No woman writer is equal to me: Naipaul

From Prasun Sonwalkar
London, Jun 2 (PTI) After ending the famous 15-year
feud with American writer Paul Theroux at the Hay Festival
this week, Nobel laureate and Indian-origin author V S
Naipaul, has sparked off another row by claiming that there
has been no woman writer whom he considers his equal.
Often described as the 'greatest living writer of
English prose', Naipaul made the comments at the Royal
Geographic Society on Wednesday, prompting angry responses
from literary critics, writers and readers.
Not even the celebrated novelist Jane Austen came
close to being equal to him, according to Naipaul.
The Writers Guild of Great Britain said it did not
want to "waste its breath" on Naipaul's comments.
Asked if he considered any woman writer his literary
match, he replied: "I don't think so."
On Austen, he said that he "couldn't possibly share
her sentimental ambitions, her sentimental sense of the
world".
He felt that women writers were "quite different", and
added: "I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or
two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think [it is]
unequal to me."
Naipaul said this was because of women's
"sentimentality, the narrow view of the world". "And
inevitably for a woman, she is not a complete master of a
house, so that comes over in her writing too," he said.

He did not name his literary editor and now writer
Diana Athill, who edited some of Naipaul's books published by
Andre Deutsch, but said: "My publisher, who was so good as a
taster and editor, when she became a writer, lo and behold, it
was all this feminine tosh. I don't mean this in any unkind
way."
Helen Brown, literary critic for The Daily Telegraph,
said: "It certainly would be difficult to find a woman writer
whose ego was equal to that of Naipaul. I'm sure his arrogant,
attention-seeking views make many male writers cringe too."
She added: "He should heed the words of George Eliot –
a female writer – whose works have had a far more profound
impact on world culture than his.
She wrote: "Blessed is the man, who having nothing to
say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact."
Alex Clark, a literary journalist, said: "It's absurd.
I suspect VS Naipaul thinks that there isn't anyone who is his
equal. Is he really saying that writers such as Hilary Mantel,
A S Byatt, Iris Murdoch are sentimental or write feminine
tosh?"
Responding to Naipaul's remarks, some readers wrote in
online remarks that they agreed with his authorised
biographer, Patrick French, who had described the Nobel
laureate as bigoted, arrogant, vicious, racist, a
woman-beating misogynist and a sado-masochist.