From: "Ismail Talib" <i_talib-AT-email.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 18:05:10 +0800
Subject: Re: Naipaul calls Forster 'a nasty homosexual'


Dear Salil

I don't think my position is widely different from yours, except perhaps for the lower ranking (perhaps much lower) that I give to Naipaul's achievements in literature: hence my extreme disappointment with this year's Nobel prize. The difference may be due to several factors: the different corpus of readings that we are exposed to, my greater sensitivity to ideological factors in literature and their greater effect on my aesthetic sensibility, my penchant to put authors in wider historical and linguistic contexts (perhaps this is due to my 'academic' side), etc.  But then, even you say that describing Naipaul as your 'beloved' author is incorrect, as there are others on my list of authors who should have won that you like better than Naipaul: I think we can 'touch base' here, so to speak. Well, Naipaul may not be an Indian writer, but he is certainly more interested in India than many other writers of Caribbean origin, such as Selvon himself and David Dabydeen, and, more persistently than them, keeps going back to the subcontinent, both physically and spiritually. But one of my concerns is that, Naipaul's win will prevent an Indian author, or an author with an Indian-sounding name, or a non-Indian author with deep associations with India or greater India (such as Rushdie), from winning it for a good number of years. As you know, the Nobel is well known for 'rotating' the prize, based on national and other criteria, and the above may be the criteria used by the committee for some years, and the 'rotation' may be decades and not years before it 'returns' to India. If Naipaul's win was deserved, I would not have worried about this, but I don't think it was! I am glad that we share the same interest in Selvon! Of course, he achieved his greatest impact with his first published novel, but then, it's been so many years... nay, decades... since Naipaul produced a reasonably good work of literature -- House for Mr Biswas -- which, even if we just concentrate on aesthetic impact as a factor, is certainly not as good as *The Lonely Londeners*.

I have one more 'point', but I think I will have to stop here -- otherwise I will find myself 'bounced off' by the server again...

Cheers

Ismail
-- 

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