V. S Naipaul - Literary Occasions - Book Review

A collection of 11 essays by the Nobel Prize author about his writing life and the experiences that shaped his writing. The introduction of the books is prepared by Pankaj Mishra (Indian essayist and novelist) In his introduction, Mishra explains the ‘intellectual colonialism’ that happened in Russia which was beautifully described by Pyotr Chaadev in his series of letters known as ‘Philosophical Letters’. In the letter, he denounces the cultural isolation and the mediocrity of Russia along with the intellectual impotence of the Russian elite. He says, “Our memories reach back no further than yesterday and we are strangers to ourselves.” He was making fun of the Russians who looked up to Western Europe for cultural direction. Pushkin in his poem makes his protagonist wonder whether if the truth is somewhere outside him, perhaps in some other land, in Europe for instance. These comparisons with Russian literary scene are used to introduce the literary context in Trinidad where V.S. Naipaul’s father Seepersad worked as a journalist after making a long journey away from his peasant origins. He suffered for want of a literary tradition. Trinidad was small, politically unimportant and geographically isolated from the rest of the world. It wasn’t much encountered in print and like his father, Naipaul also found it very hard to write about the land. Naipaul says “Great novelists wrote about highly organized societies. I had no such societies…I didn’t see my world reflected in theirs” It took many years for Naipaul to free himself of this metropolitan tradition to find the courage to write about the Port of Spain street he knew. His first publishable book was ‘Miguel Street’. Literary Occasions has a companion piece ‘The Writer and the World’ which discusses writers such as Kipling, Gandhi, Nirad C Chaudhari, Conrad and R.K Narayan.