Naipaul Redux

My view on V. S. Naipaul continues to solidify. The man is petty, arrogant, and as I wrote previously, "self-centred, masochistic, vile, womanizing, racist, and I suspect, a self hating man."

Now I realize that Naipaul may not be rocked back on his heels by my opinion, but geez, what can there possibly be to like about this guy. His latest book, A Writer's People: Ways of Looking and Feeling, has been reviewed at Powell's Books. The reviewer, a former editor and correspondent of The New York Times, writes,

His fellow Caribbean Nobelist Derek Walcott is portrayed as a writer who "exhausted the first flush of his talent" without ever really finding a consistent voice...In another instance, brutal honesty comes across as disdain or, it almost seems, payback for some unstated ancient slight.

This sounds very familiar. Again, read my previous post on Naipaul's vindictive swipes at Salman Rushdie.