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Sir Vidia's Shadow: A Friendship Across Five Continents
 
 
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Sir Vidia's Shadow: A Friendship Across Five Continents (Paperback)

~ (Author) "IT IS A GOOD THING that time is a light, because so much of life is mumbling shadows and the future is just silence and..." (more)
Key Phrases: air letter, bush hat, New York, Lady Antonia, United States (more...)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
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Product Description

This heartfelt and revealing account of Paul Theroux's thirty-year friendship with the legendary V. S. Naipaul is an intimate record of a literary mentorship that traces the growth of both writers' careers and explores the unique effect each had on the other. Built around exotic landscapes, anecdotes that are revealing, humorous, and melancholy, and three decades of mutual history, this is a personal account of how one develops as a writer and how a friendship waxes and wanes between two men who have set themselves on the perilous journey of a writing life.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Mariner Books; 1st Mariner Books Ed edition (January 8, 2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0618001999
  • ISBN-13: 978-0618001996
  • Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 13.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #173,144 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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IT IS A GOOD THING that time is a light, because so much of life is mumbling shadows and the future is just silence and darkness. Read the first page
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air letter, bush hat
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New York, Lady Antonia, United States, Kaptagat Arms, Staff Club, The Writer's Writer, Free State, Dairy Cottage, Hugh Fraser, Pat Naipaul, New Zealand, Hugh Thomas, Lady Naipaul, The Forge, Wilsford Manor, Gloucester Road, Miguel Street, The Enigma of Arrival, The Mystic Masseur, West Indian, Derek Walcott, Haji Hallsmith, Henry James, Port of Spain, Ramsay Muir
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73 Reviews
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars An exhilirating, bumpy ride, December 4, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Sir Vidia's Shadow: A Friendship Across Five Continents (Hardcover)
Sir Vidia's Shadow contains all the queasy excitement of Theroux's trademark train trips, but this time we're clattering along with him over 30 years of friendship with VS Naipaul -- and bumpy ones at that. We get several books here: first, the Theroux travel book. Readers who complain of Theroux's crankiness will find his loving descriptions of Uganda (where "even the crops were pretty") refreshing. Second, we get a minutely detailed book about the writing life. There is Naipaul the perfectionist demanding an explanation for each word in an early Theroux essay, weeding out every piece of obfuscating extra baggage. My favorite anecdote concerns the memorable first sentence of Naipaul's Bend in the River ; anyone who has savoured this quintessential Naipaulism will be enlightened on the subject of tedious re-drafting and the editor's role in all good writing. Then there is the book about Naipaul himself: I can't imagine that anyone who's read and enjoyed Naipaul will be too offended -- or even much surprised -- by Theroux's portrait. The neurotic obsession with food and hygiene, the fear of "the bush", the ever-deepening melancholy and misanthropy, the overcompensations and fears of a "barefoot colonial" -- Naipaul himself has given us all this in his novels and travelogues. Theroux reveals this side, but also unexpected glimpses of Naipaul's kindness (especially as mentor to PT), self-doubt, childish good humor (Naipaul singing calypsos!) and even physical bravery (Naipaul fending off wild dogs in Kampala). It would be easy to turn Naipaul into a "character" (Naipaul loathes "characters"), and Theroux never stoops to this. I certainly think no less of Naipaul as a writer, and now understand his writing and motivations more clearly. There are certainly other Naipaul's -- we all reinvent ourselves for different people -- but here we get Theroux's Naipaul, and it is a fascinating, albeit troublesome portrait. Finally, we get a book which takes us through the entire course of a friendship. Theroux ends the book in shrill and often unfair condemnation of Naipaul (one cannot easily dismiss the writer who gave us Mr Biswas or Bend in the River), but such is the aftermath of many meaningful friendships which die. At one point, Theroux advises Naipaul to return to a land he visited and write with a perspective freshened by time. In the same way, perhaps we will get another look at Naipaul from Theroux's perspective after the wound has set. In any case, SVS is far more substantial than the literary cat-fight which we might have expected from the early press releases.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars "I had admired his talent. After a while, I admired nothing else [about him]. Finally, I began to wonder about his talent.", August 16, 2008
This review is from: Sir Vidia's Shadow: a Friendship Across Five Continents (Paperback)
What began as a mentoring relationship between established novelist V. S. Naipaul and Paul Theroux, a young writer working on his first novel, went on to endure as a "friendship" for thirty years as both writers traveled the world but remained in touch. They met when Theroux was a young ex-Peace Corp worker teaching in Uganda at the university in Makerere in 1966, and Naipaul, nine years his senior, became "writer-in-residence" there, though Naipaul hated teaching and mocked the writing of his students and the Makerere faculty. He did, however, recognize Theroux's talent, and he did help and encourage him to get his novel published. Theroux, in turn, was an astute reader of Naipaul's work, and both benefited from the relationship, at least at first.

From 1967 - 1977, Theroux published ten successful novels and short story collections, all of which Theroux describes in this book, and all were praised, at least privately, by Naipaul. Somewhat less attention is paid here to the almost equal number of works published by Naipaul, some of which Theroux read and helped proofread. A crusty, critical, and often cruel man, full of contradictions, Naipaul was a difficult "friend," and when he decided that he did not like someone, there was no turning back, no forgiveness for human failings. Theroux managed to navigate that minefield of hostility for thirty years.

