Speaking with forked tongue

Last night's TV reviewed: The Strange Luck of VS Naipaul; Cotton Wool Kids

There's an odd incident in A House for Mr Biswas, by general consent V S Naipaul's masterpiece, which seems to set the pattern for the writer's career. Anand, Mr Biswas's son, has been set a composition at school with the title "A Day by the Seaside". This is Port of Spain, Trinidad, in the 1940s, and though Anand is poor and Indian, he is expected to write about the sort of day that middle-class English people might have. The teacher even writes down acceptable phrases: "feverish preparations – eager anticipation – laden hampers – wind blowing through open car". Instead, Anand describes a day he really had, going down to swim at the docks and nearly drowning. "I opened my mouth to cry for help. Water filled it. I thought I was going to die and I closed my eyes because I did not want to look at the water." The teacher awards him 12 marks out of 10.

Anand is Naipaul himself, and what the incident reveals is a reluctance to settle for sentimental clichés, and an uncluttered, literal view of the world expressed in stark prose. Naipaul's refusal to soften the edges has won him some wealth, a knighthood, the Booker Prize and, in 2001, the Nobel Prize for Literature; but it has also got him a reputation for prickliness and arrogance. Paul Theroux, a friend with whom Naipaul fell out, put the case for the prosecution brilliantly but unreliably in his book Sir Vidia's Shadow (Vidia, short for Vidiadhar, being how he is known), and a number of reviewers of Naipaul's most recent work have been piqued by his haughty dismissal of other writers, his perceived condescension to non-Western cultures. At one point in last night's fine Arena film, The Strange Luck of V S Naipaul, Adam Low, the writer, director and narrator, mentioned a documentary he had made in 1982 about Naipaul's younger brother, Shiva. He had chosen Shiva rather than Vidia largely because he was worried Vidia would make things too difficult. You could see what he meant: at a press conference, Naipaul's impatience with what a silly question slowly blossomed into anger and disdain. (Rather slyly, Low didn't let on what the question was, so we couldn't judge how proportionate or otherwise Naipaul's reaction was.)

The Strange Luck of V S Naipaul showed a different side. "I mustn't sound curmudgeonly," he said early on, and then laughed, as if perfectly aware that there wasn't much hope of that. Throughout, his tone to the camera was warm, occasionally tinged with self-reproach, as when he spoke of his first wife, Pat. Their relationship was, he said, "dry", without passion, which he found instead through visits to prostitutes and a 20-year affair. Recalling Pat's death from cancer, he said he believed she had forgiven him. Though he is seen as lofty, Olympian, when he spoke about his first visit to India in the 1960s, what he recalled was the distress he felt at seeing people living in extreme poverty – he couldn't "establish a distance" between himself and them. "I really am a very gentle person," he said at one point, and "I feel myself it's not in my power to damage other people and other things – those other people can damage me, that's what I feel."

But Low didn't whitewash. That last remark about his powerlessness to damage is humble, perhaps, but also devastating, infantile. Who but children believe that only their own feelings can be hurt? The softness was offset by a kind of solipsism. Diana Athill, his first (and, he claimed, best) editor, said that for a long time she had no idea of Pat's existence – Vidia always said "I", never "we". And his grief-stricken demeanour when talking of the first Lady Naipaul's death was undermined by the present Lady Naipaul, who described how he proposed to her when Pat was still alive: Pat died in the January, her replacement moved in in the February. Lady Naipaul is a natural star, though, a kind of Indian version of Penelope Keith playing Margo Leadbetter, managing to maintain a grand theatricality of tone and gesture while peeling the vegetables.

There was an interesting moment towards the end of the programme when the great writer and his wife, visiting an animal sanctuary in Delhi, are introduced to a frisky green viper that is writhing angrily. Sir Vidia seems to like it, which doesn't surprise Lady Naipaul - he can smell snakes, after all. What did she say? I'm about to rewind, but then he confirms it. "I can smell a snake," he says. "He can smell a snake," Nadira repeats (she does that a lot - says what her husband has just said. He married an echo, but more about her later, she's fabulous). This is astonishing news. VS Naipaul, Nobel prize-winner, regarded by some - certainly by himself - as the greatest living writer in English, can smell a snake. Surely this needs further investigation, at least a question from Low. But no, Naipaul's extraordinary claim is allowed to slip away, unchallenged.

And that is symptomatic of this film. The subject is given a smooth ride, which is OK, except that if anyone deserves a bit of a going-over it's Naipaul. Race, women, prostitutes - they do get a mention, but only briefly. His playground spat with Theroux is largely ignored. Instead Naipaul moans on about his Nobel not being properly recognised in this country, he tells us how he couldn't damage other people, how much he cares for animals, and how wonderful his agent is for quadrupling his earnings. He prattles on about his blasted luck, and small passages from his work are read out - by him, by the wonderful agent, by the wonderful editor. I don't think you can get very much from just a few words of a novel, even if we hear it three times, as we do a passage of Miguel Street. Having the camera pan over the words on the page doesn't help much either. They're difficult things, films about writers.

Yet this one, despite of its flaws, still manages to be absolutely fascinating. And the reason is the subject himself. It's impossible not to astonished by the paradox of VS Naipaul: that someone so fiercely clever, who writes so beautifully and humanely, can be so very unlikable. For that's how he comes across, even without a proper grilling. He is self-possessed and cruel, and feels rejected and misunderstood by people and countries. Much of his life seems to have been about proving people wrong, getting his revenge. I even found myself disliking the way he proposed to Nadira: "Will you consider being Lady Naipaul one day?" Not marry me, or be my wife, but be Lady Naipaul. Married to Sir Vidia, the great writer, knighted for services to literature.

