Buruma on Naipaul: ‘Alert, Never Sentimental’

Travel Blog  •  Jim Benning  •  11.03.08 | 11:02 AM ET

imageIan Buruma reviews The World Is What it Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul in the New York Review of Books. “Naipaul’s literary discovery of the world is marked by the way he uses his eyes and ears,” Buruma writes. “Impatient with abstractions, he listens to people, not just their views, but the tone of their voices, the telling evasions, the precise choice of words. His eyes, meanwhile, register everything, the clothes, the gestures. ... These observations are filtered through a mind that is alert, never sentimental, and deeply suspicious of romantic cant.”



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