In fact, shortly before the first of Naipaul's novels was published in the United States, Theroux (in 1972) wrote an introductory biography and critical assessment of Naipaul's work, full of praise for Naipaul, and helped to create an audience for Naipaul's work in the United States. After this somewhat effusive work was published, however, Theroux refused further interviews or commentary about Naipaul, insisting that "I will never [again] write about Naipaul. He is my friend." That declaration is belied by the publication of this book, the last twenty-percent of which is an uninterrupted excoriation of Naipaul and his second wife at the end of the friendship with Theroux. Here Theroux shows that he is at least as unforgiving as Naipaul, with a mean streak of his own.

In time Theroux would become a literary star with over forty novels and books of non-fiction. Naipaul, a painstaking, often philosophical writer, eventually won the Nobel Prize in 2001, and was knighted. Though this book is fascinating for its picture of the mentoring process and of a friendship which managed to survive despite the pettiness and frequent mean-spiritedness of Naipaul, it is also a portrait of Theroux, who published this book as his own enduring form of payback. n Mary Whipple

In a Free State: A Novel With Two Supporting Narratives, Naipaul's Booker Prize winner
A House for Mr. Biswas, one of Naipaul's most popular works
Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown, recent Theroux travelogue
The Great Railway Bazaar
The Mosquito Coast, one of Theroux's most popular novels.


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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Catty memoir gives rare insight to the secretive Naipaul., April 16, 1999
By spence1cd@aol.com (Ann Arbor, Michigan) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Sir Vidia's Shadow: A Friendship Across Five Continents (Hardcover)
Forget all the media feeding frenzy over the "betrayal" accusations of Theroux's book about his former mentor and friend. If you're fascinated by Naipaul the writer, and want to know who the man is, this is the book. I have read everything Naipaul's ever written (except, ironically, Theroux's early book about Naipaul's work, cause it can't be found anywhere). He is simply an extraordinary novelist, certainly a candidate for the Nobel Prize (were it not for the politcally correct, who command it, and would be pulverized by those who see Naipaul's frankness as having "racialist" overtones). In the book he is quirky, opinionated, nasty, angry, volcanic, weird, tormented, fearful--all the contradictory qualities found in any artist. And of course artists are seen as strange--particularly in a world of conformists. It is a terrific read if you have followed the writing careers of both men. Of course, Theroux is bitchy and hypocritical and repetitive in the hurts he's suffered, but he also makes it clear that he would perhaps not exist as a writer of some 40 books had it not been for Naipaul's support. If you're not a Naipaul follower, this book won't be of much interest..
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars "I had admired his talent. After a while, I admired nothing else [about him]. Finally, I began to wonder about his talent."
What began as a mentoring relationship between established novelist V. S. Naipaul and Paul Theroux, a young writer working on his first novel, went on to endure as a "friendship"... Read more
Published on May 6, 2007 by Mary Whipple

5.0 out of 5 stars Theroux's biography
This book is supposed to be about the airing of dirty laundry. Instead it tells you much about the personality and expectations of a young Paul Theroux. Read more
Published on February 14, 2007 by M. S. Pinkston

4.0 out of 5 stars Theroux critiques Nobel Naipaul
This was a catty but readable account of Paul Theroux's relationship with his onetime friend and mentor the Nobel Prize winning writer VS Naipaul. Read more
Published on September 8, 2006 by Edward J. Cunion Jr.

5.0 out of 5 stars Writing Lives
I haven't read anything by V.S. Naipaul but I've read nearly every book by Paul Theroux (all but three). Read more
Published on April 30, 2006 by The JuRK

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating personal memoir
In many ways, this is Theroux's best book (at least of those I have read), because it is his most personal. Read more
Published on September 18, 2005 by William J. Fickling

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, but recommended with some reservations
I have never been a Naipaul fan. While he is unarguably one of the finest 20th century writers in the English language, his books nonetheless have always left me cold. Read more
Published on May 5, 2005 by chefdevergue

5.0 out of 5 stars Unofficial Biography
This may be the most interesting book that Theroux has ever written because he delves deeply into what makes Naipaul tick. Read more
Published on May 25, 2004 by E. Clinton

5.0 out of 5 stars Good for Several Rereadings
An opinionated writer is often a pleasure to read. A diplomat is always a bore. SIR VIDIA'S SHADOW contains two writers, fully opinionated, and no diplomats. Read more
Published on December 2, 2003 by Timothy Ritter

5.0 out of 5 stars A bit more of the Theroux biography
Regular readers of Paul Theroux, who have found sketchy details of his life in his travelougues, will find "Sir Vidia's Shadow" to be of some help in further... Read more
Published on October 16, 2003 by Michael J Edelman

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and unusual and wonderful reading
I ordered this book from Amazon a few weeks ago after reading "Half a Life" by V.S. Naipaul. I had read many of Theroux's books - mostly travel and one novel. Read more
Published on July 13, 2003 by Starbucks Fan

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