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Summary: Enjoyed reading this book.
Review: I enjoyed reading this book. Theroux's sensuous description of his brief relationship with Nigerian girlfriend Yomo was spot-on, how a relationship between a man and woman can be, ideally. Theroux's sense of longing and loss for her is palpable. I met a woman like Yomo 15 years ago in Swaziland, her influence on me was so great that I've never left Africa. This book is also a witness to the Pat Naipul's of the world, his championing this woman makes the book worthwhile in itself. His descriptions of what it's like to be an American in Africa still hold true today. I also sense another wounded loss of love in this book, and am not so sure that this novel is the hatchet job on V.S. Naipul's character that others say it is.
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Summary: Gets an Undeserved Bum Rap
Review: Actually rather good; something about the book rings true to life. There are places where you laugh at Naipaul's foibles, his fussiness, and his prejudices; reading Naipaul one can quite imagine him being cranky, as described in the book.Neither Theroux nor Naipaul come across as likeable; but did one expect them to be? Why is it surprising that two individuals who spend a considerable amount of time investing in ideas and the life of the mind should be a little off the beaten path of human personality? Naipual, and Theroux for that matter, are brilliant, neurotic and paranoid. That's what makes them so interesting. They live in a rarefied world, and it is this world-- noble in its preoccupation with ideas and letters, but just as cliquish and cruel as the world outside it-- that Sir Vidia's shadow brings to life. True, there is bitterness in the book; and there are plenty of cheap shots. As for the writing: I'm not fit to pass judgment. All I can say is that the book was absorbing, and gave an invaluable glimpse into what is now a dying civilization: that of the "intellectuals."
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Summary: I regard this as one of the great books of the 1990s
Review: First, a word about my relationship to Paul Theroux. I gave up on Theroux almost 10 years ago when i read 'riding the iron rooster', and swore never to touch him after 'secret history'. The man was getting to jaded with travelling. The beauty was gone, out came a new vain nonchalance and a cruel impatience with his subject matter. There was no more serendipity, no more joy of discovery. here was a traveller who needed to stop travelling, or at any rate, to stop writing about travelling. So I stopped reading his new books,sticking to his earlier masterpieces (was there ever a more brilliant book than 'fong and the indians?') whenever the mood struck me. so my acquisition of Sir.. was a matter of indifference. It was there, it looked nice, and the girl at the bookshop smiled at me. Still single a year after my divorce, so a smile means so much. But how beautiful the prose! It has all the freshness of his early writing, and his recall of his african sojourn is so very beautiful and true. It took me back so vividly. I kept stopping to say, 'hey, that's true - that's what it smells like'. Things you never really think about, that are part of your psyche, your personality, that sit in the back of your mind, forgotten. and along comes Theroux and makes you remember, with a few words. This book made me understand the creative process better than any other book i have read. it has changed the way i read novels now. I have started breaking down pages as i read now, sifting through the characters, collapsing characters and sub-plots into fact and fiction, writers fantasy of autobiography. His caricature of sir Vidia is just that. Its ugly, but its true - to Theroux at least. because the book isn't about Naipaul. Its about the evolution of a writer, the moulding of a man, and the role Naipaul played in it. It doesn't matter that Theroux trashed naipauls marriages but did not speak of his own. It matters not a bit that he comes out sounding a little whinny about the stiffness of Naipaul. because this is autobiographical and not biographical. This is a diary, an chronology of events as he remembers it, and that's his right, goddamn it! It doesn't have to be objective, and it isn't. Its a very brave thing Theroux has done, and this book is a thing of beauty. I regard this as one of the great books of the 1990s, which i shall read again and again with pleasure. (Mr Theroux, if you read this, my congratulations, sir, on a fine, fine book. drinks are on me if you are ever my way.)
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Summary: Catty memoir gives rare insight to the secretive Naipaul.
Review: Forget all the media feeding frenzy over the "betrayal" accusations of Theroux's book about his former mentor and friend. If you're fascinated by Naipaul the writer, and want to know who the man is, this is the book. I have read everything Naipaul's ever written (except, ironically, Theroux's early book about Naipaul's work, cause it can't be found anywhere). He is simply an extraordinary novelist, certainly a candidate for the Nobel Prize (were it not for the politcally correct, who command it, and would be pulverized by those who see Naipaul's frankness as having "racialist" overtones). In the book he is quirky, opinionated, nasty, angry, volcanic, weird, tormented, fearful--all the contradictory qualities found in any artist. And of course artists are seen as strange--particularly in a world of conformists. It is a terrific read if you have followed the writing careers of both men. Of course, Theroux is bitchy and hypocritical and repetitive in the hurts he's suffered, but he also makes it clear that he would perhaps not exist as a writer of some 40 books had it not been for Naipaul's support. If you're not a Naipaul follower, this book won't be of much interest..
