Tender Gender

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I quote from today's ToI & DC:

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No woman writer can match me: Naipaul

In an interview at the Royal Geographical Society, Naipaul, 78, described as the greatest living writer of English prose, was asked if he thought any woman writer his literary match.

"I don't think so," Sir Vidia said, and continued, "I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not...Inevitably for a woman, she is not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too...My publisher, who was a good taster and editor, when she became a writer, lo and behold, it was all this feminine tosh...can't possibly share (Jane Austen's) sentimental ambitions, her sentimental sense of the world..."

Hindi writer Mridula Garg said:

"Naipaul's comments reek of gender bias. These are comments of an egomaniac. I don't think all women writers have a sentimental view of this world. Toni Morrison and Doris Lessing are both Nobel Prize winners. They are not sentimental. In fact, they are brutal. You cannot define writing by gender"

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So, there you are!

I don't know about Sir Vidia but you all know I am an unapologetic MCP.

I guess Sir Vidia's snow-white beard will be torn apart by and by. I pity him. he should have reserved his well-justified comments to a stag party.

However, it is too late now.

So, I beg to be his sole defender, if he cares.

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Let us take late Dorothy Parker (DP) and her late hero and contemporary, Ernest Hemingway (EH).

DP led a peaceful life, going through three marriages (two to the same man) and survived several suicide attempts. She died of a heart attack at the ripe age of 73 (by the way we share the same date of birth, August 22...Raj Kapoor in Teesri Khasam would have called us meeth or mithava).

Her attitude to Death which she pined for is best described in her own words:

Razors pain you
Rivers are damp
Acids stain you
And drugs cause cramp

Guns aren't lawful
Nooses give
Gas smells awful
You might as well live

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On the other hand, EH led an adventurous outdoor life, bull-fighting, deep sea fishing, Spanish Civil War.

And finally, "he pushed two shells into the twelve-gauge Boss shotgun, put the end of the barrel into his mouth, pulled the trigger and blew out his brains" (wiki).

A few hours back I called EH up on my planchette and asked him what he thought of his female fan DP and how he would have looked at DP's death-wish verse.

And this is what he said:

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Razors pain you
Rivers are damp
Acids stain you
And drugs cause cramp

Gas catches fire
And nooses are queer
Guns go Bang...Bang!
Why should you hang?

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Over to Sir VN!

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