― Tom, Thursday, 11 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
On a tangent, does anyone know when the Booker winner will be announced?
― nickie, Thursday, 11 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
VS Naipaul - don't like the sound of him.
― Nick, Thursday, 11 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― mark s, Thursday, 11 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― suzy, Thursday, 11 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― Sweetie, Thursday, 11 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― Kris, Monday, 15 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
To be sure.
Novelist Sir VS Naipaul has lambasted literary greats from Jane Austen and Charles Dickens to "the worst writer in the world" Henry James.
Naipaul said Thomas Hardy was "an unbearable writer" who "doesn't know how to compose a paragraph".
And Ernest Hemingway "was so busy being an American" he "didn't know where he was", he told the Literary Review.
...
The author slates Dickens for his "repetitiveness" and cites the experience of reading Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey as a revelatory one.
"I thought halfway through the book, 'Here am I, a grown man reading about this terrible vapid woman and her so-called love life.'
"I said to myself, 'What am I doing with this material? This is for somebody else, really."
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 14:34 (nineteen years ago)
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 14:39 (nineteen years ago)
― Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 14:53 (nineteen years ago)
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 14:56 (nineteen years ago)
― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 15:05 (nineteen years ago)
― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 15:06 (nineteen years ago)
Mr. Stone and the Knights Companion is probably my favorite, but odd for him because it's actually set in the UK instead of some steamy bend in the river. The Middle Passage is great travel writing, Miguel Street is an early and very readable short story collection. Biswas is his best known but might not be the best place to start as it's quite long, compared to a lot of his stuff.
Definitely worth the effort -- if you like that style, check out Moritz Thomsen as well, who is as good as anybody I've read, if a little depressing at times.
― andy --, Wednesday, 29 March 2006 17:34 (nineteen years ago)
― andy --, Wednesday, 29 March 2006 17:37 (nineteen years ago)
― andy --, Wednesday, 29 March 2006 18:04 (nineteen years ago)
― m coleman (lovebug starski), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 21:44 (nineteen years ago)
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 22:21 (nineteen years ago)
― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 23:07 (nineteen years ago)
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 23:10 (nineteen years ago)
The only use I can devise for them. Moreover, I'm not sure what use I can find in a writer whose intelligence, sympathy, and, yes, malevolence are best manifested in non-fiction instead of Conradian narratives.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 23:21 (nineteen years ago)
― andy --, Wednesday, 29 March 2006 23:29 (nineteen years ago)
― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 23:53 (nineteen years ago)
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 30 March 2006 00:01 (nineteen years ago)
― andy --, Thursday, 30 March 2006 00:03 (nineteen years ago)
I'll fight you all! Seriously, this is crazy talk.
I irrationally hate Naipaul though I've read nothing he's written.
― horsehoe (horseshoe), Thursday, 30 March 2006 02:24 (nineteen years ago)
― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Thursday, 30 March 2006 02:29 (nineteen years ago)
― mookieproof (mookieproof), Thursday, 30 March 2006 03:46 (nineteen years ago)
http://www.tnr.com/article/110946/vs-naipaul-the-arab-spring-authors-he-loathes-and-the-books-he-will-never-write
― your damn bass clarinet (Eazy), Wednesday, 19 December 2012 01:25 (twelve years ago)
Ha yeah I quoted his wife's delightful remarks last week
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 19 December 2012 01:35 (twelve years ago)
And the business about the cat being heartbreaking and irreplacable, unlike the first wife...
― your damn bass clarinet (Eazy), Wednesday, 19 December 2012 01:44 (twelve years ago)
great writer in being a real-life hateful asshole shocker
― (REAL NAME) (m coleman), Wednesday, 19 December 2012 10:59 (twelve years ago)
sounds like he's in a right state
― You Just Haven't Formed It Yet, Babby (King Boy Pato), Wednesday, 19 December 2012 11:17 (twelve years ago)
He's dead!
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 12 August 2018 00:38 (six years ago)
It had to happen sometime. As for his books, I am not inclined to praise the few I've read. They were readable enough that I finished them. But I was never interested enough to seek out more of them, as I usually do when an author shows a great command of their craft, combined with an interesting outlook on the world they write about. He didn't meet that standard for me as a reader.
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 12 August 2018 00:55 (six years ago)
Have you tried his non-fiction? His essay on the 1984 GOP convention is droll. I'm a fan of his Peron essay too.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 12 August 2018 01:01 (six years ago)
Given his undoubted ability to despise others, it seems like the GOP would be an excellent fit for his innate talent in that direction.
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 12 August 2018 02:56 (six years ago)
RIP big man
― the late great, Sunday, 12 August 2018 03:28 (six years ago)
His great talent for hating was undiscriminating, Aimless.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 12 August 2018 11:18 (six years ago)
rip vs pritchett
― jeremy cmbyn (wins), Sunday, 12 August 2018 11:52 (six years ago)
(lol i just sold my first book on ABE thx to this sad news)
― mark s, Sunday, 12 August 2018 11:54 (six years ago)
Keith Rowley using a certain amount of creative license in his tribute when describing him as “a proud son of Trinidad and Tobago”.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Sunday, 12 August 2018 12:02 (six years ago)
^^^^
― Father Ted in Forkhandles (Tom D.), Sunday, 12 August 2018 12:02 (six years ago)
i'll always remember naipaul mostly for his being namechecked in robert wyatt's "born-again cretin", a wonderful song
― Arch Bacon (rushomancy), Sunday, 12 August 2018 12:06 (six years ago)
Ha -- was gonna cite Wyatt.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 12 August 2018 12:11 (six years ago)
I might give Mr Biswas another shot. I put it down after the (excellent) opening about his childhood and future.
― adam the (abanana), Sunday, 12 August 2018 12:40 (six years ago)
I've only read "Bend," but found it very powerful.
― Groove(box) Denied (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 12 August 2018 14:08 (six years ago)
huh
so apparently this dude was also an asshole
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/cruel-and-unusual/307073/
― F# A# (∞), Sunday, 12 August 2018 16:45 (six years ago)
Nobody's perfect ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
― Father Ted in Forkhandles (Tom D.), Sunday, 12 August 2018 16:53 (six years ago)
ya not saying don't RIP him but was an interesting read
― F# A# (∞), Sunday, 12 August 2018 16:57 (six years ago)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgttPt_1IG0
― Blecch, where is thy Zing? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 12 August 2018 16:57 (six years ago)
A nephew of his--not sure what degree of nephew; same last name, but maybe branched off a little in the family tree--was in my grade six class (four years ago, I think). He was very precocious when it came to film--he was watching Scorsese and Tarantino films at 12--and two years later, in grade 8, he made an excellent student film that looked to be imitative of The Revenant.
― clemenza, Monday, 13 August 2018 00:05 (six years ago)
few are so sublimely gifted as to scale such heights in both literature *and* assholery
we shall not see his like again
― mookieproof, Monday, 13 August 2018 00:32 (six years ago)