Paul Theroux first met V. S. Naipaul in Kampala, Uganda in the mid sixties (about the same time I began to appreciate his work) and determined to introduce his works to America before most people realized that this West Indian rival to the Western literary canon was emerging. Although Theroux records Naipaul's repeated admonition, "man must never precede the work!" they managed to sustain a friendship while the two of them pursued their careers across the continents of Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America.
Theroux's title, Sir Vidia's Shadow is as ambivalent as his feeling for his subject. As Boswell to Naipaul's Johnson, Theroux "shadows" or follows the older author in order to glean as much as he can for his own life as a writer of fiction, journalism, and travel literature. The acolyte credits his mentor for many valuable insights, both positive and negative. Naipaul presciently encouraged Theroux even before he was sure he had the talent to become an author; additionally, Theroux cites "the example of his candor" as Naipaul's "greatest lesson" (15). At the same time, Theroux records a litany of foibles that he does not care to emulate. More negatively, the "shadow" of the title is also indicative of the subordination of the younger writer to the elder. Although Theroux is responsible for his own success and even points out examples of his contribution to Naipaul's work: In a Free State was inspired by Theroux's African Fiction and he proposed the more effective beginning of A Bend in the River. Theroux concludes his biography by asserting his liberation from Naipaul's influence. At their final encounter, Theroux suffers from Naipaul's mantra that a single disappointment is sufficient to terminate any bond. When they accidentally meet on a London street after an inexplicable breach has occurred, Naipaul walks away refusing any reconciliation with Theroux:
I was dazed, because I was liberated at last. I saw how the end of a friendship was the start of an understanding. He had made me his by choosing me; his rejection of me meant I was on my own, out of his shadow. He had freed me, he had opened my eyes, he had given me my subject. (358)
Of course, as a gifted writer, Theroux is in a position to build up to his conclusion from the beginning.
Consequently, the reader of Sir Vidia's Shadow gets two for the price of one, informative autobiography of Theroux as well as a biography of Naipaul. In fact, Theroux's first chapter is a fictional account of a neophyte writer in Uganda who is drafted to guide a visiting older novelist around the country. Chapter Two dismisses the ruse and initiates the first person narrative. One of Theroux's continuous problems is recording Naipaul's inescapable fastidiousness without premature exposure of his ultimate disillusionment. Page after page, Theroux records Naipaul's confidences, advice, and assistance only to contrast these beneficent gestures with his insensitivity, deliberate slights, and prejudicial slurs toward acquaintances and strangers alike. For thirty years, Theroux accepted the puzzling contradictions and eccentricities as the license of genius. In retrospect, he weighs Naipaul against the context of his West Indian origins:
Someone who builds a life on being pleasured by honors and flattery can only have known great rejection and insecurity and yearning to belong. But then, hadn't Vidia reminded me long ago that in order to understand him I had to know his past as 'a barefoot colonial'? (344)
Naipaul's detractors who often express admiration for his artistry while rejecting the man may well appreciate Theroux's mixed response and wonder at his forbearance. Much as I distrust biographical criticism, I suspect that I have been as reluctant as Theroux in identifying Naipaul with his narrative personae. Nevertheless, in reading The Enigma of Arrival, in 1987, I concluded that Naipaul is unusually daring in exposing his own psychoses. Theroux makes it clear that Naipaul is opinionated, confidently perverse in his political incorrectness. What is more remarkable than Naipaul's unfavorable reflections on the mimicry and inauthenticity of emerging societies and virtually anyone he disapproves of is the fact that he inscribes his fictional characters as well as his journalistic persona with his own foibles and weaknesses.
Whether such undiluted candor is a deliberate device or not, it reinforces Naipaul's relentless depiction of intercultural dysfunction by making himself the primary exhibit of colonialism's anomalous personal effects. The survival strategies developed by the disenfranchised natives of the Third World are as integral to Naipaul's achievements as his Westernized education. Paul Theroux's Sir Vidia's Shadow is an engaging portrait of a troubled but valuable friendship between two highly skilled authors. Theroux does Naipaul justice by preserving the insecurities, obsessions, and pressures of his unique genius.
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Copyright © by Robert D. Hamner