V.S. NAIPAUL’S Empty Chapel: His Background, Works, and Vision of the Third World
by Dr. John Persaud Ramphal. Xlibris. 2003.

Reviewed by D. Gokarran Sukhdeo
(Winner, 1998 Guyana Prize for Literature)

V.S. Naipaul's Empty Chapel: His Background, Works, and Vision of the Third World is a competently researched book, coherently organized, and brilliantly written by someone who grew up in the Caribbean, and who has spent a lifetime studying and researching the works of V.S. Naipaul who arguably is regarded today as the finest living writer of the English Language. In this book Dr. John Ramphal incorporates most of his research material obtained for his M.A. thesis and Ph.D. dissertation on this writer. He further analyses the entire corpus of Naipaul's writings, his fiction and short stories, nonfiction, travel writings, and literary journalism, as well as the various interviews Naipaul has given throughout the years, in order to arrive at critical judgments about Naipaul, the writer who has captured all the major literary prizes in the world, including the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001, being the first Trinidadian to do so, the second person whose roots spring from India, and the first writer from Britain, after William Golding secured it in 1983.

The book, the title of which derives from lines of T.S. Eliots's poem, The Waste Land: "There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.../ Dry bones can harm no one", deals appropriately with relevant critics of Naipaul, detractors and supporters alike. His family background and his father's stories are analyzed in order to demonstrate source materials and influence, as well as to assess what aspects of personality determinants during Naipaul's formative years in Trinidad helped to create his mind: to determine, as far as possible, what aspects of Wordsworth's cryptic remark, “the child is father of the man,” apply to this great writer. The idea that Naipaul is not a satirist, as he himself asserts, is debunked in this book, by utilizing ample selections from several source materials.

In general, this book focuses on the relevance of Naipaul's writings to the modern world, whether or not his analyses of the various societies which he discusses (mostly diasporic) and his concomitant vision, are accurate or fallacious, consistent or contradictory, and irrefutably demonstrates that Naipaul's writing are “of a piece” as he so aptly remarked on R.K. Narayan's autobiography and his fiction set in the expansive sub-continent of India.

The book has received some excellent commentaries and praises from a number of authentic sources. Dr. Frank Birbalsingh, Professor, Graduate English Department at York University, writes: “Ramphal provides informed analysis of Naipaul’s writings… [Ramphal] concludes that these insights [in Naipaul’s writings] [which] are mainly negative, or pessimistic, may have less to do with specific features of post-colonialism itself, than with Naipaul’s view of human experience and possibilities as a whole. The result [of Ramphal’s work] is a comprehensive commentary not only on Naipaul’s vision of the Third World but also on his work on the whole. There is no doubt that the book is the result of solid, scholarly commitment.”
Dr. Kevin McCabe of Brock University writes,:“The Empty Chapel will be required reading for all future writers on the Nobel Laureate.”

Balkrishna Naipaul, author and a relative of V.S., states: “ Dr. Ramphal provides us with a detailed examination of all of Naipaul’s works… to arrive at specific conclusions, but even more so, is the stunning discovery of the man, not just the writer, which surfaces after careful distillation and synthesis. I know for a fact that the salient, comprehensive biographical details incorporated in the book are unimpeachable, not found anywhere else in Naipaul criticism. Particularly revealing is [Ramphal’s] depiction of the Naipaul and Capildeo families, and the authoritative portrayal of the tensions between them, tensions which Naipaul himself experienced, and which he so brilliantly portrayed in A House for Mr. Biswas (a book which Naipaul, himself acknowledged as brilliantly constructed after the apprenticeship of Miguel Street, The Mystic Masseur and The Suffrage of Elvira). In fact, these tensions continued while Naipaul was in England as Letters between a Father and Son. The book is invaluable to researchers and general readers.”

Dr. Ramphal’s second book, an anthology of poems entitled, To Drink Your Kiss consists of poems “simple, sensuous and impassioned” written from his teenage years to the present. It is an amalgamation of several themes – religious, patriotic, nature, lyrical, love, life and death, nostalgia, the trauma of early immigration, and even humor. For this work, published 2002 by Sugarcane Publishing, under the name, John Persaud, he was awarded the "Shakespeare Trophy of Excellence" as a famous poet for 2003, presented by the famous Poets Society in Orlando, Florida.

Some of his poetical works were entered for the Guyana Poetry Competition sponsored by the National History and Arts Council in the 60’s and were well acclaimed by Guyanese National Poets, A.J. Seymour and Rajkumarie Singh.

The aesthetics of Ramphal’s poetry are largely influenced by Romanticism in the vein of such great as Wordsworth, Keats and Locke and present us with an “immense celebration and commentary on life, an outpouring of tremendous joy for those of us who are above ground instead of under it.” From his works one senses the presence of Divinity and acquires a spiritual fulfillment. The poems are simply smooth and soothing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Born in Guyana, John Persaud Ramphal became Principal of a Government Secondary School, before migrating to Canada in 1973. He attended Perpetua Kawall Canadian Mission School, Universities of Guyana, Dalhousie, Acadia, Toronto and York, where he pursued academic and professional studies. Dr. Ramphal has made Vidia Naipaul his lifelong study, which led to his M.A. thesis on him, culminating in his doctoral dissertation from York University on this Nobel Laureate. Dr. Ramphal lives with his wife, Deomattie, in Markham, Ontario. They have three sons, Dr. David Persaud, Anthony, and Michael, and two grandchildren, Ashley and Anthea.

Copies of his books can be ordered by e-mail from either: jramphal@aol.com or DOCTAASH1@aol.com or from Gokarran Sukhdeo by calling 718-845-3826.