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5.0étoiles sur 5
Heartwrenching, Sep 12 2009
During his 46 short years, Mr Biswas has always struggled to seek and define his sense of self but to no avail. A House for Mr Biswas is V.S. Naipauls gripping and satirical tragicomedy of errors which is quite reminiscent of Gogols portrait of harried and desperate characters. Early in life, Mr Biswas is proclaimed to be born the wrong way and thrust into a world that greeted him with little more than a bad omen and shuffled from one frail and crumblng house to another, from one set of relations to another, always threatened with instability and ridicule. Hence, Mr Biswas has attempted to be self-sufficient, carve out a modest living, and shape his own destiny away from the cloying purse strings and meddling influence of his treacherous in-laws.
During my frenzied reading, I felt my literary sensibilities bursting with such fervour. As an ardent bookworm, I have always associated the art of reading with the will to live, the desire and willingness to savour lifes bittersweet moments. Indeed, my reading hibernation ended with the gradual bloom of Spring. In fact, A House for Mr Biswas recalled to mind my Indiophile tendencies which had been laid to rest for quite some time. Through the sometimes comical, witty, and the quietly desperate Mohun Biswas, I found myself reclaiming something of myself. Indeed, the character of Mr Biswas felt like a kindred soul who, like me, has spent almost a lifetime carving out a distinct identity which struggles against calamitous and trivial events alike time and time again.
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5.0étoiles sur 5
You can go home again...and again..., Janv. 10 2003
A House for Mr. Biswas was the fifth book of V.S. Naipaul's that I have read, and I think nicely punctuates the first phase of his oeuvre. In order, I read Between Father and Son, The Mystic Masseur, The Suffrage of Elvira, Miguel Street, and A House for Mr. Biswas; and now I am on to The Middle Passage. I recommend reading Between Father and Son before A House for Mr. Biswas because of the revealing nature of the former, the clearly autobiographical nature of the latter, and the added poignancy that comes from fully recognizing the aspirations and achievements of both the fictional and the real participants of Mr. Naipaul's life. While the other works are entertaining and offer insight into life in Trinidad, they are not critical in forming a complete appreciation for A House for Mr. Biswas. Naipaul's letters to and from his family during his time at Oxford clarify and qualify what he says later in his first mature work and longest novel.A House for Mr. Biswas opens with the announcement of the death of our hero, and then traces his past though his youth, marriage, career, and the achievement of his lifelong dream-the acquisition of his own home. Mr. Biswas is representative of everyone who has struggled to identify themselves as an individual in a crowd. Having lived his life under the ostensible control of others, it is only in this final achievement of possessing a home that he truly becomes free. Naipaul's often acclaimed prose is readily evident in this fond portrayal of his father, and his often declaimed pessimism is nowhere to be found by this reader. Although Mr. Biswas' trials and tribulations may seem inordinately difficult and despairing, particularly to readers privileged to live in more affluent economies, he, and the sympathetic reader, never lose hope; and both, I believe, gain a measure of satisfaction. Naipaul's villain is stupidity, and he illustrates it in many guises, but the gentle humor with which he has invested the book can only be missed by the most callous of readers. I have read of Mr. Naipaul being called the "voice of exile", and yet find that perhaps more than any other author, he informs all of his books with personal history. Certainly his early work is firmly entrenched in the Trinidad of his youth, and his later writing, based upon jacket synopses, does not depart a great distance from the home that Derek Walcott has accused him of fleeing. He may live in England, but he continues in both his fiction and non-fiction, both now hopelessly intertwined, to notice and remark on the details of life in societies where many of his critics fear to tread, or at least fail to fully appreciate in the opacity of their vision. For these reasons he may be one of the most nostalgic writers I have ever read, and if home is where the heart is, he is far from exiled from the community where he was born and raised. His autobiography of the writer from Trinidad continues, and I am eagerly anticipating making my way through the rest of this remarkable life in words. The Nobel was well deserved.
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4.0étoiles sur 5
Didn't Work For Me (middle-class, white, male American), Oct. 19 2002
You can click on my "about me" icon and see that I don't shy away from heavier literature. And I really, really wanted this novel to work for me. I almost gave up 50 pages in. The opening drowning story was poignant (if dark) and I thought it funny that Naipaul kept referring to Biswas as "Mr. Biswas" even when he was describing him as a little boy. That's the strength of this novel -- Naipaul's sense of humor. But American's are unusually critical of humor -- and I'll be the first to admit it. At times, the humor was just too acidic -- and, at least for my tastes, went from being humorous to being bitter and angry. I gave the Nobel Laureate the benefit of the doubt, and made it through the first 100 pages before finally putting it on the little stand at the front of our house (ready, for the return trip to the library). This novel is important largely because it represents a transitional country. Mr. Biswas's Trinidad is on the verge of 3rd World, pre-colonialization -- and this is evident from just the opening 100 pages. But -- at least for now -- Naipaul's classic just did not work for me. Stacey
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