Between Father and Son: Family Letters (平装) 375707263

V. S. Naipaul is perhaps the most famous émigré writer since Vladimir Nabokov, and though he always spoke and wrote English, his self-imposed exile to England from his native Trinidad represented a cultural shift as profound as learning to think in another language. In this moving, novel-like correspondence, we witness the great writer’s early transformation from an expatriate adrift to a world-renowned man of letters. The letters collected here illuminate with unalloyed candor the relationship between a sacrificing father and his determined son as they encourage each other to persevere with their writing. For though his father’s literary aspirations would go unrealized, Naipaul’s triumphant career would ultimately vindicate his beloved mentor’s legacy. .com Review Writing to his eldest son, Vidia, at Oxford in 1950, Seepersad Naipaul observed: "Your letters are charming in their spontaneity. If you could write me letters about things and people--especially people--at Oxford, I could compile them in a book." Nearly 50 years later, the father's desire has been fulfilled by his son with the publication of V.S. Naipaul's Letters Between a Father and Son. The collection covers the period between Naipaul's departure from his native Trinidad in 1950 to study at Oxford to the untimely death of his father in 1953 at the age of 47. Alongside the letters between father and son are those between Naipaul and his older sister, Kamla, a student at the Benares Hindu University in India, who is advised by her then-17-year-old brother to "watch your personal effects carefully; the Indians are a thieving lot."

