Hate oppression, but fear the oppressed

A gem of a quote from Sir V.S. Naipaul:

'Hate oppression, but fear the oppressed'

A classic two minute bite, one would be tempted to think, but when you go below the surface, you find that it is a really profound observation.
The oppressed do not need to be pitied, but rather, they deserve some amount of fear.
Now, Sir Vidia is a person whom you either like, or you loath. You can't be neutral about him. One can be amicable about Salman Rushdie, but not Sir Vidia. I am on the latter group. I have read a couple of books by him.
There was 'A House for Mr. Biswas', which I feel, started really well, but towards then end, he just speeded it up. Also, towards the end, he was talking more about Mr. Biswas' son Anand than about Mr. Biswas. It seemed to me that he just got tired with the novel towards the end, and decided to finish it as soon as possible.
Then there was 'India: An Area of Darkness', about his travels in 1969. I really loved this book. Naipaul has managed to capture the essence of India in the book. Of special note is the part where he hitches a ride from a family traveling on a hired bus. Just brilliant.
His sequel of sorts to this non-fiction, 'India: A Wounded Civilization' was less of a travelogue and more of his meandering thoughts. Also, he screwed up the Indian history royally in this book. There was an article about this in rediff by William Dalrymple, author of 'White Mughals'(which I intend to read), where convincingly pointed out the errors of Sir Vidia in his book, and I agreed with him whole heartedly. It was this book that pushed me towards the other camp, so to speak.
I plan to read the third book on his trips to India, 'India: A Million Mutinies Now' soon. Jiji has recommended it highly, so it should be good.
And then there is his last book, 'Half A Life'. What can I say, what can I say about this book, other than that its a complete rot. Naipaul deal with displacement and search for a home in his books, but in this one, he took them to a new height - that of absurdity. I could not fathom what the hell he was trying to say in this book Utter crap. And to think that it was released around the time he got the Noble Prize!! The irony of it was not lost, at least on me!
Now, Sir Vidia is coming out with his latest book, Magic Seeds. Again, its about displacement, about the protagonist from his last novel, Willie Chandran, fighting a Maoist battle in India, and wondering what he is doing there. I am intrigued.
All in all, whatever your opinion about Sir Vidia, one thing everyone agrees is that he is a gifted observer, and is bold enough to speak his mind, unlike Salman Rushdie, who I think is quite media savvy. The last bold thing he did was 'Satanic Verses', and that got him in a thick soup. Case in point to Sir Vidia, this:

Indians victims of their own civilization: V S Naipaul

I have to agree with all the things that he says.

In a final conclusion, Sir Vidia Surajprasad Naipaul is like Karl Marx. Love him or loath him, but you just can't ignore him. More power to him!!

Moving on, here's a nice blog by a lady who follows news stories usually ignored by the big media. It's called Flogging The Simian. Of particular interest is her coverage of the Jonathan Idema case in Afghanistan. Read it.

And finally, some good news at last. SPIDERMAN 2 WILL BE RELEASING THIS WEEKEND!! Yes, Spidey is finally coming to Doha. I have been hearing nothing but rave reviews of this film online. It has outdone X-Men and X2 as far as movie adaptations comics, and that's really saying something. I love the X-Men franchise, and their quality is good indeed. If Spidey has overtaken them this time, then it's worth a dekho. So Friday night, I will be at a theater nearby. Rejoice, folks!!