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Master of misogyny: How VS Naipaul married a third woman after ditching his cancer-ridden wife and mistress

Vidia drank proudly from the fount of patriarchy.

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VS Naipaul was quite a remarkable author, and a terrible human being. Naipaul’s disdain for women, his not considering them as equals is proudly displayed in his life. In Patrick French’s authorised biography, it’s revealed how he mistreated his first wife, Patricia Naipaul, with whom he was married for 41 years from 1955 onwards. Out of those 41 years, she suffered 25 years as part of a love triangle with mistress Margaret Gooding.

Pat, as Patricia was known, found out that he often visited prostitutes through a magazine interview he gave in 1994. This came at a time when she had got a mastectomy and was in remission from cancer. According to his biographer French, the disclosure caused her great consternation and sent her health spiraling. 

Vidia himself admits: “I think that consumed her. I think she had all the relapses and everything after that. She suffered. It could be said that I killed her. It could be said. I feel a little bit that way."
 

He often left her to go traveling with his mistress Margaret Gooding. French’s diary reveals she was a little more than his cook and carer as the troublesome marriage made her addicted to a sedative.  Going as far as to chide her love-making skills, he had told her: “You don't behave like a writer's wife. You behave like the wife of a clerk who has risen above her station."

He even hated taking her to the hospital for tests believing they were a hindrance to his work. To top this, he left his mistress Margaret, as his wife was dying to marry a Pakistani journalist named Nadira, who was his current wife.

On not marrying Margaret he said: “I feel that in all of this Margaret was badly treated. I feel this very much. But you know there is nothing I can do.... I stayed with Margaret until she became middle-aged, almost an old lady."

In 1995, he left his wife to travel to Indonesia while she suffered a recurrence of breast cancer. And he then dumped Margaret, his long-time mistress and companion as he fell in love with Nadira who he met in Pakistan. It was quite the gossip at that time given Vidia’s views on Islam.

And so, six days after he cremated his wife, Vidia invited a new woman into her house. Given his treatment of the women in his life, perhaps it wasn’t surprising at all that he wasn’t moved by female authors. In our attempt to write hagiographies for his writing style, we shouldn’t forget the women who bore the brunt of his maltreatment.

He had famously caused quite a furore when he claimed that he had no equals among female authors going so far as to even dismiss Jane Austen, saying ‘couldn't possibly share her sentimental ambitions, her sentimental sense of the world’.  He put it down to sentimentality saying a ‘woman was not a complete master of a house’

 While he is arguably one of the greatest proponents of English in its written form, there's little doubt that he was a true master of misogyny, drinking from the unlimited fount of patriarchal privilege.

 

 

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