At the heart of the book lie Naipaul's undergraduate life at Oxford and his father's deeply moving support for his son as he strives to maintain his own writing career while Naipaul's literary talent flowers. The minutiae of Naipaul's college life offer a fascinating account of the genesis of the querulous, fussy, and patrician Naipaul of later years. The letters are full of stories of his endless rounds of tea parties, writing for the Oxford journal Isis, flirting with women, and endless requests for cigarettes from home. But the most revealing and moving dimension of the collection is the love and friendship between father and son. Seepersad vents his own literary frustrations upon his son while at the same time assuring Naipaul of his unconditional support: "I feel so darned cocksure that I can produce a novel within six months--if only I had nothing else to do. This is impossible. But I want to give you this chance." Seepersad's sudden death is very affecting, as is Naipaul's telegraphed response home: "Everything I owe to him." This is a deeply revealing collection of one of the most enigmatic writers of the postwar period, and it offers an absorbing insight into Naipaul's early fiction, particularly The Mystic Masseur and Miguel Street. --Jerry Brotton, .co.uk--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Publishers Weekly The origin of this book seems to be in a letter from Seepersad Naipaul to young Vido (or Vidia): "If you could write me letters about things and people--especially people--at Oxford, I could compile them in a book: Letters Between a Father and Son...." Although the correspondence (much of it with sister Kamla--in college in India--as third party) is presented as a portrait of the artist as a young man, it is not always a likable one, resonating with pathos more than prophecy of fame or literary accomplishment. The future novelist (A House for Mr. Biswas, etc.), a Trinidadian of Indian background on scholarship in England in 1950, has left behind a family of diminishing prospects and on the edge of penury. His father, a talented writer stuck in marginal local journalism, soon loses his job after a heart attack. His mother, to everyone's guarded embarrassment, becomes pregnant again. Vido is anguished about his family's condition (there are more young children at home), but knows that returning is suicidal to his ambitions. While he begins making it by selling short fiction to the BBC for overseas broadcast, the Naipauls deteriorate further with the death of Seepersad at 47, in 1953. In an epilogue, V.S. is tasting early success, far removed from the backwater of Trinidad. More memorable than the ambitious son, who is often consumed by anxiety, is the pragmatic father, who assures Vido that he will be "a great writer" and advises him to "beware of undue dissipation," but not to be "a puritan." A terse cable from Vido to his family on his father's death begins, "HE WAS THE BEST MAN I EVER KNEW.... " The family letters are Seepersad's memorial. (Jan.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Library Journal In 1949, at age 17, Naipaul left Trinidad for Oxford University. Here, Aitken has collected Naipaul's correspondences with his family from those years. The letters provide a lively account of Naipaul's evolution as a writer--"I am afraid I have become a writer," he declares at one point--but they also reveal him to be an eccentric, arrogant, and self-absorbed malcontent. He chastises his older sister and his parents for their faults, demands money from them, and boasts of his successes as a writer without mentioning or acknowledging family tragedies. In a postscript, Aitken also reprints a few later letters in which Naipaul celebrates the publication of his first novel and starts hinting at larger issues. "I don't see myself fitting into the Trinidad way of life," he writes. "I think I shall die if I had to spend the rest of my life in Trinidad." Still, only libraries needing a complete collection of Naipaul's writings will want to purchase this; otherwise, not recommended. ---Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Lancaster, OH Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Booklist In 1950, at the age of 17, famous-writer-in-the-making V. S. Naipaul ventured to Oxford University in England on a scholarship supplied by the government of his native Trinidad. He and his father maintained a rich, full correspondence during his time away, and these letters fortunately have been gathered into book form. Naipaul's father ("Pa") was himself a writer, and the sensibilities and sensitivities usually associated with the writerly type of personality do indeed emerge in his letters to his son ("Vido"). For his part, V. S. fills his letters to the brim with observations and meditations on home, family, and England: his considerations at the time, which were to contribute resonance and subtlety to his character and which also supplied grist for future fiction writing. At the end of his three-year Oxford tenure, Naipaul indicates he does not desire a return to Trinidad, but neither does continued residence in England appeal to him. The rest of the world awaited him. Revealing ancillary reading for fans of his novels.Brad Hooper--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Kirkus Reviews This spirited, humane collection of letters from Naipauls (Beyond Belief, 1998; etc.) second decade of life gathers the triangular exchanges between the young Oxford student, his father in Trinidad, and his sister, Kamla, in Indiaand records the initiations of family death and authorial triumph. After winning a government scholarship at age 17, NaipaulVidialeft his native Trinidad in 1950 for England. This volume begins on the eve of his departure, with letters to his sister, a vivid figure both passionate and appealingly erratic. The teenager consoles her loneliness as she attends school in India, and also fussily plans for his coming journey. Once in England, he begins the grind of school, composition, submission, and touring the country. Meanwhile, Kamla worries about her brothers filial piety and the wayward life of an Oxford undergraduate. His father, however, takes the developments in strideand for those interested in Naipauls apprenticeship as a writer, their implicit debate is engaging. Naipauls father, Seepersand, a newspaper writer who wrestled with fiction in his free time, is both partner and mentor in the imaginative enterprise. He relies on his son to see to the practical affairs of submitting his own work in England, and makes collegial observations about the life of the mind (as well as on the genesis of his own novel, The Adventures of Gurudeva). Vidia finally breaks through at the BBC, where many of his stories are broadcast, and with his halting attempts at a novel. In 1953, Seepersand dies after a history of heart disease, just three years too soon to see the final acceptance of Vidias first novel, The Mystic Masseur. In a wonderful departure from today I had for breakfast collections of letters, Naipaul not only offers intriguing insights into his passage toward artistry, but tells a bittersweet, genuinely rewarding tale. (First printing of 40,000)-- Copyright 2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Review ?For sheer abundance of talent there can hardly be a writer alive who surpasses V. S. Naipaul.? ?The New York Times Book Review -- Review Review “For sheer abundance of talent there can hardly be a writer alive who surpasses V. S. Naipaul.” –The New York Times Book Review

V. S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932. He went to England on a scholarship in 1950. After four years at University College, Oxford, he began to write, and since then has followed no other profession. He has published more than twenty books of fiction and nonfiction, including An Area of Darkness, In a Free State, Among the Believers, and India: A Million Mutinies Now. He lives in Wiltshire, England.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

出版社	Vintage Books USA
作者	V.S. Naipaul