She - the new Lady N - is good value, though. Her job is to big her husband up, to put down the "creeps" who criticise him without even having read him, to clap and squawk as he receives his prizes, to call him darling a lot. And to be his echo. Wandering round the tomb of Mughal Emperor Humayun in Delhi, he's explaining how the building appears to change as the visitor approaches. "You're endlessly playing with the rise and fall of the dome," he says. "... fall of the dome," she echoes. And she does it the whole time - when she realises what he's about to say, she joins in. Maybe she thinks some of his wisdom will pass over to her. Or that by doing so she's emphasising what he's saying - a walking, talking confirmation. Lots and lots of talking. It's Nadira who finds the green snake in the animal-rescue centre. "Darling, come and look at this. Look at that, darling - darling, look at that."

And so we learn that VS Naipaul can smell snakes. Actually, it's not entirely surprising, coming as it does towards the end of the film, after we've watched him for an hour. He could be described as ursine, his eyes twinkling mischievously in his whiskered face. (Is it possible that the whole thing, all this bad behaviour and prickliness, is a big joke at our expense?) But, more accurately, everything about the way he is, his slippery poisonousness, is serpentine. If he stuck his tongue out - into Lady Naipaul's ear possibly - I wouldn't be surprised if it were forked.

What do you think parents worry about?” film-maker Joshua Neale asked a gaggle of eager pre-teens in Cotton Wool Kids (Channel 4). “Kidnappers… murderers… rapists… people climbing up our walls,” came the confident responses. Neale’s film was subtitled Tales of Modern Childhood and its subject was how children today have little of the innocence or freedom that their parents enjoyed growing up 30 or 40 years ago. Not exactly pastures new, then, but the approach was fresh and jolly. Largely played out in the eyes and words of children, the film was really about their over-protective parents.

So let’s do an experiment: take two groups of humans beings, one adult and one child, and subject them to a torture regime. We’ll force them to live in captivity, subject them to hours of Grand Theft Auto, and feed them paranoid fantasies of the most disturbing kind. These were the conditions shown to be a norm of overprotected modern childhood last night. As the cameras panned from one gloomy interior to another, interviewing families who kept themselves voluntarily banged up all day for fear of monsters, fast cars, and teenagers, I think we were meant to feel sorry for the children. But the children were doing just fine – in the way that wild animals do just fine at Chessington Zoo. OK, so you felt a bit bad for them – they were a bit fat, a bit bored, and a bit too obsessed with a lost girl called Madeleine, but basically OK. What I thought was going to be a depressing portrait of pale, sad-eyed youths was actually an extremely funny send-up of their ridiculous jailers. We need to stop worrying about the kids and start making more shows like this that exploit the comedy value in a crazily neurotic parent.

Because some parents have no interest in relaxation, only in permanent high alert. Take one mother who kept her nine-year-old daughter closeted all day playing on the computer. On a rare excursion to the supermarket, she delivered an educational chat for her child. Where others might have pointed out the nice clouds, this woman pointed out an innocent pedestrian. “See that man?” she said to her daughter, barely suppressing the terror in her voice. “He’s a stranger isn’t he?” Yes, her daughter dutifully replied, he was a stranger. That meant, her mother continued, her voice rising to screeching pitch, that there was a good chance he was a killer, paedophile or kidnapper. The poor bloke wasn’t even wearing an anorak.

Next it was the turn of 13-year-old Sid, who was indeed the victim of a stalker. Except in this case, the stalker was his dad. The few minutes of any day when Sid was out of custody, he was prowled by his creepy father, cruising after him in his car, neck craned for signs of his prisoner. Ten-year-old Harry’s pals had stopped calling round because he wasn’t allowed out of the house to play. “‘What if?’ That’s our problem,” said his dad. Essex mum Toni wanted her daughters microchipped (just as soon as the technology becomes available) so she can track them down in the event of their being snatched. And restaurant owner Adel spent so much time watching over his son that 13-year-old Siad likened him to a stalker.

The subtext was that although these cases may sound exceptional, they’re not. Statistics were hauled out about how in 1971 most eight-year-olds travelled alone to school, but only one in 10 does now. And while three quarters of parents believe that there has been a sharp increase in child murders by strangers in recent years, actually the rate of these rare crimes hasn’t changed in two decades. But as we all know, statistics will never convince a concerned parent they’re not right to be worried. With no sense of irony, these parents stated that their children didn’t have “enough experience of the world” to be allowed out. Yet these children were far more mature and responsible about risk than their jittery elders, who were stuck in childish fantasies about bogeymen under the bed. Hasn’t it always been this way, with generations constantly reacting against one another? The wild baby-boomer teenagers rebelled against their upright 1950s parents, just as the children of Thatcher infuriated and dismayed the ageing baby-boomers.

Casting a long shadow over this film was the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. And not just for parents. Every child here could quote some detail of her case and for them the name “Maddie” appeared to summon up the same kind of fears that “bogeyman” did for generations past. The final frames featured Siad on his first solo bus journey to school, having convinced his dad that he was mature enough to venture out alone. “Standing at the bus stop I felt really responsible,” Siad said. It was one of those “aw, shucks” moments you get in countless coming-of-age movies but the age-old point was well made: no matter how much you swaddle them, they’ll have to stand on their own two feet eventually.