And his son readily conceded that similar questions could be posed about him.
The answer is complex and could be posed of practically any of today's most commercial writers.
Mrs. Naipaul, reached by phone at her home in Wiltshire, England, replied, "At this moment, I'm saying nothing," then hung up before any further questions could be posed.
Questions like these could be posed about underwater life the world over, and, as Sylvia often points out, most of them have yet to be answered.
On a personal level, I warned the Ministry of Defence several years ago of the dangers to aviation that could be posed by a major Icelandic volcanic eruption.
The tour is already shadowed by worries among members of the Met company about safety threats that could be posed by damage to nuclear reactors in Japan caused by the recent earthquake.
This is partly because no one has any idea as to what the effects of space might be on a developing baby, but mainly because of the threat to a mission that could be posed by pregnancy complications.
Yet deterrence worked, even though the danger to the United States from a nuclear-armed Soviet Union was incomparably greater than the one that could be posed by a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein.
At the same time, it became increasingly apparent that the Taliban, at little cost in binding promises or capital, were seizing the peace process as a stage for publicity and giving the Americans a stark lesson in the complications that could be posed by the diplomatic overtures.
And the next question (one that could be posed to Don Quixote or Emma Bovary) is why books are exempted — why books, which formerly were the media, seem now to be a part of life, even a heightening of it, rather than a substitute for it.
