Achingly good
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I never understood why it says this is a `comic' masterpiece on the cover. It's true that A House for Mr Biswas is often funny and always biting, but as a novel this is tragic and grindingly dark stuff. Even the happy ending (given away at the beginning of the book; I'm not spoiling anything for you here), only is a happy end of sorts. Perhaps it is the inexhaustible undercurrent of cheerfulness amid the squalor that makes this so readable, and on the surface a `comic' work.
The novel describes the life of Mohun Biswas, the son of poor peasants of Indian descent in Trinidad, and his long trajectory from the sugarcane worker's hut to a still precarious position as dispatch writer for one of the capital's newspapers. Most of it is concerned with his struggle to escape from his very closed, self-obsessed community, still ridden with the caste prejudices and rituals of a Mother India its members have never seen, and from the tentacles of the Tulsi clan, a monster wringing dry the weak for the benefit of the leaders, into which he was tricked into marrying. Biswas wastes his life among the fields in various backwaters. He is swindled to ruin as a shopkeeper. He is threatened with knifing and arson. But mostly he can't be alone; he can't obtain the privacy, the minimum self-sufficiency without which there can be no dignity and for which the all-encompassing desire to own his own house comes to stand.
Probably largely autobiographical - Biswas appears loosely modelled on Naipaul's father - A House for Mr Biswas has the strength of novels written from experience. It is richly precise and vivid in its portrayal of places, of people and situations, and in recording the passage of time in the small island of Trinidad. It transports the reader to a doubly foreign, faraway world, to great effect. In fact, the strangeness adds to the disorientation one shares with Biswas, making the story even more realistic. And this block of a novel is ceaselessly imaginative and never boring. One piece of trivia: probably a coincidence, but the plot's outline for The Shipping News, Annie Proulx's prize-winning novel, is contained in a one-paragraph anecdote in the later pages of Naipaul's book.
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Moving and at the same time very funny
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Poor Mr Biswas. What a monster he seems with his adopted family, but how true he is to the way all of us feel when our relatives get too much for us.
His dream to have a place on this earth to call his own is a universal desire and his achievement just before he shuffles off his own mortal coil brings the novel to a conclusion that, unlike too many other novels, feels complete.
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40 years on- still fresh as paint
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I've just finished re-reading House for Mr. Biswas and it brought on a wave of almost unbearable nostalgia. It's extraordinary how I remember characters from this book whom I first met thirty years ago and who, to my astonishement, have continues to inhabit me all these intervening years. Thus re-reading Biswas produced an illusion of double vision- the perspective of as young adolescent being superimposed upon my jaded middle aged eyes.
Having,in the meanwhile had the chance to read Naipaul's father's writings and his letters to his son, I have to admit that Mr. Biswas falls far short of his real- life model. I also remember reading- I think in a book by Diana Athill (?) that Naipaul's mother was a far more independent and interesting person than Mrs. Biswas. Apparently, after her children left home and her husband died, she did not repine, on the contrary she took the opportunity to give free reign to her interest in running a business. But these are minor cavills- the fact remains that but for Naipaul's consummate artistry few of us would have known about these marvellous people- so essentially human, so impossible to reduce to neat little stereotypes, racial or otherwise- who populate the pages of Naipaul's masterwork. 40 years on- and still fresh as paint. What an extraordinary achievement!
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Exposition of post-colonial life
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`AHFMB' is the story of Mohun Biswas, a Trinidadian of Indian descent, and his lifelong search for a place to call his own. The book follows his life from his birth, to his early life as he searches for a career to call his own, to his marriage and life with his stifling in-laws, to his first (very belated) attempts at complete independence and finally to his death (with which the book actually begins). Mr Biswas is an everyman: not too bright, not too good-looking, not too strong, and his attempts to make a better life for himself are constantly thwarted by his own failings, and the ambition of those around him. Throughout the whole book Biswas, and all the other characters, are trying to define their roles and find a niche in the new post-colonial Trinidad.
`AHFMB' reminded me a lot of Rushdie's `Midnight's Children', both in its subject matter and its construction. There is a touch of magical realism at the beginning, with Mr Biswas' unlucky sneeze bringing disaster, and the dialogue between the Hindu characters is reminiscent of the lyrical `hinglish' often used by Indian writers. Mr Biswas' story represents a nation finding its new identity post-colonialism on many levels. Firstly, there is the lack of definition suffered by all the characters, as they struggle to find what they can achieve in post-colonial Trinidad. The characters also have more allegorical significance, such as the Tulsi's (Biswas' in-laws) representation of the old (and failing) social order, or other characters representing religious institutions or the influx of new money. `AHFMB' is a very clever observation of a society finding its roles.
The thing that made `AHFMB' such an enjoyable read, was the jaunty style in which it was written. Mr Biswas' life is actually pretty depressing on the whole, but Naipaul tells his story as a comic tale, making it an easy read, and never unduly heavy. `AHFMB' is a clever, thought provoking and easy read. It is a big book, but simply flew by as I read. Absolutely brilliant.
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A tale of Indentured Labourers' descendants
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VS Naipaul's story of the struggle of a poor labourer's son who grows up in early 19th century Trinidad is remarkable for its realism - something few people have pointed out, prefering to instead dwell on the oft mentioned tragi-comedy aspect. Those who come from similar backgrounds in the colonies will surely get the feeling of déjà -vu. For example, one of the things that you aspire to growing up on the islands is to have a house of your own some day, which is what the whole story is about.
Naipaul's trademark comedy permeates the novel - he starts from the very begining by calling the 21-day old baby Mohun 'Mr. Biswas'. The name sticks! However, the sense of pathos, gloom and pessimism that surrounds poor Indian immigrants is firmly established from the start, and this never leaves us even during Mr. Biswas' happier days.
The people orbiting around in Mr. Biswas' world is left to the imagination of the reader, as Naipaul does not commit to paint the whole portrait of each one of them. The story, even though told by an outside narrator, is nevertheless told from Mr. Biswas' point of view. Therefore this fits Naipaul's characterisation of the 'others' as Mr. Biswas is not your deep, philosophical traditional hero. In fact, he is selfish, uncooperative, rebelious, and as some have said, a 'born loser'. Personally, I don't agree with the loser epithet - I think he is just a product of his background, and of the times he is living. For each of the few descendants of indentured labourers who went on to achieve world-wide fame and wealth, there were hundreds of thousands who suffered the same fate as Mr. Biswas.
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