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Summary: A fascinating look at two unlikeable people
Review: Neither Naipaul nor Theroux seems to be particularly likeable, but the book certainly is. It's also quite funny, which seems to be overlooked by most readers. We probably learn a little more about Theroux than we do about Naipaul (no one's going to tell ME not to write about Vidia), but whether the portrait of Naipaul is true or not, he's a terrific literary character in this book. If Theroux's travel books were as entertaining as this one, I'd read more of them. His usual mean-spiritedness is kept in check until the end and is more than offset by the wonderfully offbeat descriptions of politically-incorrect Naipaul throughout the rest of the book.
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Summary: A Theroux Journey of a Different Sort
Review: I read somewhere that Theroux wanted to be known through his writing. In Sir Vidia's Shadow and in My Other Life, we get closest to Theroux. He seems to be a man of contradictions: he is at once arrogant, lacking in self-confidence, unable to commit to certain relationships, and totally commited to his writing. These contradictions enrich his writing. So many of the reviews faulted this book, saying that Theroux was taking some kind of revenge for a spurned friendship. What I read was a book about two very complicated men, presented from the point of view of the one whose contradictions I have come to appreciate more and more with each published work. I would hesitate to have him as my closest friend, but what a wonderful writer he is! I suspect he would prefer to be the latter, anyway.
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Summary: Too bitter
Review: After reading this book, I couldn't help but wish Theroux had let some years (or even decades) pass before he wrote about Naipaul. Perhaps, with the passage of time, the bitterness that so evidently taints the latter parts of the book would have been damped, and Theroux would have been able to treat his subject with more clear-sightedness and fairness. Perhaps he would have been able to write the book he claims to have written -- an examination of friendship and of the relationship between two writers. But as it is, Theroux's sight seems clouded by an inchoate passion, and much of his book reads like the self-justifying ramblings of a jilted lover: no careful examination, no insight, no growing awareness -- only a laundry list of Naipaul's idiosyncrasies and character flaws. I think only people who are really interested in Naipaul and/or Theroux will want to read this book.
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Summary: Compare this with Naipaul's own tale of apprenticeship
Review: In Naipaul's 'A Way In The World', there is an account of his own relationship with an elder writer, Foster Morris. In spare, unsentimental and clinical prose, Naipaul dissects this relationship, dealing with the help and the let-downs that he received. Anyone who's read Theroux's self-serving rant would be well-advised to read 'A Way In The World' to see how Naipaul himself writes about his relationship with a writer during his younger days.
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Summary: A fascinating book about two boring people
Review: I like to read about Paul Theroux's adventures in Africa because he lived there when I did, and his memory is better. From the reviews, I expected this book to read like a copy of the National Enquirer, but it held me longer. Relationships are always fascinating, especially love affairs like this friendship, and men like Theroux and Naipaul don't have many friends in a lifetime. Theroux's description of his early life as a striving but penniless writer is consoling. I don't think he's written a book yet that will survive, but this one is a great beach read. His writing seems to be getting better; I don't find myself getting nervous in this book, as in earlier ones, when he begins to describe landscape. His summaries of letters from Vidia are a little static, but overall a good job. You end up not caring much about either Theroux or Naipaul, so Theroux's pettiness is soon forgotten. Linda Donelson, author of "Out of Isak Dinesen: Karen Blixen's untold story"
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Summary: This alleged memoir is novelist's invention.
Review: V.S.Naipaul, the subject of "Sir Vidia's Shadow," told Paul Theroux to "Tell The Truth"; the author's father told him to "Be Kind." At book's end, Theroux clains that when he was being kind he was not telling the truth. What then in the narrative is true? The book wavers among respect for Naipaul, gratitude to Naipaul, resentment of Naipaul, disgust at Naipaul, hatred of Naipaul. The book is not the memoir it purports to be. It's a novel. The alleged total recall of decades-old conversations--with everyone , not only with Naipaul--words, syntax, intonations, all delivered within quotation marks--is a novelist's invention. The last chapter, which denies every respectful statement previously made about Naipaul or his books, is so bitter in spirit it reveals "Sir Vidia's Shadow" to be a work of vengeance. As a novel prefaced with "Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely..." I would have enjoyed it, knowing much of it to be a novelist's license.
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