The word, the world, and the self: The significance of reading and writing in V. S. Naipaul's 'The Enigma of Arrival'.

摘要

V. S. Naipaul's interest in the ways in which world, self, and language interact in the reading and writing of texts has manifested itself recurrently in his work. In his latest novel, The Enigma of Arrival, he documents and examines how the acts of reading and writing are related to the individual's self-identity and concept of reality. Putting experience into narrative form involves changing the nature and meaning of that experience and alters the consciousness of the individual who organizes random events in this way.;For Naipaul, writing about the self may be an attempt at self-preservation, but the writer is always aware that this attempt is sure to fail. Writing thus becomes a courageous act of defiance of the inevitability of death. Throughout The Enigma of Arrival, the death motif is persistent and underscores the impulse to preserve that Naipaul believes is at the bottom of all art. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)