Read Online A Writer's People by V. S. Naipaul - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: V. S. Naipaul
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these books that as writer I was on my own. There is another memory from 1955, near the end of the year. It occurred to me, justbefore I took in the novel that Deutsch had asked for, that I should check the way of a master with dialogue. I bought a copy of
The Painted Veil
from a W. H. Smith news-stand, read some pages standing up, and soon came to the conclusion that Maugham was not a writer I could go to for instruction. Not because Maugham was bad. My material was too far away from his; it was my own; I had to adhere to it and do the best I could with it, in my own way. (And, at the risk of getting too far ahead of myself, what a relief it was when this process of learning began to be accompanied by an ability to discard, what a relief it was to feel that I need never read another letter of sweet nothings from Henry James again.)
The other side of this, being on my own, was that it meant I was trying to make my way as a writer in a place which really had no room for me, which had its own ideas of what writing was, and where, contrary to what I had thought since concrete ambition had come to me, there was no republic of letters.
It made Tony Powellâs friendship all the more remarkable.
I HAD THOUGHT OF HIM as immeasurably secure. But in 1957 he was having a hard time. His reputation was high, but his books sold only seven thousand copies. They didnât give him a living. He had to have a job. That was why he worked as literary editor for
Punch
, and that was a job full of humiliation for him.
Punch
had few literary pages, perhaps only two, and the editor, Bernard Hollowood, a banal cartoonist, often said he could do the literary pages himself. Tony said that someone in the office split Hollowoodâs name when he spoke it andmade it Hollow Wood. It is a story that tells a lot about the unhappiness of the
Punch
office.
Yet it was through Tony that at this time, 1957â58, I became a reviewer for the
New Statesman
. The
New Statesman
was by far the best weekly in England then. Its front pages were political and socialist and Labour. The arts pages, at the back, of high quality, could be anything politically. People liked the strange mixture. The
New Statesman
sold eighty thousand copies, a prodigious number for a weekly of that sort. To appear in its pages was to have a kind of reputation. Everything printed there went around the English-speaking world. When I went to India in 1962 many people, sometimes even sleeping-car attendants, were kind to me because I wrote for the
New Statesman
(the magazine was known to be a friend of India); and Satyajit Ray, the great film director, wanted to talk to me about the
Statesman
film critic.
It wasnât plain sailing, though, becoming a reviewer for the
New Statesman
. The first book I was sent, for a trial review (I think for a Shorter Notice), was
A Book of Anecdotes
, compiled by a much-loved bookman, Daniel George. It was really a book of jokes, and I didnât know what I could say about such a book. If I had to do three or four hundred words about a book like that today I would take a shortcut. I would pick out two or three of the more amusing items, write about them, and try to find something more general to say (I am not sure what) about anecdotes. I read all of the Daniel George book; what might have been pleasure became torment. Then I wrote the same little piece again and again over a couple of days. My head began to hurt. And then, because I had nothing to say, Ithought I should criticise Daniel George. I did so in a heavy, undergraduate way. Finally I took what I had written to Great Turnstile and dropped it off at the
Statesman
office. Not long after, I met someone I knew from the
Sunday Express
. I asked him about Daniel George. He said George was a sweet and generous man. I began to worry that my awful little piece might be printed. I dreaded looking at the
Statesman
for the next few weeks. There was no sign of the Daniel George piece. I was
The Painted Veil
from a W. H. Smith news-stand, read some pages standing up, and soon came to the conclusion that Maugham was not a writer I could go to for instruction. Not because Maugham was bad. My material was too far away from his; it was my own; I had to adhere to it and do the best I could with it, in my own way. (And, at the risk of getting too far ahead of myself, what a relief it was when this process of learning began to be accompanied by an ability to discard, what a relief it was to feel that I need never read another letter of sweet nothings from Henry James again.)
The other side of this, being on my own, was that it meant I was trying to make my way as a writer in a place which really had no room for me, which had its own ideas of what writing was, and where, contrary to what I had thought since concrete ambition had come to me, there was no republic of letters.
It made Tony Powellâs friendship all the more remarkable.
I HAD THOUGHT OF HIM as immeasurably secure. But in 1957 he was having a hard time. His reputation was high, but his books sold only seven thousand copies. They didnât give him a living. He had to have a job. That was why he worked as literary editor for
Punch
, and that was a job full of humiliation for him.
Punch
had few literary pages, perhaps only two, and the editor, Bernard Hollowood, a banal cartoonist, often said he could do the literary pages himself. Tony said that someone in the office split Hollowoodâs name when he spoke it andmade it Hollow Wood. It is a story that tells a lot about the unhappiness of the
Punch
office.
Yet it was through Tony that at this time, 1957â58, I became a reviewer for the
New Statesman
. The
New Statesman
was by far the best weekly in England then. Its front pages were political and socialist and Labour. The arts pages, at the back, of high quality, could be anything politically. People liked the strange mixture. The
New Statesman
sold eighty thousand copies, a prodigious number for a weekly of that sort. To appear in its pages was to have a kind of reputation. Everything printed there went around the English-speaking world. When I went to India in 1962 many people, sometimes even sleeping-car attendants, were kind to me because I wrote for the
New Statesman
(the magazine was known to be a friend of India); and Satyajit Ray, the great film director, wanted to talk to me about the
Statesman
film critic.
It wasnât plain sailing, though, becoming a reviewer for the
New Statesman
. The first book I was sent, for a trial review (I think for a Shorter Notice), was
A Book of Anecdotes
, compiled by a much-loved bookman, Daniel George. It was really a book of jokes, and I didnât know what I could say about such a book. If I had to do three or four hundred words about a book like that today I would take a shortcut. I would pick out two or three of the more amusing items, write about them, and try to find something more general to say (I am not sure what) about anecdotes. I read all of the Daniel George book; what might have been pleasure became torment. Then I wrote the same little piece again and again over a couple of days. My head began to hurt. And then, because I had nothing to say, Ithought I should criticise Daniel George. I did so in a heavy, undergraduate way. Finally I took what I had written to Great Turnstile and dropped it off at the
Statesman
office. Not long after, I met someone I knew from the
Sunday Express
. I asked him about Daniel George. He said George was a sweet and generous man. I began to worry that my awful little piece might be printed. I dreaded looking at the
Statesman
for the next few weeks. There was no sign of the Daniel George piece. I was
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