A House for Mr. Biswas by V. S. Naipaul (novel #207)

…he [Mr. Biswas] had thought profoundly and with
despair of the future.

 

Mohun Biswas is the son of Indian immigrants in Trinidad. The story begins with his birth, probably late 1920s, early 1930s. The story doesn’t begin well. A Hindu pundit gives a not very promising prophecy about the child, and it is considered a bad omen that he is born breech with an extra finger.

 

It never gets much better.

 

The story is set in Trinidad, but it feels more like India, as Mr. Biswas and his family keep pretty well within the Indian community in Trinidad. (Mr. Biswas is reportedly based on Naipaul’s father.)

 

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this review. I didn’t care for this story. There isn’t one admirable person in it. A few are pitiable, like Mr. Biswas, who is never contented, never happy. Life isn’t working out for him, and it’s always someone else’s fault.

 

Blech!

 

Mr. Biswas tries to rise above his lot in life, but he does it so foolishly that it never works out, and it’s hard even to feel too sorry for him. He is married, almost by accident, to a woman he nearly despises and lives with her family, where he is constantly reminded of his worthlessness and dependence on their patronage.

 

He could go to Hanuman House whenever he wished and become lost in the crowd, since he was treated with indifference rather than hostility.

 

He had spent all his life among people without even thinking that he might be afraid of them.

 

He tries several times to build or buy a home of his own. He eventually succeeds, but it is poorly constructed, not worth what he pays, and more than he can afford. He still isn’t happy.

 

Living had always been a preparation, a waiting. And so the years passed; and now there was nothing to wait for.

 

I don’t think I comprehended Naipaul’s message unless it was contempt for his people.

 

This is the first time I’ve read A House for Mr. Biswas. I’ve read one other work by Naipaul, A Bend in the River, which I didn’t love either. I’ve read that Naipaul’s early works were “wistfully comic.” I hope that doesn’t refer to this one. Wistful? Perhaps, but not comic. He does write well. For that, I give A House for Mr. Biswas…

 

 

My rating:  3 out of 5 stars

 

 

 

This novel satisfies Black, Indigenous, Person of Color Author category in the Back to the Classics 2022Challenge.

 

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A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul (64 down 36 to go)

I could no longer submit to Fate. My wish was not to be good, in the way of our tradition, but to make good. ~ Salim 

 

This is the first time I’ve read A Bend in the River or V.S. Naipaul. The book is a post-modern novel set in Africa in the early to mid 1960s.  It is the first-person narrative of Salim, an ethnic Indian Muslim and lifelong resident of Africa.

 

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This novel satisfies square B3 of 2015 Classics BINGO Classic of Africa. This completes the 2015 Classics Bingo challenge, as I have completely blacked out the Classic Bingo card.

 

Salim grew up in an unnamed East African country, but in his early twenties, he buys a small business in an unnamed country in the interior, in an unnamed town – identified only as being at the bend in the river. He buys the business on the cheap, as the country has recently been through a violent revolution that wasn’t good for anyone except of course the new powers that be. There is relative peace and stability now, so Salim hopes the fortunes will turn and the town at the bend in the river will flourish as it did before the revolution.

 

And for a while, it does. But then, well then post-colonial Africa happens.

 

I’m not going to say much more. Naipaul’s writing is superb and his characters are all marvelously flawed – perfectly believable.

 

But I didn’t really care for this novel much, though I may very well be biased. Out of respect to a living author, I’ll just say, that based on what I’ve read about V.S. Naipaul, I don’t care for him much. It's quite possible that tainted my opinion of his novel.

 

Speaking of bias, I had a very distinct feeling that Naipaul’s narrative about Africa is not completely reliable. I’m no historian, and a historian of Africa even less, so on most points I must defer to Naipaul’s knowledge, but I reserve the right to be a bit dubious about an indistinct ethos he creates.

 

Meh – sounds like rubbish. I just didn’t care much for this novel, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend against it.

 

Excerpts (all thoughts or words of Salim):

 

Even hypochondriacs sometimes have real illnesses.

 

But what had happened was not new. People who had grown feeble had been physically destroyed. That, in Africa was not new; it was the oldest law of the land.

 

When we wanted to speak of the doers and makers and the inventors, we all – whatever our race – said “they.” We separated these men from their groups and countries and in this way attached them to ourselves.

 

But the airplane is a wonderful thing. You are still in one place when you arrive at the other. The airplane is faster than the heart.

 

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