- Hardcover: 224 pages
- Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf; later printing edition
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0375407375
- ISBN-13: 978-0375407376
- Product Dimensions: 22.1 x 15 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 408 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Three Continents take us through one half of this life,
By "kellyke" (Roselle, IL) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Half a Life (Hardcover)
Half a Life is an incredible book. First, we hear the story of Willie Chandran's father, who married out of caste, and with his wife had children whom he began to regret as he regretted the marriage. The story leads the reader slowly down to the caste system and into the book. Enter Willie, the regetted, the live-er of a second half-life, attempting to escape but being hounded by the regrets of his father. Willie begins in India, as a child who says he despises his father, who goes to a mission school, whose sister is named Sarojini, after "the women poet of the independence movement". The mission school is the place of forgotten and despised ones, forcibly rejected or bullied into leaving the caste schools. Willie grows up here, becomes cynical here, and finally stops going to school here. He becomes idle in India. Now enter Willie, enter England. Here, he reinvents himself in an attempt to become free of his father's shadow. His sexual adventures with his friend's girl and his summary sexual rejection continue his despisal of his father and escalate his hammered, rocky, increase in confidence. He is studying at a little redbrick university that cheaply follows the customs of Oxford and Cambridge. At this university, he falls in love with a woman who takes him back to Africa. Enter Willie, enter African colonialism. Enter the elite and their servants and the revolution. At first, in this strange new land which Willie vows to one day leave, he loves Ana intensely. But enter Willie's despair, his own revolution in the form of a young, beautiful girl and a brothel filled with young whores. The whores, in his guilty moments, remind him of a young Sarojini, of whom he hears little until he finds she has been married and she has changed some. Willie Chandran knows that his wife (Ana) suspects or knows of his visits to the brothel and the young woman. He beings to realize that she feels terribly guilty for her suspiscions. While the near-elite friends of Willie's and Ana's visit and talk, the disabled Mrs. Norohona prophesies vaguely and is obeyed blindly. She is obeyed until one person rejects her predictions. Then her power is broken. Willie isn't a good man even before he begins sleeping with women at the brothel. When he does this, the power of his mistaken marriage is broken. The upheaval of the war, Willie's gradual erosion, and the weakening of Willie's and Ana's marriage nearly complete this sad and real tour, of half a life across three continents.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Life and love in the shadow of colonialism,
By
This review is from: Half a Life (Paperback)
"Half a Life," by V.S. Naipaul, tells the story of Willie Chandran, born to a priestly caste father and a lower caste woman in India. The novel follows its conflicted protagonist to England and to a Portuguese colony in Africa; along the way we see both his romantic/sexual strivings and his efforts to express himself as a writer.This book offers a fascinating glimpse at the disintegration of colonial regimes in India and Africa. This is a novel with a truly global span; Naipaul creates an intriguing group of characters and interrelationships. There are a number of characters whose relationships or backgrounds reflect the crossing of lines of caste, color, and/or ethnicity. The story is nicely enhanced by Naipaul's straightforward prose style. It's a tale of love, rebellion, loss, regret, and the quest for identity.
1.0 out of 5 stars
More of the same,
By
This review is from: Half a Life (Hardcover)
I'm sure that VS Naipaul is entitled to the accolades that he has received for HALF A LIFE, not for this work but on the strength of his former works. I believe that sometimes the critics feel that the time of an author has arrived and they want to reward him for his achievements. Such is probably the case in HALF A LIFE. I have read A BEND IN THE RIVER and HALF A LIFE repeats many of the same themes. Once again the main character is having sex with his friends wife or lover. Once again there is a man who is displaced from his culture and his family and trying to create a life for himself in a new world. Naipaul is a fine writer and I find much of his prose beautifully written. Someday I'd love to take a class or be in a discussion group with a Naipual scholar who could trace many of his themes and characters. But this is one book that I really can't recommend.
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