Antilles: the weblog of the CRB

"As if hooked by unseen fishermen"

How can we let a day go by here at Antilles without posting a Naipaul link? Here's another review of A Writer's People, this time by Nicholas Shakespeare in the Telegraph:

In 1970, the New Zealand artist Colin McCahon wrote to a friend: "I have the awful problem now of being a better person before I can paint better."

When one wonders at his achievement (to borrow his phrase), it is tempting to ask this question of V.S. Naipaul.

Would he be a better writer if he were, so to speak, an even better person?

This book’s cover photograph shows a mouth downturned at the corners, as if hooked by unseen fishermen.