The Modulus of Rupture

First published in 1988, Peter Hughes explores the work of V. S. Naipaul, and the interplay of fictional and non-fictional patters in what is his obsessive vision of human life. Hughes shows how Naipaul's narratives pair off histories and novels, travel-writing and psycho-biography, reinforcing one another and Naipaul's vision of 'a world undoing itself' - a world of disorder and fantasy. He includes a reading of Naipaul's texts, usually considered highly traditional, that shows their innovative side, and points out ways that they can be illuminated through modern literary theory. A detailed analysis, this companion to V. S. Naipaul's writing will interest students of modern literature and those with an interest in Naipaul's writing more generally.

Comments on previous work by Peter Hughes:'a poet who stands at the very forefront of twenty-first-century lyricism' -Ian Brinton, P.N. Review 'Peter Hughes personalises and modernises the Romantic lyric mode of address, blending it into the stratum of practical everyday living with its hassles and clutter, and the conversational speaking voice. He plays with the inheritance of the European love poem as a renewal of it, sometimes seeming to undermine it and then folding it back into his purpose. This is a poet working very much in his own way, and breaking the rules of just about all current schools.' -Peter Riley'Peter Hughes has persevered in the face of everything that conspires to stop you doing it. This is now a measured poetry of the everyday, an intense clarity produced from a steady gaze and replete with respect for the otherness of people, place and things. It is immanent with the numinous which moves towards the surface and sometimes manifests itself in a startling cognition.' -John James'I turn the new page and am in bliss with the pertinence and grace of the living language.' -Kelvin Corcoran'Read it, in the expectation of any number of lyrical pleasures, for the ear, for the play of line against continuous movement, for its celebration of remembered pleasures, for its good will and for its wit. By this last, I mean a mind in evidence in the poems that can constantly surprise itself in the turns of speech, that can dance in the syllables and still have world and experience in its sights.' -John Hall