Bibliofile

French Connection

V.S. Naipaulï's unofficially official biography —it has the blessings not only of Sir Vidia, but more important, of his wife as well—is almost ready and should be out later this year. Will his biographer, Patrick French, take the advice that Naipaul so solicitously offered another, younger acolyte? "You must give me the pleasure of seeing what I look like," he once famously told his then friend Paul Theroux. Of course, Theroux did not dare take up the challenge until Naipaul inexplicably cut him dead one fine Sunday afternoon on a London road. Last heard, French was still on good terms with the Naipauls.

A New Naipaul
After all those dark premonitions last year about having come to the end of his writing life, Naipaul will be coming out with a new book this September.A Writerï's People: Ways of Seeing and Feeling is an extended essay of 250 pages, talking of the books, people and places that have influenced him. He's an author more famous for belittling other writers, especially living ones (Rushdie: "he wanted to be terribly famous and he got his wish"; John Updike: "golden sentences"; Wole Soyinka, ChinuaAchebe "mimicry...you can't beat a novel out of a drum"). So this is one book that will be read with much interest, at least by rival writers.

Read Ability
"Am I the only one who found him unreadable?" the irrepressibly honest Khushwant Singh asked each of his guests soon after Sham Lalï's death. No one, of course, was willing to agree with him. His next question: "Can you remember anything he wrote?" The answer: a resounding silence.