Notes from a small island

Notes from a small island
A weblog by Jonathan Ali

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

VS Naipaul is in town, here for a week of celebrations in honour of his 75th birthday year.

Yesterday, ahead of the celebrations, Naipaul gave a press conference at the University of the West Indies campus at St. Augustine. Speaking of his life as a writer, he said: "I would do it all over again; I wouldn’t change a thing. It was my vocation."

And this is the headline in today's Guardian, the paper that Naipaul's father, Seepersad, wrote for: "Naipaul vows: Despite hardships, I’ll do it again".

He will do it again? At the age of 75? That's going to take some doing. Or perhaps they think he'll do it in his next life. What with Naipaul's cozying up to the religion of his birth in recent years, maybe they think he believes in reincarnation?

I wonder if Naipaul is reading the papers while he's here. I hope not.

posted by Jonathan | 2:43 PM 3 comments

3 Comments:

In Pakistan, we have the opposite problem: they confuse "would" for will. So you ask people, are you going to come to the party? and the response is "I would be coming tonight". Very irritating to pedants like us.

By Bina, at 2:35 PM

Everyone has his or her pet peeve.
Perhaps yours is the improper use of will/would.

What can one say when we hear every single day "educated" people saying "presently" when they mean "at present"?
Will someone, anyone, inform the world that presently means "shortly" or, in our parlance, "just now"?
That one really grates.

By Anonymous, at 9:44 PM

That dig at Naipaul's religion is a low blow.

He has always considered himself a brahmin hindu.

So where is this idea of cozying up of late etc. coming from?

By Anonymous, at 9:50 PM