The furor is at least a week old and has seemingly given way to newer feeding frenzies such as Weinergate. Yet, the uproar over VS Naipaul's recent pronouncements lingers in my mind.
Heralded for decades as the greatest living writer of English prose, Naipaul is no stranger to controversy. He has been characterized as a sadist, wife beater, whore-chaser and adulterer. His arrogance is legend.
So what has Naipaul, fellow Trinidadian, winner of the Nobel prize for literature, done this time to provoke the wrath of readers everywhere? Exhibit A: Excerpts from his interview with the Royal Geographic Society . When asked if he considered any woman writer his literary match, Naipaul replied: "I don't think so." Of Jane Austen he said he "couldn't possibly share her sentimental ambitions, her sentimental sense of the world". He elaborates: "I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think [it is] unequal to me."
According to the great one, women are sentimental and have a narrow view of the world. "And inevitably for a woman, she is not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too." He tosses the expression "feminine tosh" around.
Cue collective screaming on the part of discerning readers of both genders, a stampede to hurl the work of acclaimed women writers in his face, and impassioned avowals to boycott his books.
My initial horror fast gave way to restrained amusement, then outright mirth. Just reading the comments on the Guardian article elicited numerous guffaws; I even had to Google British slang to find out the meaning of some of the more anatomically baffling insults wielded at the man. Here's a random sampling of the epithets:
"Delusional and sick" - "A waste of space" - "Narcissistic old bore" - "A total tool" - "Silly old fart" - "Mega-misogynist" - "Grumpy old git" - "A bit of a d**k" - "A twat" - and this beauty, "A prize berk". (Wow.)
Why my lighthearted reaction? To quote one Guardian commenter: "Perhaps Naipaul the man is worthy of contempt [but] his novels are generally sublime." I have learnt never, ever, to confuse the writer (or actor, or painter) with his creative work. If we were to dismiss writers on account of their character flaws we readers would have lean pickings indeed.
As a matter of fact, we might have no pickings at all.
12 comments:
I do agree! History is littered with talented idiots. We interact with them via their art. Fine. We don't have to listen to their rantings if we don't want to, and that's fine too.
Early in my career I had a supervisor named Berk. I wonder where he is now; I'd love to share...
Readers often conflate authors with their characters. Stephen King has reported more hate mail over a scene early in The Dead Zone depicting a door-to-door salesman kicking an obnoxious dog to death than all of his other works combined. People are able to understand he is not a rapist or vampire or serial killer or evil entity posing as a clown but based on that one scene are convinced he's an animal hater who's cruel to pets.
A former guest author here at Novel Spaces, Patricia Wrede, wrote a fantasy novel set in early America in which the American continents were populated by definitely magical and possibly sentient animals, but no humans. She was pilloried by a community of critics who believed her fantasy world revealed that she hated Native Americans and believed the culture and people should be wiped out.
Over the years I have been working on an alternate history that would lead to an alternative present (Lord, now he thinks he's Turtledove). It started out as trying to imagine a how the lily-white all-American future that was the fundamental given of Golden Age science fiction could have come about. Which got me thinking about what the Civil Rights movement would have looked like in set in the 21st century of space stations and nuclear-powered everything envisioned by those writers. It's taking a lot of research to make sure I don't overlook secondary and tertiary consequences of things like a Jim Crow amendment to the Constitution. And yes, if this alternative world ever sees the light of published day, I'm sure someone -- probably a whole lynch mob of someones -- is going to see it as proof I'm a racist. Can't wait to become the darling of the Tea Party.
We might not have any at all. Absolutely. Writers are no more to be admired for their personalities than any other person. but their work still can be considered separately from their personality. Plenty of male writers are sentimental, and sentimentality itself is a part of the human condition, therefore perfectly reasonable grist for the mill.
We indeed need to separate the art from the artist. I had to study some of V.S. Naipaul's work during my high school years for English literature and his work is excellent. Since I had never been to interested in his personal life, I had never read anything about his controversial claims.
Simply put, though he might come off as a chauvinistic arrogant bastard in his opinions, his work still exemplifies great literary writing. I see no need to boycott the work, even though the man needs to be taken down a notch.
I ran into something similar recently. Joel Rosenberg, a fantasy author whose Guardians of the Flame series is one of my all-time favorites, passed away from a heart attack on the 3rd. He was 57 (I bleieve). I posted my grief for his loss on Facebook. Immediately one of my "wet blanket" friends commented that he had met Joel several times and he always seemed so angry for no reason, and that it's no surprise he died of a heart attack.
Was that really necessary? I lamented the loss of an artist who inspired me. I didn't need to hear about his personaly anger issues and questionable lifestyle. It really rubbed me the wrong way.
I also run into this a lot with actors. I think Tom Cruise is a brilliant actor. Off-screen, I think he can be quite a looney at times. But his movies are still good.
Sue, so true! Talented idiots, talented maniacs, talented sociopaths...
Engagement with their art is all we need; the rest we don't even need to know.
KeVin, one of my son's friends is a Berk. I'm sure the poor guy doesn't have a clue...
I remember that scene from Dead Zone. It pretty much showed us all we needed to know about the salesman's character, which I think was King's point. (That show vs tell discussion again.) That inability of so many people to separate fiction from reality is downright frightening.
Your project sounds fascinating. Don't worry about the screams of the lynch mobs - they'll ensure your books fly off the shelves.
Charles, we've got to separate them. Artists are just human and subject to all the warts that entails.
I second your view on sentimentality. What makes one kind of experience less authentic and worthy of literary exploration? The chauvinists like to pretend they're immune from it but we know better.
Jewel, the readers who plan to boycott Naipaul's work will be all the poorer for it.
I did a bit of research into writers' bios recently for a project, and it was shocking to discover how terribly flawed many of them were. But despite all of that they managed to gift us with works of surpassing beauty and imagination, not to mention profound insights into the human condition. I'll take them as they are, thank you very much.
Tom, that was very mean-spirited of your friend. Ill-speaking the recently deceased indeed. And publicly, too.
I don't see why we can't appreciate the art without castigating the artist for his personal flaws. They're just people, people!
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