Literary lions in winter

Literary lions in winter

Paul Theroux and VS Naipul publicly reconcile in India after one of the most dramatic literary feuds of recent decades.

'Take it on the chin and move on," Nobel Laureate VS Naipaul curtly told writer and friend Paul Theroux when the latter confronted him for ignoring his letters, bringing their three decades of friendship to an end 19 years ago.

Lady Naipaul wipes a tear from the eye of her husband, overcome by emotion as longtime friend and sometime adversary Paul Theroux looks on at the Jaipur literary festival.

But on the stage at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2015, it was the ageing Naipaul in a wheelchair who forgave his former protégé — and reconciled with him publicly for the first time.

Naipaul had taken it on the chin, and been administered far worse body blows by Theroux, in the latter's intimate account of their friendship and its unravelling in a searing memoir, Sir Vidia's Shadow.

But then Theroux had only been listening to his literary mentor, who once wrote to him: "You must give me the pleasure of seeing what I look like. It would be like hearing one's voice, seeing oneself walk down the street. You must feel free."

Theroux felt free and then some, portraying Naipaul as a freeloading, children-hating man with an inflated ego and a contempt for just about everyone and everything. A subsequent biography of Naipaul — authorised by the great man himself and released in 2008 — was even less flattering.

"Vidia was the neediest person I have ever known. He fretted incessantly, couldn't cook, never cleaned, wouldn't drive, demanded help, had to be the centre of attention," Theroux wrote in Sir Vidia's Shadow.

The unkindest cut was Theroux using poetic licence to suggest that a little girl Naipaul once dismissed in East Africa by saying "What a horrible child", had grown up to become Nadira, Naipaul's wife.

The final straw for Theroux was the decision by Lady Naipaul to put up for auction a signed first edition of a Theroux book that the American writer had given his old friend.

Not long afterward, Sir Vidia's Shadow emerged and became a sensation. The men had no contact for 15 years. Their paths finally crossed in 2011 at the Haye-on-Wye festival in Wales, a major event on the British literary calendar. They shook hands after a "gentle intervention" by fellow writer Ian McEwan.

Lady Naipaul told The Independent at the time: "Paul approached him and said he missed him. It was very gracious and wonderful of him. So that is the end to the literary feud"

But that reconciliation was witnessed only by a handful of literary hangers-on and journalists. Their first public rendezvous happened amid the carnival-like atmosphere of the Jaipur Literature Festival — the biggest in Asia and sometimes marked by one defining incident or the other, none of them having anything to do with literature.

The 2012 festival was overshadowed by the virulent protests against the festival organisers' invitation to Salman Rushdie to speak. Rushdie never came but as a mark of solidarity, four writers read passages from his controversial book The Satanic Verses, which continued to outrage many Muslims 25 years after its publication. Soon afterward they fled Jaipur, fearing arrest.

In 2013, it was Indian sociologist Ashis Nandi's off-the-cuff remark that low-castes in India are the most corrupt, that had politicians and social workers baying for his blood. Nandi was eventually dragged to court.

Paul Theroux joins the audience at a tribute to VS Naipaul at the Jaipur Literature Festival.

And the endearing image of the 2015 festival will be the public coming together of friends-turned-foes after Theroux sang paeans to Naipaul's seminal 1961 book, A House for Mr Biswas, calling it, "the most complete novel I have ever read since Dickens".

Naipaul was wheeled to the stage and received a standing ovation, after which he shook Theroux's hand.

An overwhelmed Naipaul who — Theroux once wrote that he "cries too easily" — took the microphone but after mustering a "thank you" was overtaken completely by emotion and tears. Lady Naipaul, quick to the rescue, said, "I think my husband is overwhelmed with your reception and the wonderful things said about his book".

Lady Naipaul was seen on more than one occasion, dabbing the 82-year-old writer's eyes with a handkerchief with Theroux looking on.

Even after decades of association, the falling out and the reconciliation, Theroux — pushing 73 himself and with dozens of books of fiction and non-fiction behind him — still seemed to be in Naipaul's shadow. Theroux, who had come with his son Marcel Theroux — also a writer — and his Chinese wife, was seen accompanying Naipaul everywhere and proudly posing with him for photographs.

Theroux said that he was also writing a book on the American South, again following in the footsteps of Naipaul, who wrote A Turn in the South in 1989 about his travels through states where relations between the races were still shaped by the ghosts of the Civil War that ended more than a century earlier.

"My book in progress is on the American South," he said, revealing little except that he was fascinated that many of the motels in the southern United States were owned by members of the Patel clan of India.

Theroux also quoted Naipaul when asked for an essential writing tip: "Truth is prophetic. Tell the truth. You may see it as awkward but write it down."

It was ironic that Jaipur provided the backdrop to their public coming together — and Hay-on-Wye the site for their private reconciliation — as both men have publicly declared their disapproval of all literary festivals. Naipaul hated them and once told Theroux: "The writer should never precede the work. The writer should remain invisible."Theroux went further and called literary events "dog shows".

Theroux once wrote about a literary festival in Europe, but he could well be describing the Jaipur Literature Festival: "Books were the things but there were no books in sight, only goggling faces in the sold-out tents and the sense of scrutiny, all those faces like lightbulbs."

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