V. S. Naipaul and the Uses of South Africa

Abstract

Naipaul’s sly allusion to South Africa at the end of the talk Theroux recollects is characteristically provocative and oblique. He means, of course, to substitute his question time with a political provocation directed at his presumably left-leaning audience and host who would support the boycott of South African goods because of the regime’s racial policies. His gesture, moreover—“It’s rather fine, don’t you think?”—establishes him as a connoiseur of fine things. Naipaul’s aesthetic sense and his political contrarianism are indissolubly fused in this brief incident, as they are throughout his career. In this case reported by Theroux, however, the South African situation, and international views on South Africa’s racial policies, are indispensable components of the joke Naipaul is playing on his audience and host.

But the audience was disappointed that he [Naipaul] took no questions afterwards. When his host tried to ask him why he would not relent, he pretended he had not heard the question and showed her his tweed jacket, saying, “It’s rather fine, don’t you think? Made in South Africa.”

—Paul Theroux, Sir Vidia’s Shadow