New Biography of V.S. Naipaul  Finished reading The World Is
What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul by Patrick
French.  Born in Trinidad, educated at Oxford, and condemned to
wander the planet, short of cash, for most of his life, V.S.
Naipaul turns out to have led a more interesting life than the
average scribbler.  He ended up needing two wives, an English
one for literary collaboration and an Anglo-Argentine one for
sex.  Due to the English wife’s infertility and the Argentine
wife’s lack of formal status, he never had children.  From an
early age, Naipaul was convinced of his own superiority and the
fact that other people were put on this planet in order to serve
him.  He had contempt for 1960s- and 1970s-style left-wing
political sentiments, especially as applied to Third World
countries.  He was scathing in his criticism of postcolonial
African and Latin American regimes and where others saw hope for
a bright future he saw cruel kleptocratic dictatorships ruling
over people who could aspi