Naipaul and his mistress of two decades, Margaret Gooding

Perhaps concerned that the reports about his friendly gestures towards long-time enemy Paul Theroux would make him seem semi-amicable, VS Naipaul has gone to new depths to prove anew his utter disagreeableness, ignorance, and misogyny with statements made during a talk at the Royal Geographic Society:

I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think [it is] unequal to me….[A] woman, she is not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too…My publisher, who was so good as a taster and editor, when she became a writer, lo and behold, it was all this feminine tosh. I don’t mean this in any unkind way.

Well, I mean this in an unkind way when I say that Naipaul is a pathetic idiot. I invite MobyLives readers to please comment with the names of female authors who are equals to and surpass VS.

Also, some good fun: In response to Naipaul’s claim, The Guardian has posted The Naipual test, challenging you to decide the gender of 10 writers based on passages from their work.