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Uganda: Naipaul Not Done With the Pen Yet
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The Monitor (Kampala)
OPINION
30 March 2008
Posted to the web 31 March 2008
Joshua Masinde
When one hears of Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, popularly referred to as V. S. Naipaul, the thoughts of a man masked in controversy, criticism and racial chauvinism come to mind. He is as much controversial, sadly humorous, sharply satirical and conservative in his writings and discourses now as he was about six decades ago.
Having written a lot (and as per many critics, distastefully) about Africa and the third world, he still could not resist the temptation to make another pilgrimage to Africa (Uganda) and particularly visit the famed River Nile in Jinja. This, he did a day before honouring a visit to Makerere University, where he undertook a fellowship in 1966. Then, he rejected many honours, which kept boomeranging in different forms. Was it perhaps due to the gratification he beheld in the earlier scholarship he was awarded to study at Oxford University?
Nevertheless, in 1965, when an American Foundation asked him to take up a fellowship, he obliged and went to Makerere University in Uganda. His reason for taking up the fellowship was too little out of the ordinary, not for the value he should have attached to it: he was having trouble writing a book. The fellowship gave him an opportunity to take a break from the depression he was having, have a look at Uganda and to write his book.
Later, he toured East Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Ivory Coast. He credits himself with having written a lot about these areas and the third world; writings he terms as the history of the vanquished.
During his early pilgrimage to Africa, he thought of writing a last book about the continent. But, as a writer, he felt the need to keep on writing.
"A writer does not have to write one book," he remarks.
But there's always the mortal fear to which he attached his wish to write; "Where the next book (material) is coming from."
However, what he considers as bad and should be discouraged is lending oneself to the copy-cat syndrome, "If I could do that one too," a wish that most writers fantasise about inhibits creativity. The wish to write as one's favourite author is normal but should be avoided.
His sort of writing has drawn unprecedented criticism from different quarters of the globe. He doesn't mind criticism, especially from such critics who dismiss him as unsympathetic and racist in his writing and utterances, the famed one of which he admitted not envisioning a monkey (sic) reading his books.
Like the proverbial ostrich that buried its head in the sand, he is indifferent to censure for one reason: he doesn't write about the affairs of the heart but about the world. He finds it hard to deal with social writing, especially in line with manners, emotions and love. To him, "they don't exist". Nonetheless, he insinuates that one doesn't write about experiences alone, but also about situations and intuitions. He now considers writing a lot more.
His style is considered unique and singular. The driving force for such unique style was neither a strategy nor a plan. It was instinctive and inherent. When he left university in 1954, he was desperate to get started. Humour was almost his character. He'd been worried but made jokes very easily. He could make jokes without worrying.
Later, as he continued writing, the humour required a lot of space. The offspring was Miguel Street, 1959. With its remarkable and unique characters, it presents the story of great ambitions that remain unfulfilled. It is penned in the first person narration.
In An Area of Darkness, a book that has similarly drawn considerable critique, he presents a stark condemnation of India, his land of lineage. He analyses it with considerable distaste and later with 'grudging affection'.
Despite the varied criticism, he fully accepts his books specifically because of the difficulties he faced in writing them, especially An Area of Darkness. The British have specifically lauded him for contributing to British literature, despite the cosmopolitan identity of his writings. This, he finds fulfilling and inspiring.
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He is great, he who has won the Nobel prize for Literature, but not V. S. Naipaul. He does not see himself as a hero. "If I do, I'd be extraordinarily foolish." In essence, the most important thing he would like to be remembered about is the wish to be known as a compassionate writer who wrote about the history of the oppressed.
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