There is a postscript in today's ToI to yesterday's Tender Gender:
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Naipaul does it again
"V S Naipaul may spark a million mutinies by claiming that he considers no woman writer his equal. But then he's trashed the great male writers too at several points in his career, including but not limited to James Joyce, E M Forster, Ernest Hemingway, Henry James and Charles Dickens. Sure, we agree with him that there's nobody quite his equal. He must be the greatest grouch and curmudgeon of all time".
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This reminds me of Thurber's charming piece: The American Literary Scene. It is a spoof of what an English writer would report after a brief travel to America circa 1930.
Can't resist keyboarding this passage:
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"...Friendship in America is indicated and proved by a steady flow of insult and contumely between friends, who smilingly accuse each other of insanity, depravity, spiritual damnation, duplicity, conspiracy, and the stealing of flowers from the graves of mothers.
Some American writers who have known each other for years have never met in the daytime or when both were sober. The coming together of writers in the home or flat of one of their number is invariably a signal for trouble to start. There is no discussion, to speak of, but controversy rages shortly after all are seated in the living-, or 'rumpus' room. A controversy arises out of a fiercely stated prejudice, hatred, or admiration by the host or one of his guests. A novelist or essayist is likely to get to his feet, on his twentieth or twenty-first highball, and announce that he is 'the greatest goddam writer in the world' or that one of his friends is. This is instantly challenged by one or more candidates for the distinction of greatest goddam writer in the world. The commonest terms of opprobrium during these bitter debates are: interior decorator, poet, chef, florist, and milliner, since Americans believe that a talent in any of these directions is prima facie evidence of a lack of virility, or at the very least a dearth of the true go-getter spirit.
The foreign writer who is fortunate enough to be present at one of those rare evening parties at which there is discussion instead of argument is likely to be at a loss nonetheless, since the conversation holds tenaciously to such highly specialized topics as the Buick, the Pontiac, the Cadillac, the Saint Louis Cardinals, the Cincinnati Communists, clothes, success, ladies of questionable discretion, and heels (both goddam and round)....".
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Jokes apart, it is a thought that professionals in arts and literature go to extremes trying to establish rankings among themselves...a Nobel doesn't suffice since there is one or more every year and some Nobel-winners don't write bestsellers.
So, these weird fistfights.
It is not so, I think, in Physics at least.
Here reputations are made on solid grounds of proven abilities. If you (alone or with others) happen to be the first chap to invent Feynman Diagrams or Nuclear Fission there it is...no arguments about it.
Of course fights for priority are always there but they can be sorted out without much acrimony. Many didn't think Einstein alone invented SR, but the Lorentz transformations didn't get a Nobel, nor did his GR. And of course there is no doubt that he invented (!) photons and got the prize for it.
I wouldn't die for a Nobel, but would love to get my name tagged some Effect or the other which matters. Raman was lucky because his name has got glued to his Effect willy-nilly although the Russians used to call it Smekal-Raman Effect.
And what a lovely thing for our SNB to get his name attached to bosons...no one calls them Einsteinions although many Americans used to call his statistics Einstein-Bose Statistics during my time.
Around 1990, there crept talk in KGP of scientists unable to 'sell' themselves. No one during SDM's time would have accused him of that inability...the culture then was different...there was no 'shopping' among 'intellectuals'.
DB couldn't, as they said, 'sell' himself despite his vast talent.
No one accused me of this failure since I sold myself to the Devil early on.
Nowadays I am told there are columns and paras where you have to fill in how much 'project money' you have garnered...there is talk of your 'earning your keep'.
My Eng Lit Father taught me that 'keep' as a noun meant 'mistress', but of course that was South Indian English slang....
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