Character development in V.S. Naipaul’s Reading and Writing

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          Naipaul starts off reading and writing by talking about his early childhood experiences with wanting to become a great writer. He explains his lack of ability when it came to deciphering what he was reading by himself, which was something he only seemed able to do with the help of his father. He describes how his father was a self-taught journalist in Trinidad.  His way of describing his father is one that paints him, while not as traditionally one dimensional, as a character that is defined by some very specific qualities which the reader is to find interesting.

He describes how his father became a journalist through his own accord. His reading consisted of only reading the parts in a story that he found interesting, skipping the other parts in favor of starting another book. While this might have been his usual behavior, it is difficult to think that his father never actually read an entire book, or finished a story. What is more likely, is that Naipaul exaggerated some aspects of his father’s life, in order to make his autobiography more interesting to his readers. The intent here is obviously not to deceive readers about his true experiences, but to make reading about his life a more enjoyable experience, instead of a boring recounting of events.