When I learnt to write I became my own master, I became very strong, and that strength is with me to this very day.
V. S. NaipaulRead
Each book, intuitively sensed and, in the case of fiction, intuitively worked out, stands on what has gone before, and grows out of it. I feel that at any stage of my literary career it could have been said that the last book contained all the others.
Interpretation
Each book builds on previous works and contributes to the literary landscape.
V. S. Naipaul reflects on the interconnectedness of literature, suggesting that every book is influenced by its predecessors and, at the same time, adds to the continuum of literary creation. He emphasizes that a writer's current work encapsulates the essence of all their previous works, portraying the idea that literature is a dialogue across time and authors.
In practice
In a literary workshop, discussing the evolution of writing styles.
When I learnt to write I became my own master, I became very strong, and that strength is with me to this very day.
It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That's where the mischief starts. That's where everything starts unravelling.
If you decide to move to another country and to live within its laws you don't express your disregard for the essence of the culture. It's a form of aggression.
One must always try to see the truth of a situation - it makes things universal.
His ignorance seemed to widen with everything he read.
I think when you see so many Hindu temples of the 10th century or earlier disfigured, defaced, you realise that something terrible happened. I feel the civilisation of that closed world was mortally wounded by those invasions the old world is destroyed. That has to be understood. Ancient Hindu India was destroyed.
It's really irritating when you open a book, and 10 pages into it you know that the hero you met on page one or two is gonna come through unscathed, because he's the hero. This is completely unreal, and I don't like it.
I've read everything Thomas Wolfe ever wrote; my brother and I memorized whole chapters of 'You Can't Go Home Again' and 'Look Homeward, Angel.'
However much, as readers, we lose ourselves in a novel or story, fiction itself is an experience on the order of memory -not on the order of actual occurrence.
All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.
I'm not sure that it's possible to write a novel about people who don't transgress or stumble, people who don't surprise themselves with the things they do, people who can explain all their actions with perfect logical consistency. At least it's not possible for me to write that sort of novel.
I loathe people who say, 'I always read the ending of the book first.' That really irritates me, It's like someone coming to dinner, just opening the fridge and eating pudding, while you're standing there still working on the starter. It's not on.
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