The world is what it is

To understand V.S Naipaul is a mammoth task. It is even more difficult to understand his literary work which range from his Caribbean experiences to explorations of Islamic fundamentalism in Indonesia.



Reading his early work such as A House for Mr. Biswas provides a vista into his early life as a Caribbean boy of Indian origin, who grew up among Afro-Caribbean´s and Indians.[break] His trilogy on India, India: A million mutinies now, India: An Area of Darkness and India: A Wounded Civilization are the outcome of his repeated visits to India, the country that his fore-fathers left years ago to work as sugarcane laborers in the Caribbean. The three books are very critical of India.



He writes, “I wrote the whole of A Wounded civilization with an idea of the invasion in mind, in a broad way, the way Indians talk about it as through it’s an act of God. I am enraged by the way Indians don’t wish to understand their history, I am enraged. I think unless you begin to understand your history, you can’t have a new writing.”




But the book that brought him international fame with a Noble Prize in Literature is Beyond Belief, a follow up of his earlier book, Among Believers. Both books are based on his quest to unravel the mystery of converted Muslims and their fanaticism from Iran to Indonesia.



Before Naipual’s authorized biography came into light, Sir Vidia’s Shadow by estranged disciple Paul Theroux dominated the world of Naipaul. The latter however, claimed to have not read Theroux’s memoir. Unlike in his previous biography, Theroux, the author of the famous travelogue The Great Railway Bazaar, shows his displeasure, differences and discontent with Naipaul in V.S.Naipaul: An Introduction of his work. The World is What it is is perhaps the only authorized biography of V.S. Naipaul, nee Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, that allows readers a glimpse into the life and work of one of the greatest writers of our generation.



Authored by Patrick French, ‘The World is What it is’ is a candid biography of a celebrated author who is known for his whimsical, unfriendly and snobbish behavior. With the permission of Naipaul, Patrick French was initially given access to over 50,000 pages of writing that Naipaul sold to the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma. Put together with numerous interviews with Naipaul and his close associates, French’s Herculean task ended in 2008 in the form of a beautiful book whose title is drawn from the first line of Naipaul’s famous book based on Central Africa, ‘A bend in River’.

It is a tough job for a British author to trace down the historical and social background of a complex writer like Naipaul who was born in a Hindu family and raised in Trinidad, and went to write novels and essays on the African and Latin American milieu, India and Muslims, while in England.



Though many of us have heard of his mistress Margaret, an inspiration for some of his work, and his flings with other women, French writes, “Vidia’s physical attraction to Pat (his wife) had never been certain, and after they married, it declined further. He felt too embarrassed to talk with her about this situation. In the summer of 1958, turning imagination into reality, he started to have sex with prostitutes.”



French is very particular in detailing every aspect of Naipaul’s life from getting updated information on his siblings, his maternal and paternal relatives and also Caribbean writers contemporary to Naipaul. In the book, he quotes Vinod Mehta, editor of Outlook to sketch what kind of person Naipaul is, “I think overall he is one of the most complex human beings I’ve met: I have never met anyone as insightful, or as brilliant. But he is certainly not an easy person to know…He was not a person who was going to tell you a great deal about himself. His books will tell you about himself, but he won’t tell you.”



In this book, Patrick explores Naipaul personal life, his demure and submissive British wife Pat, his family and his indifferent attitude to his equally talented brother Shiva Naipaul- author of several books such as North of South, Black and White. The untimely death of Shiva Naipaul in 1985, at the age of 40, left Naipaul grief stricken, with a feeling of his unfulfilled fraternal responsibility.



Naipaul’s A House of Mr. Biswas introduced me to his subsequent writings, nearly two and a half decades ago. Written in the narrative style of R.K. Narayan, A House of Mr. Biswas brings together the uniqueness of his perspectives and his varied experiences; it is a late 20th century global narrative that could have been only written by Naipaul. Therefore, writing on Naipaul, even for a versatile writer, is difficult, for the reason that Naipaul appears to be ubiquitous in his writings.



After reading The World is What it is, one can find similar fictional characters in Naipaul’s real life. The book, hence, gives more insight to readers who are already familiar with the writings of Naipaul. His infidelity, aloofness from friends and family, superiority complex in writing always revolve around his personality. Patrick finds Naipaul quite emotional and lonely when his first wife Pat dies. “Vidia did not know what to do. Having spent a lifetime shunning friends, he had no network to support. His wife was dead, at the age of sixty-three,” pens Patrick. The book ends with the death of his first wife and his marriage to his second wife Nadira, an aspirant Pakistani journalist and writer. Many a time the issue of his ancestral linkage to Nepal is discussed but the book doesn’t provide any hints to prove it true.



The World is What it is, is a window to the world of Naipaul, a big world that transcends many lives and the work of common writers. Perhaps, The World is What it is gives more than what we generally expect to know about a writer. But to understand Naipaul, as Vinod Mehta says we have to read his books, it is the only way to fathom his complexity, his creativity, his megalomania.

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