NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008

James Baldwin and V.S. Naipaul: America Made the Difference

Vivian Gornick

Two men of color: one black, one brown; one American, one Trinidad-Indian; both in a bottomless rage over having been born outsiders into a world dominated by whites; both released into a genius for writing by the force and influence of that very rage. If ever there were a pair of writers who, with roughly equivalent results, made the same virtue out of the same enduring necessity, surely it was V.S. Naipaul and James Baldwin. But it is the difference, not the sameness, between them that is compelling.

Read the entire essay in Vivan Gornick's new book, The Men in My Life, from Boston Review Books.

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Comments

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An obvious question
There is the obvious question, logically implied in the article here, of what the writer who has the self possession that served Baldwin, but also bears the results of its absence that served Naipaul (they served him equally as the obverse served Baldwin), will find himself up to. The alloy for the material is there. The discipline will undoubtedly be at least as firm and intense as the two other men. And I know of such men; and women. But they are not writers.
— posted 12/27/2008 at 19:13 by Alex Patterson
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About the Author

Vivian Gornick lives and works in New York. Her most recent books are The Men in My Life, and The Solitutde of Self: Thinking About Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Vivian Gornick,
The Beginning of Wisdom,
Demon Doubt,
All That is Given


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