them truthfully. Along the way he offers insights into the novel's prodigious development as a form for depicting and interpreting society in the nineteenth century and its diminishing capacity to do the same in the twentiethÑa task that, in his view, passed to the creative energies of the early cinema.
As a child trying to read, I had felt that two worlds separated me from the books that were offered to me at school and in the the childhood world of our remembered India, and the more colonial world of our city. ... What I didn't know, even after I had written my early books of fiction ... was that those two spheres of darkness had become my subject. Fiction, working its mysteries, by indirections finding directions out, had led me to my subject. But it couldn't take me all the way. -V.S. Naipaul, from Reading & Writing
In this essay of literary autobiography, V. S. Naipaul sifts through memories of his childhood in Trinidad, his university days in England, and his earliest attempts at writing, seeking the experiences of life and reading that shaped his imagination and his growth as a writer. He pays particular attention to the traumas of India under its various conquerors and the painful sense of dereliction and loss that shadows writers' attempts to capture the country and its people in prose.
Naipaul's profound reflections on the relations between personal or historical experience and literary form, between the novel and the world, reveal how he came to discover both his voice and the subjects of his writing, and how he learned to turn sometimes to fiction, sometimes to the travel narrative, to portray them truthfully. Along the way he offers insights into the novel's prodigious development as a form for depicting and interpreting society in the nineteenth century and its diminishing capacity to do the same in the twentiethÑa task that, in his view, passed to the creative energies of the early cinema.
As a child trying to read, I had felt that two worlds separated me from the books that were offered to me at school and in the the childhood world of our remembered India, and the more colonial world of our city. ... What I didn't know, even after I had written my early books of fiction ... was that those two spheres of darkness had become my subject. Fiction, working its mysteries, by indirections finding directions out, had led me to my subject. But it couldn't take me all the way. -V.S. Naipaul, from Reading & Writing
64 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1,1968
This edition
- Format
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64 pages, Hardcover
- Published
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February 28, 2000 by New York Review Books
- ISBN
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9780940322387
- ASIN
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0940322382
- Language
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English
About the author
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V. 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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Rating(4.3 / 5.0, 46 votes)
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Naipaul is so complex. He has a point of view. This book, for me, more than any other of his works, showed me why he writes as he does. And his discussion of the origin of the novel at the book's end is beautifully written.
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Muy claro y personal, espero leer más de Naipaul pronto. Di con este libro gracias a los ensayos de Fabián Casas.
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I liked the first part but towards the end got lost in what he was trying to say- felt lost.
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Om skrivandets och läsandets villkor för de som står utanför västvärldens "monopol" på berättelser, så upplever jag denna. Känns väldigt viktigt, och är någonting jag har funderat över också när jag läser litteratur från andra världsdelar, som inte delar samma litteraturhistoria men ändå har "påtvingats" den genom kolonialism. Hur skulle det sett ut annars? Och hur kan man läsa den litteraturen med en större förståelse, försöka ha icke-västerländska premisser? Svårt, men första steget är väl att tänka på det, och det tycker jag att Naipaul här får en att göra genom att berätta om sin egen resa som både läsare och författare. Dessutom: länders historia som glöms bort, stor påverkan också. Bara tre för att jag gärna hade sett den fördjupad, det är en så kort essä.
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O livro tem dois ensaios e o discurso do autor ao receber o Nobel, todos excelentes. O conteúdo é mais ou menos parecido. Naipaul trata da infância em Trindade e Tobago, o estranhamento em relação a viver a cultura indiana transportada para uma colônia caribenha, a decisão de se tornar escritor antes mesmo de compreender a literatura, por influência do pai jornalista, e a necessidade de migração da ficção para os relatos de viagens no fim da carreira. O autor é muito franco em relação às dificuldades e à falta de um planejamento prévio para a escrita de suas obras, e confesso que isso me deixou ao mesmo tempo fascinado e desconfiado. Naipaul também escreve sobre identidade e desenraizamento sem ressentimentos, mas também sem deslumbre, e sempre com um toque de leveza e humor. É mais um autor a quem eu devo mais leituras.
