Frases de Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul
Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul
Data de nascimento: 17. Agosto 1932
Data de falecimento: 11. Agosto 2018
Outros nomes: विद्याधर सुरजप्रसाद नेपाल
Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, Kt. é um escritor trinitário e britânico nascido em Trinidad e Tobago.
De família indiana, assina seus livros como V. S. Naipaul. Radicou-se na Inglaterra onde foi estudar em 1950, aos dezoito anos.
Foi agraciado com o Nobel de Literatura de 2001.
Citações Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul
„É assim que minha imaginação compõe agora a cena. Se demoro nessa descrição, é porque escrevo em circunstâncias diversas! Trabalho numa mesa rústica, estreita, adquirida com certa dificuldade, por não fazer parte do mobiliário padrão do hotel. O quarto fica no anexo do prédio. A janela é de alumínio, de tamanho e forma padronizados; a porta lisa, também padronizada quanto ao tamanho e a forma, é feita de um material tão leve que já está empenada e, a menos que se passe o trinco, fica o tempo todo abrindo e fechando lentamente. O rodapé encolheu, como todo o madeiramento. Nada aqui foi feito com amor, nem sequer com habilidade; conseqüentemente, não há nada que dê prazer à vista.“
— Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul
Os Mímicos
„The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.“
— V.S. Naipaul, livro In a Free State
Fonte: In a Free State (1971)
„Men need history; it helps them to have an idea of who they are.“
— V.S. Naipaul, livro The Enigma of Arrival
"The Ceremony of Farewell"
The Enigma of Arrival (1987)
Contexto: Men need history; it helps them to have an idea of who they are. But history, like sanctity, can reside in the heart; it is enough that there is something there.
„That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing.“
"Two Worlds," Nobel lecture (7 December 2001) http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2001/naipaul-lecture-e.html
Contexto: I have told people who ask for lectures that I have no lecture to give. And that is true. It might seem strange that a man who has dealt in words and emotions and ideas for nearly fifty years shouldn't have a few to spare, so to speak. But everything of value about me is in my books. Whatever extra there is in me at any given moment isn't fully formed. I am hardly aware of it; it awaits the next book. It will — with luck — come to me during the actual writing, and it will take me by surprise. That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing.
„Nehru was unique in recent world history: a colonial protest figure, a folk hero who did not appeal to fanaticism but was a reasonable, reasoning man. A man committed to science, religious tolerance, the rule of law and the rights of man.“
"India After Indira Gandhi" in The Daily Mail, and The New York Times (3 November 1984) https://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/03/opinion/india-after-indira-gandhi.html
Contexto: India has been very lucky in the Nehru family. Nehru was unique in recent world history: a colonial protest figure, a folk hero who did not appeal to fanaticism but was a reasonable, reasoning man. A man committed to science, religious tolerance, the rule of law and the rights of man. Indira Gandhi, his daughter, carried on this way of looking at things. In Britain, she might have had the reputation of being domineering, harsh, even ruthless. And you can easily make a case for her being authoritarian, antidemocratic, stamping out protest. But it isn't enough just to do that. One must consider what was on the other side. In 1975, some opposition parties wanted India to go back to some pre-industrial time of village life. Piety can take odd forms.
„It is an immense human idea. It cannot be reduced to a fixed system. It cannot generate fanaticism. But it is known to exist, and because of that, other more rigid systems in the end blow away.“
"Our Universal Civilization" in The New York Times (5 November 1990) https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/05/opinion/our-universal-civilization.html
Contexto: The universal civilization has been a long time in the making. It wasn't always universal; it wasn't always as attractive as it is today. The expansion of Europe gave it for at least three centuries a racial taint, which still causes pain. … This idea of the pursuit of happiness is at the heart of the attractiveness of the civilization to so many outside it or on its periphery. I find it marvelous to contemplate to what an extent, after two centuries, and after the terrible history of the earlier part of this century, the idea has come to a kind of fruition. It is an elastic idea; it fits all men. It implies a certain kind of society, a certain kind of awakened spirit. I don't imagine my father's Hindu parents would have been able to understand the idea. So much is contained in it: the idea of the individual, responsibility, choice, the life of the intellect, the idea of vocation and perfectibility and achievement. It is an immense human idea. It cannot be reduced to a fixed system. It cannot generate fanaticism. But it is known to exist, and because of that, other more rigid systems in the end blow away.
„The universal civilization has been a long time in the making. It wasn't always universal; it wasn't always as attractive as it is today.“
"Our Universal Civilization" in The New York Times (5 November 1990) https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/05/opinion/our-universal-civilization.html
Contexto: The universal civilization has been a long time in the making. It wasn't always universal; it wasn't always as attractive as it is today. The expansion of Europe gave it for at least three centuries a racial taint, which still causes pain. … This idea of the pursuit of happiness is at the heart of the attractiveness of the civilization to so many outside it or on its periphery. I find it marvelous to contemplate to what an extent, after two centuries, and after the terrible history of the earlier part of this century, the idea has come to a kind of fruition. It is an elastic idea; it fits all men. It implies a certain kind of society, a certain kind of awakened spirit. I don't imagine my father's Hindu parents would have been able to understand the idea. So much is contained in it: the idea of the individual, responsibility, choice, the life of the intellect, the idea of vocation and perfectibility and achievement. It is an immense human idea. It cannot be reduced to a fixed system. It cannot generate fanaticism. But it is known to exist, and because of that, other more rigid systems in the end blow away.
„The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.“
— V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River
Fonte: A Bend in the River
„Non-fiction can distort; facts can be realigned. But fiction never lies.“
— V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River
Fonte: A Bend in the River
„After all, we make ourselves according to the ideas we have of our possibilities.“
— V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River
Fonte: A Bend in the River
„His ignorance seemed to widen with everything he read.“
— V.S. Naipaul, livro Half a Life
Fonte: Half a Life
„Like many isolated people, they were wrapped up in themselves and not too interested in the world outside.“
— V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River
Fonte: A Bend in the River
„To this day, if you ask me how I became a writer, I cannot give you an answer. To this day, if you ask me how a book is written, I cannot answer. For long periods, if I didn't know that somehow in the past I had written a book, I would have given up.“
As quoted in "V.S. Naipaul in Search of Himself: A Conversation" with Mel Gussow, The New York Times, (24 April 1994)
„India is for me a difficult country. It isn’t my home and cannot be my home; and yet I cannot reject it or be indifferent to it; I cannot travel only for the sights. I am at once too close and too far.“
— V.S. Naipaul, livro India: A Wounded Civilization
India: A Wounded Civilization (1977)
„It [Islam] has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples. To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say 'my ancestral culture does not exist, it doesn't matter'… This abolition of the self demanded by Muslims was worse than the similar colonial abolition of identity. It is much, much worse in fact… You cannot just say you came out of nothing.“
As quoted in VS Naipaul launches attack on Islam" in The Guardian (4 October 2001) https://web.archive.org/web/20170412063202/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/04/afghanistan.terrorism9
