Why does Naipaul despise Africans?

They have no aristocracy. The same reason why he doesn't like East Europeans, they've chosen socialism and thus abolished the aristocracy.

Why does he have certain sympathy for Amerindians – because they are described as natural born aristocracy. No sympathy for Indian workers dying of famine. The British on the other hand, have kept their aristocracy – Naipaul likes people on the upper side of the class division.

The feeling of superiority is derived from a system of exclusion – caste.

The only reference to Gandhi (who was born into a caste of merchants) is to compare him with the character that will eventually be unmasked as a savage he was born as. No progress in a caste system – if hierarchy remains the world stagnates. That is why Europe became the Engine of Change in the modern world, because the people have seen royal heads roll. This made them think they can be whatever or whoever they want to be. The chief caste is the Hinduistic representation of Heaven, for an average Hindu the paradise is more concrete than for an average Christian. There's Heaven on Earth – to be born as a Brahmin.

There can be a thing which is very lovely but very cold, beauty doesn't imply goodness, doesn't imply truth (Leni Riefenstahl?).

Why does he use history? Because it is fixed, there are variations of the interpretation but something had happened at the certain point in time, the eye of God had recorded it:

history as paradigm of future - for Naipaul nothing ever changes

if it does then it's for the worse

"Peacefulness, self-control, austerity, purity, tolerance, honesty, knowledge, wisdom and religiousness—these are the natural qualities by which the brahmanas work."

(Bhagavad-gita 18.42)

Natalija Grgorinic & Ognjen Raden (b. 1974. & 1975.) — www.tashogi.com have written together and only together since they met in Zagreb, Croatia, eight years ago. In that time they published two novels: "Ray" ("Paradise"), 2001, and "Gdje se noga spaja s drugom nogom" ("Where One Leg Comes Together With the Other Leg"), 2003—along with some two dozen short stories in variety of literary journals.

About two years ago they decided they had had it too easy, so they switched continents and switched languages, choosing English as their mutual, adopted tongue. They currently reside in Los Angeles, CA and are the founding "mother & father" of "Admit Two" — an online magazine of collaborative writing (www.admit2.net).

If you ask them, they'll say:

"All literature is communication, with dialogue at its core. All literature is exchange of thoughts, words, bodily fluids between at least two subjects, a fruit of creative collaboration. Literature produced in solitary confinement is a myth supported by the extreme individualist society based on principles of private property.

There is a difference between individuality and singularity, one meaning the possession of identity, the other separateness and solitude, imposed from the outside. Our particular individuality is expressed through plurality of identities - we have at least three of those to play with: his, hers & ours."

So better don't ask.

Their fiction/criticism hybrid The Event Rose can be read in Issue Two.