VS Naipaul: women suck.

[xssve]

The author, who was born in Trinidad, said this was because of women's "sentimentality, the 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 said.

VS Naipaul finds no woman writer his literary match – not even Jane Austen

Greatest writer of his generation or fatuous ass? Discuss.

 

[lovecraft68]

VS Naipaul finds no woman writer his literary match – not even Jane Austen

Greatest writer of his generation or fatuous ass? Discuss.

Did he graduate from Yale by any chance?

 

[xssve]

Could be, I'll have to wait for srplt to tell me what I mean by this egregious wording.

 

[Stella_Omega]

It's funny that he calls Austen's plots trite. The reason they are trite is that they are so good, such bell-ringers for so much of humanity that they've been copied over and over again by other writers-- she's the archetype.

I would expect him to have thought of that. But then, elderly men get crochety. it would be better if the press wasn't quite so efficient at times like these. Let an old man meander in blessed privacy.

ETA: I went looking for bits of his prose to read since i can't remember reading much of him.

I found this;

As a child I knew almost nothing, nothing beyond what I had picked up in my grandmother's house. All children, I suppose, come into the world like that, not knowing who they are.

I see a heavy reliance on commas-- and if I were his editor, I would have red-penciled out that "I suppose" phrase and noted back to him; "No shit, Sherlock."

 

[sr71plt]

What's really interesting is how many folks on AH are obsessed with me.

 

[Stella_Omega]

What's really interesting is how many folks on AH are obsessed with me.

We are judged by the quality of our enemies...


Which I suspect is Naipaul's motive. If he can claim Jane Austen as an enemy, he must be pretty hot shit. Alternately, Jane gets V.S. Naipaul for an enemy, which surely makes her hot shit.

sadly, SR, you rate a half-handful of bumpkins.

 

[xssve]

I only got 6 out of 10 on the Naipaul test.

You scored 6 out of a possible 10

Sloppy thinking. You clearly need to read more books by men.

For reference, the novels quoted were:
1 A House for Mr Biswas by VS Naipaul (r, guessed male)
2 The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks (r, guessed male)
3 The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (r, guessed female)
4 Harnesssing Peacocks by Mary Wesley (w, guessed male, but it was a toss up)
5 Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (w, guessed female, and I read that one, lol)
6 A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (r, guessed male)
7 The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (w, guessed male, but I think I meant to check female - the teeth thing, women notice stuff like that)
8 On Beauty by Zadie Smith (r, guessed female)
9 Atonement by Ian McEwan (w, guessed female)
10 A Forever Mother by Laura Abbot (r, guessed female)

If anything, I think women's writing is less sentimental, in fact it's as close to a dead giveaway as I can glean.

 

[sr71plt]

sadly, SR, you rate a half-handful of bumpkins.

Yes, I'd really hope for better enemies than a gaggle of clowns. *sigh* Guess you just have to take the ones who want to bumble around you.

P.S. I don't read VS Naipaul--or Jane Austen, for that matter. (Nor have I been to Yale.)

 

[xssve]

Fascinating stuff, I'm sure.

 

[rgraham666]

I read one of his books, non-fiction and I learned a lot from it. Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey.

As far as women's 'sentimentality' goes, nothing makes a person more practical than having to deal with blood pouring from your body one week out of every four for much of your life. On this, VS Naipaul is full of shit.

 

[AlmostAlice]

it would be better if the press wasn't quite so efficient at times like these. Let an old man meander in blessed privacy.

This.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Yes, I'd really hope for better enemies than a gaggle of clowns. *sigh* Guess you just have to take the ones who want to bumble around you.

P.S. I don't read VS Naipaul--or Jane Austen, for that matter. (Nor have I been to Yale.)

Well when you're a dufuss you live in dufussland.

 

[sr71plt]

Well when you're a dufuss you live in dufussland.

Yes YOU do.

 

[Stella_Omega]

The pair of you make every thread about yourselves. This is so familiar, and SR you used to poke at me when I fell for some hateful troll and couldn't stop myself responding to him.

Consider yourself poked. You're smarter than this, in every way.

 

[sr71plt]

The pair of you make every thread about yourselves. This is so familiar, and SR you used to poke at me when I fell for some hateful troll and couldn't stop myself responding to him.

Consider yourself poked. You're smarter than this, in every way.

Being poked can be fun.

 

[sr71plt]

The pair of you make every thread about yourselves.

Sort of like you and JBJ. It's part of the Internet mystique.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Sort of like you and JBJ. It's part of the Internet mystique.

Exactly, that's who I'm talking about. And you made fun of me for doing it, and I've pretty much stopped. Although I respond to him once in a rare while, I don't let myself hijack threads just because he's shown up on them.

But you will always remember that I did, and you'll always think that I still do, and you are building yourself a reputation for not being able to control yourself when someone even stupider than jbj says even stupider things about you.

Being poked can be a recreational event at times

 

[sr71plt]

Exactly, that's who I'm talking about. And you made fun of me for doing it, and I've pretty much stopped. Although I respond to him once in a rare while, I don't let myself hijack threads just because he's shown up on them.

But you will always remember that I did, and you'll always think that I still do, and you are building yourself a reputation for not being able to control yourself when someone even stupider than jbj says even stupider things about you.

Being poked can be a recreational event at times

And now you make fun of me for deciding to do it now and again. As I said, it's all part of the Internet mystique.

I think, considering how many are in on the false "knowitall" attack campaign, I manage my cool pretty well. I went after estragon for promoting it the other day, but that was because I thought better of estragon than I do of some of these other snivelers.

 

[PennLady]

Here's a quiz at The Guardian to see if you can determine the sex of the author. I went 6/10 but really I was just guessing.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Who was it that decided that VJ Naipaul was the greatest writer of his generation, besides VJ, of course? And on what criteria?


Clement Greenberg declared Jackson Pollack the greatest living American painter. Because he put the words in print, people accepted them as true but I ask you, does the fact that he got published make him an authority to be believed?

 

[TE999]

Who was it that decided that VJ Naipaul was the greatest writer of his generation, besides VJ, of course?

I was wondering that myself...I never heard of the dude. I've read Jane Austen though...she's droll to say the least.

 

[sr71plt]

I'll have to say I've never read a review of one of his books that made me want to run out and buy one.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I've read his name. But not being a literary cove I haven't bothered to delve deeply into his oeuvre. From what I recall, he's mostly known as a curmudgeon.

 

[TE999]

I checked out his oeuvre on Wiki and it sounds like a bunch of crap stories about Brit Colonialism and some non-fiction travel guides. Bor-ing.

This is the kind of 'littachoor' the self anointed 'intellectual elite' deem worthy of their attention and they lavish praise on it. I'll bet one in ten have actually read it.

 

[ishtat]

Here's a quiz at The Guardian to see if you can determine the sex of the author. I went 6/10 but really I was just guessing.

I did the test twice and scored 50% both times. On such a small sample, 10 that is not significantly different to your result, but I bet I can do that every time I take the test.