NONFICTION

The books of V.S. Naipaul have garnered critical praise since his first novel, "The Mystic Masseur," appeared in 1957. They also earned him a knighthood in 1990 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. Reviews of his personality have been more mixed.

Most famously, American writer Paul Theroux, who met Naipaul in the 1960s, presented an unflattering account of his former mentor 10 years ago in "Sir Vidia's Shadow."

Now, Patrick French's "The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul" has arrived.

Don't be fooled by that word "authorized." French offers another decidedly mixed (and fascinating) review of Naipaul the person. In fact, it could be the basis for a boozy drinking game: Enjoy a shot every time somebody in its pages takes a shot at V.S.

First up, the sister-in-law: "When he was young, he was snobbish but he was always joking; later he was just snobbish."

Take a drink!

And what's that the composer Vanraj Bhatia said about him? "He was snobbish, nothing nice to say -- a thoroughly nasty human being."

Knock back another!

And while we're piling on, how about this zinger from a student who suffered through a class Naipaul taught at Wesleyan University: "He was, simply, the worst, most close-minded, inconsiderate, uninteresting and incompetent professor I have ever met."

Cheers!

Naipaul's first wife, Pat, is the book's tragic figure. The couple met while they were students at Oxford University. Naipaul, an Indian born in Trinidad, was lonely, and Pat slipped neatly into his life.

Their marriage, according to French, was unfulfilling. Pat wanted children; Naipaul wanted passion. They remained childless, and Naipaul visited prostitutes on the sly.

The marriage worsened after Naipaul began a decades-long affair with Margaret Murray, an Argentine woman of British descent. Their relationship had little aside from violent physical attraction to explain it. As Naipaul scathingly told one of his sisters, "Margaret had a vocabulary of only fifty words."

When Naipaul admitted his infidelity to Pat, he expected -- and received -- her pity. And he didn't end the affair or his marriage.

Naipaul's much publicized admission to The New Yorker magazine that he had been "a great prostitute man" in the early years of his marriage finally proved too much for Pat. She discovered that the cancer she had fought successfully had returned, and she refused treatment.

"She suffered," Naipaul told French in an interview. "It could be said that I had killed her. It could be said. I feel a little bit that way."

Two months after Pat's death, Naipaul married a journalist to whom he had proposed as his first wife lay dying.

I suppose it's a testament to the famously testy Naipaul that he didn't try to stop French from writing such a damning account of his personal life.

"He had the opportunity to read the completed manuscript, but requested no changes," French writes.

But I'd still sleep with one eye open if I were you, French.
Doug Childers is a Richmond writer and edits WAG, a literary Web site at www.thewag.net.