Naipaul: His amazing banquet speech!

Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, and not Sir Vidia!- yes, that's how he wants him to be called, and he has made it clear during many of his interviews. But he isn't too aggressive about it nowadays, perhaps because he has now got used to people calling him by that abbreviated form.

V.S.Naipaul- the amazing author, who can make you walk on the border of fiction and non-fiction without even letting you realise the fine transitions. He is the author of many well-acclaimed novels, namely 'A house for Mr.Biswas', 'The Enigma of Arrival', 'The Loss of El Dorado: a history', 'Half a life', 'In a free state', 'Miguel Street'. Naipaul received Nobel Prize in literature in 2001, and he gave a very nice speech at the royal banquet held in his honor. The 2 munite presentation was enough for the author to prove his literary prowess. I am sure you are going to enjoy every bit of this speech that I present below:


The speech:

Sir V.S. Naipaul's speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 2001

"Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Honoured Laureates, Ladies and Gentlemen,

One of the things that happen to people who get the Nobel Prize is that they get a lot of media attention. Many interviews. Too many. So many that I begin to feel now that I have lost the capacity for spontaneous thought. I need the questions. So I thought I would begin this two-minute speech, a light one, like the old-fashioned comedian. The man to whom things happen on the way to the studio.

Well, then. Something happened to me on the way to Stockholm. The strap of my wrist-watch broke. And for some surreal moments I found myself looking at my watch on the floor of the plane. This is no metaphor. Here is the strapless watch (shows it to the gathering). What did it mean? What was the awful symbolism? The fact that all through the Nobel week I was to be without my watch.

The great Caesar, landing in Egypt, fell flat on his face on the wet shore. You can imagine the consternation of his officers, until the great and resourceful man shouted, "Africa, I've got you!" Some centuries later, the Emperor Julian, training one morning with his soldiers, lost the wicker part of his shield. He was left holding only the grip or the handle. How terrible for everybody until the Emperor shouted, "What I have I hold".

Not having the resourcefulness of these great men, I could find no words to make the bad symbolism good. Until tonight, when I understood that time was to stop for me during this Nobel week, and that, when it began again, it would be truly new. Now my strapless watch, benign again, tells me without threat that my time is running out. My two minutes are up".