A rather late observation

The conference “Seepersad and Sons” offered critical insight into the world of the Naipaul’s. However, there were challenges in understanding the content of the presentation due to the difficulties in transmission. The microphones were having issues for the first two days; this blurred any kind of signification. Therefore, despite the scholarly presentations given at the Naipaul conference, it would be remiss of me to speak on which I did not hear properly. Although, I did hear properly for the creative panel at the Mayor’s office in Chaguanas, I would like to point my attention to the third day.

On the Third Day, I Heard Better: I make my very short observation here.

The presentation done by Dr Hwyel Dix of Bournemouth University was particularly interesting. His paper was entitled: "From tonka beans to magic seeds: V.S. Naipaul’s Late Career Fiction of Self-Retrospect". Dr Dix consults Edward Said's book On Late Fiction to define this concept of lateness but he comes up short. Dr Dix asserts that Said doesn't tell us what lateness is but he tells us what it feels like. He went on to say that Said posits that later works are stylistically resistant to their audiences; they possess the negation of conformity, and art not in favor of reality. Dr Dix then moved on to speak about how he framed his research. He said that he accidentally read the work of Career Counseling by Mark Savickas and the career construction theories of practitioners such as, Kobus Maree, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot and Larry Cochran. He tries to propose a new theory of authorship through which Naipaul can be read. I place Dr Dix's reading of Naipaul into the New Historicist school of criticism, who according to Peter Barry, "juxtapose literary and non-literary texts , reading the former in light of the latter".

What struck me was not necessarily Dr Dix's presentation but the discussion that revolved around it. The definition of lateness was thought of by Professor Barbara Lalla as biological lateness, a kind of tiredness associated with old age, where the writer really doesn't care about the kind of critique he gets (which was not true about Naipaul since Professor Ramchand noted that he (Naipaul) would not have appreciated harsh criticism). Dr Dix then stated that a late work can be done by someone in their 30's as well, so he doesn't believe that one can really describe lateness. If, however, a work is being described with terms that are ambiguous, how can one come to terms with what is being described? Here we witness the "warring of signification” as Barbara Johnson described in her book The Critical Difference.

 Personally, what I can take away from the conference was the passion and curiosity with which the work of the Naipaul's were discussed (the presentations I heard of course). I believe such useful dialogue is necessary to create a robust  forum for emerging and established academics and scholars.