Why did he do it? The latest parlour game in literary circles this past spring concerns V.S. Naipaul’s decision to allow publication of an authorized biography. At first sight, there may not seem anything unusual in that. After all, venerable authors often make an effort to pre-empt history by making sure their private lives remain in the hands of a friendly worsdsmith.
But in this case, Mr. Naipaul has caused consternation by going out of his way not to try to influence events. Patrick French’s doorstopper “The World is What it Is” turns out to be stunningly indiscreet. If “SirVidia’s Shadow,” Paul Theroux’s jaundiced account of his relationship with his ex-friend, was the prose equivalent of a guided missile, Mr. French has now detonated the mother of all thermonuclear weapons. As the writer John Sutherland put it in his Financial Times review, “There are so many warts on Patrick French’s portrait of the Nobel Prize-winning writer one can barely see the face.”
Where to begin? There had long been discreet gossip about Mr. Naipaul’s unhappy first marriage. And Mr. Theroux had not been alone in discussing the Trinidad-born novelist’s misanthropic traits. Yet the sheer volume of detail amassed by Mr. French (with Naipaul’s blessing, remember) is little short of breathtaking. More than an unhappy marriage, the relationship with Pat (who died of cancer in 1996) is revealed as an exercise in humiliation. As for his quarter-of-a-century affair with his mistress Margaret Gooding, Mr. French spares few of the sado-maschistic details. Mr. Naipaul’s other traits — his snobbery, meanness, rudeness and his racism, to name a few — are all well to the fore.
Nor surprisingly, Mr. Theroux (no saint himself, as we all know) could not resist twisting the knife in a long article in the London Sunday Times: “When the lawyers were shown the type-script of my own book, they were all over me. “Look at this — ’violent, unstable, depressive’ — Mr. Naipaul could prove malice!” And the trump card of the QC, with his lists of deletions and revisions: ’Do you know what it will cost you if he sues you?’
“I was allowed only to quote snippets from his letters to me. Permission was not granted to see the letters I had written to him over the course of 30 years, now in an Oklahoma library. In other words, I was denied access to my own letters … Slash, change; slash, change. Even so, when my book appeared the reviewers howled at me for my audacity. ’An unfair portrait’, ’a betrayal’ and the usual jibes — all of them portraying me as an envious upstart ” Now French’s biography amply demonstrates everything I said and more. It is not a pretty story; it will probably destroy Naipaul’s reputation for ever””
Whether Mr. Theroux is right about that last point is another matter. Nobody, after all, expects a writer’s private life to be as tidy as his prose. (It’s pretty clear from Mr. Theroux’s own books, for instance, that he is not the kind of companion most of us would wish for on a desert island). Mr. Naipaul’s true accomplishments will survive no end of muck-raking. I do wonder, however, whether the biography will lead to questioning of the merits of the later books. For my own part, I have always preferred the vivacity and tenderness of the early novels. “The Mystic Masseur” remains my favorite. Others would opt for “A House for Mr Biswas.”
As Mr. Naipaul grew older, and as his fame grew, a growing sense of bleakness seeped into his work. In his eyes, all humanity appeared third-rate and fly-blown. His view of the Third World grew more bitter too. Some of his conservative admirers — eager for respite from well-meaning liberal platitudes — acclaimed Mr. Naipaul as a chronicler of harsh but unavoidable truths. I wonder if the revelations in French’s book will give them pause for thought?
•••
As I write, at this very moment, London could well be about to enter a new political era. The city elects a new mayor today, and if the polls are to be believed (which is always a leap of faith) the victor could well be Boris Johnson, the extrovert columnist, Tory MP and former editor of The Spectator. Having entered the race in the spirit of a Bertie Wooster-ish prank, the irrepressible Old Etonian did his best to curb his tendency to indulge in blustering self-parody. To the surprise of his Labor opponents, he succeeded for the most part, although sceptics claimed that was due in large measure to his minders’ determination to shield him from inquisitive reporters.
Whether Conservative HQ would really be disappointed if Mr. Johnson loses is an interesting question: There are those who argue that his lack of executive experience could prove embarrassing for the Tory leadership. But if he wins, and if he turns out to be a success, Britain will be on the verge of an intriguing shift in its centre of gravity. As a student, you see, Mr. Johnson was a stalwart of the Bullingdon Club, an exclusive Oxford dining society whose upper-class members are renowned for their extravagant attire, their social networking and their habit of indulging in adolescent acts of vandalism. (Evelyn Waugh captured the spirit of mindless carnage in the opening pages of “Decline and Fall”) The Conservative leader, David Cameron was also a member, as was his shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.
To those of us who think Britain is still burdened with an absurd amount of class ritual, this is very bad news indeed. Tory modernizers, on the other hand, argue that the country has moved on, and that no one really cares about what a group of bright young things did a quarter of a century ago. We shall soon find out whether they are right.
Clive Davis writes for The London Times and Sunday Times, and blogs for The Spectator: www.spectator.co.uk/ clivedavis
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