Naipaul

What a beastly, cantankerous old so-and-so V.S.Naipaul is. Has he got anything good to say about anyone? Maybe he appreciates his housekeeper for little things like making him a cup of tea - and maybe some other "little things", knowing his proclivities. But he doesn't seem to have anything good to say about writers. And now he's off again on one of his diatribes against other writers. This time it's women writers. He dismisses Jane Austen and accuses women of having a "narrow view of the world" and suggests that there is no writer of the fairer sex who is his equal.
I can think of quite a few because I'm not a fan of Naipaul (liked one of the books written by his brother Shiva better). I tried "The House of Mr Biswas" twice and found it rather tedious.
Yet I do have a sneaky sort of liking for the old sod. He is so arrogant and antagonistic towards writers that he has become a kind of "performance artist". Whenever he is mentioned by other writers, journalists usually, he is regarded as someone who is beyond the pale, someone people shouldn't take any notice of, someone who is so filled with his own vanity that he is disgusting. Why do they write so much about him then? Like moths to the light which can kill them, these writers are drawn to Nailpaul maybe hoping that he will try to kill them (metaphorically) so that they can join that long list of great wriers he doesn't like - Dickens for example who he finds unbearable; Hardy who he also finds unbearable; Henry James who he thinks is "the worst writer in the world" and Joseph Conrad about whom he says "I have trouble with some of Conrad's books".
I like him for his honesty. He tells us what he believes. I agree with him about Conrad, I too have trouble with his books; and I find Henry James difficult to take these days; and Thomas Hardy I have always had difficulty with. Then there's his view of women writers. I have to say I'm in sympathy with him to a certain extent: there's always, to my mind, a touch of Mills and Boon about most women writers (of fiction, that is). "Sentimental" Naipaul avers. Mmmm! may be something in that!
But Dickens unbearable! I draw the line there in my small admiration for V.S.Naipaul.