Tariq Ali is a respected intellectual & writer living in UK.
He studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Exeter College, Oxford and
elected President of the Oxford Union in 1965. He was an activist in the
Vietnam War & engaged in debates against the war with the likes of Henry
Kissinger and Michael Stewart. He has long been associated with the New Left
Review; his partner Susan Watkins is Editor.
Naipaul and C.L.R. James were educated at the same colonial school. The high
quality of teaching in classics and English literature left its mark on both
men. Both of them came to England. James moved to Marxism and became a great
historian in that tradition. Naipaul cultivated a cultural conservatism that
later became his hallmark both politically and socially. The classical
heritage of the European bourgeoisie had completely bewitched him. He saw it
as the dominant pillar of Western civilisation and this led him to
underplay, ignore and sometimes to justify its barbaric sides both at home
and abroad.
He lived his life through a circle of friends that he had carefully
selected. Most, if not all, were figures on the right.
Whatever his politics, the novels were very good, especially the earlier
ones. The autobiographical 'A House for Mr Biswas' remains a comic
masterpiece. And it would have made an excellent TV series. Would he ever
agree? It wasn’t a secret that Naipaul had long opposed his work being
transferred to small or big screen. Twenty-odd years ago I rang him up and
was invited to lunch. His US agent had once forced him to fly out to
‘discuss filming A Bend in the River ‘ with Francis Coppola.
Against his own instincts, Naipaul arrived on the West Coast. At the
hacienda, Coppola informed him that the only other guest apart from family
would be George Lucas. During supper Coppola handed Naipaul a script that he
had commissioned. He wanted Naipaul to have a quick read of the adaptation
and see what he thought. He turned down the proposal.
His second wife, Nadira, whom he married in 1996, persuaded him to calm down
and let Ismail Merchant commission Caryl Phillips to write a script of The
Mystic Masseur. Naipaul was filled with foreboding that it might turn out to
be awful. ‘It did.’ This was not a promising start. He asked why I liked A
House for Mr Biswas. ‘It’s pure,’ I replied, ‘and very funny.’ He agreed we
should have a go. Farrukh Dhondy, he agreed, knew the book well and Channel
Four commissioned the scripts. Peter Ansorge was a stern invigilator and
made sure that most of the dialogue from the novel was retained. Naipaul and
Nadira and Gillon Aitken (his agent) were pleased with the final product.
But Channel Four wanted white actors and the project was dropped.
Read more in
https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2018/08/13/tariq-ali/mr-fords-hacienda/
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Eddie
