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Article: The Family Business.(Review)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- February 7, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Between Father and Son: Family Letters, by V. S. Naipaul, edited by Gillon Aitken (Knopf, 285 pp., $26)
'YOU HAVE ENOUGH MATERIAL FOR A HUNDRED STORIES. FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE START WRITING THEM. YOU CAN WRITE AND YOU KNOW IT. STOP MAKING EXCUSES. . . . I HATE LECTURING YOU THIS WAY BUT I WANT TO HEAR THAT YOU ARE WRITING. I WANT TO HEAR THAT YOU ARE WRITING VERY VERY MUCH. YOU HAVE BEEN SUFFICIENTLY IDLE TOO LONG."
This is just the sort of message that an 18-year-old aspiring writer ought to get from his father, especially a father with years of newspaper reporting and over a dozen short stories under his belt. But here the advice is going in the opposite ...