British author V.S. Naipaul at his home near Salisbury, Wiltshire, October 11, 2001 after it was announced that he has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. REUTERS/Chris Ison/POOL
S. Naipaul, the Nobel winning author who just died, was, like so many people, an enigma, at least in his writing. Lauded for his prose style and exquisite way with words, he was seriously criticized for his demeaning of Islam, women, Africans, and others in post-colonial countries, including the Caribbean from whence he came. Such criticism was amply justified. He seems also to have been bigoted and irascible personally, while charming when he wished. A strange character, many of whose political and cultural views I find abhorrent.
Nevertheless, if one only looked for beauty and truth in writers whose politics one agreed with, one would miss out on a lot. For sometimes, despite themselves, writers pen words that come from a place where art and inspiration and personal anguish subvert their worst inclinations. As Leonard Cohen has written: “There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” This is true for Naipaul.
He once said that fiction never lies, and while this may or may not be true, it is true that writers whose politics one may find repulsive can also, despite their conscious intentions, write books that glow with an extraordinary prose luminescence that mesmerizes and reveals deep insights. This is the case with Naipaul’s The Enigma of…