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This is a personal account of how a person inclines to accept getting into the game of reading and writing. But when the same person gets a Nobel in the same game, it's worthy enough to have a glance at the process!
At one place he talks about the blankness in him about which way to go. He was on his hard-earned scholarship at Oxford. The idea of fiction or a novel puzzled him. He says that the idea of a novel is something that is made up, that is precisely its definition. At the same time, it is expected to be true. It is expected to be drawn from life. How? later he finds an answer through Evelyn Waugh,
"Later when I had begun to identify my material and had begun to be a writer, working more or less intuitively this ambiguity ceased to worry me. In 1955 the year of this breakthrough, I was able to understand Evelyn Waugh's definition of fiction (in the dedication to "Officers and Gentlemen" published that year) as "experience totally transformed". I wouldn't have understood or believed the words the year before."
Naipaul has a whole gamut of his Non-fictional work, he talks about the reasons,
"Fiction had taken me as far as I could go. There were certain things it couldn't deal with. It couldn't deal with my ears in England. There was a social depth to the experience it seemed more a matter of autobiography, and it could not deal with my growing knowledge of the wider world. Fiction, by its nature, functioning best within certain fixed social boundaries seems to be pushing me back to worlds- like the island word or the world of my childhood- smaller than the one I inhabited. fiction which had once liberated me and enlightened me now seemed to be pushing me towards being simpler than I really was. for some years three perhaps four I did not know how to move. I was quite lost."
It was interesting to know Naipaul's take on R.K. Narayan and his characters of small people, talking big and doing small things,
"Narayan's world is not after all as rooted and complete as it appears. His small people dream simply of what they think has gone before, but they are without personal ancestry. There is a great blank in their past."
Literature, like all living arts, is always on the move and it should constantly change, thinks Naipaul. Tho it was a simple yet circumstantial account, if you do not know much about the author's take on his writing and reading, It will give you an idea of his progression and how he gained ground in the game!
At one place he talks about the blankness in him about which way to go. He was on his hard-earned scholarship at Oxford. The idea of fiction or a novel puzzled him. He says that the idea of a novel is something that is made up, that is precisely its definition. At the same time, it is expected to be true. It is expected to be drawn from life. How? later he finds an answer through Evelyn Waugh,
"Later when I had begun to identify my material and had begun to be a writer, working more or less intuitively this ambiguity ceased to worry me. In 1955 the year of this breakthrough, I was able to understand Evelyn Waugh's definition of fiction (in the dedication to "Officers and Gentlemen" published that year) as "experience totally transformed". I wouldn't have understood or believed the words the year before."
Naipaul has a whole gamut of his Non-fictional work, he talks about the reasons,
"Fiction had taken me as far as I could go. There were certain things it couldn't deal with. It couldn't deal with my ears in England. There was a social depth to the experience it seemed more a matter of autobiography, and it could not deal with my growing knowledge of the wider world. Fiction, by its nature, functioning best within certain fixed social boundaries seems to be pushing me back to worlds- like the island word or the world of my childhood- smaller than the one I inhabited. fiction which had once liberated me and enlightened me now seemed to be pushing me towards being simpler than I really was. for some years three perhaps four I did not know how to move. I was quite lost."
It was interesting to know Naipaul's take on R.K. Narayan and his characters of small people, talking big and doing small things,
"Narayan's world is not after all as rooted and complete as it appears. His small people dream simply of what they think has gone before, but they are without personal ancestry. There is a great blank in their past."
Literature, like all living arts, is always on the move and it should constantly change, thinks Naipaul. Tho it was a simple yet circumstantial account, if you do not know much about the author's take on his writing and reading, It will give you an idea of his progression and how he gained ground in the game!
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