Items related to Letters Between a Father and Son
In 1950, V. S. Naipaul travelled from Trinidad to England to take up a place at Oxford University. Over the next few years, letters passed back and forth between Naipaul and his family – particularly his beloved father Seepersad, but also his mother and siblings. The result is a fascinating chronicle of Naipaul’s time at university; the love of writing that he shared with his father and their mutual nurturing of literary ambition; the triumphs and depressions of Oxford life; and the travails of his family back at home.
This engrossing collection continues into the early years of V. S. Naipaul’s literary career, touching time and again on the craft of writing, and revealing the relationships and experiences that formed and influenced one of the greatest and most enigmatic literary figures of our age.
‘Rare and precious . . . if any modern writer was going to breathe a last gasp into the epistolary tradition, it was always likely to be V. S. Naipaul’ New Statesman
‘Remarkable’ Literary Review
‘A very moving book’ James Wood, London Review of Books
‘A fascinating psychological narrative’ The Times
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
Writing to his eldest son Vidia in Oxford in 1950, Seepersad Naipaul observed: "Your letters are charming in their spontaneity. If you could write me letters about things and people--especially people--at Oxford, I could compile them in a book: Letters Between a Father and Son or My Oxford Letters. Nearly fifty years later, the father's desire has been fulfilled by the son with the publication of VS Naipaul's Letters Between a Father and Son. The collection covers the period between Naipaul's departure from his native Trinidad in 1950 to study at Oxford, to the untimely death of his father in 1953 at the age of 47. Alongside the letters between father and son are those between Naipaul and his older sister, Kamla, a student at the Benares Hindu University in India, who is advised by her 17-year-old brother to watch your personal effects carefully; the Indians are a thieving lot.
Review:
At the heart of the book lies Naipaul's undergraduate life at Oxford and his father's deeply moving support for his son, as he strives to maintain his own writing career whilst he watches his son's own literary talent flower. The minutiae of Naipaul's college life offers a fascinating account of the genesis of the querulous, fussy and patrician Naipaul. Letters are full of stories of Naipaul's endless rounds of tea parties, writing for the Oxford journal Isis, flirting with European women and endless requests for cigarettes from home. But the most revealing and moving dimension of the collection is the love and friendship between father and son. Seepersad both vents his own literary frustrations upon his son, whilst at the same time assuring Naipaul of his own unconditional support: "I feel so darned cocksure that I can produce a novel within six months--if only I had nothing else to do. This is impossible. But I want to give you this chance." Seepersad's sudden death is very affecting, as is Naipaul's telegraphed response home: "Everything I owe to him." This is a deeply revealing collection of one of the most enigmatic writers of the post-war period, which offers an absorbing insight into Naipaul's early fiction, particularly The Mystic Masseur and Miguel Street. --JerryBrotton
'...both heartening & terribly sad' -- Sunday Telegraph
'Consistently articulate, interesting, moving, & in many places, powerful. The book as a whole is invaluable' -- TLS
'It comes as something of a surprise to discover a relationship that reveals real love, born of a shared ambition' -- Financial Times
* 'What emerges is the heroism of selfbelief, despite the attrition of circumstances' -- INDEPENDENT
'Consistently articulate, interesting, moving, & in many places, powerful. The book as a whole is invaluable' -- TLS
'It comes as something of a surprise to discover a relationship that reveals real love, born of a shared ambition' -- Financial Times
* 'What emerges is the heroism of selfbelief, despite the attrition of circumstances' -- INDEPENDENT
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherLittle , Brown and Company
- Publication date1999
- ISBN 10 0356215172
- ISBN 13 9780356215174
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
(No Available Copies)
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