A House for Mr. Biswas

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Summary: A portrait of rural Trinidad and one man's quiet struggle
Review: A House For Mr. Biswas, the acclaimed novel by Nobel prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul, reads like an epic and is clearly the work of an accomplished writer. Naipaul's depiction of one man's life, beginning with his birth in rural Trinidad at which time he is labeled as "cursed" by the local holy man, is an extraordinary account of an ordinary man and his struggle to provide for his family. So why does this book, filled with beautiful prose, memorable characters, and heart-wrenching events, feel like it is about 200 pages too long?

Mohun Biswas, an ethnic-Indian born in Trinidad in the early 1900s, abruptly marries into the Tulsi family, and his life is from that point on dominated by his controlling mother-in-law, Mrs. Tulsi, and Seth, her brother and head of the Tulsi household. The Tulsi family provides him with housing and various jobs, ranging from managing their dry goods store to supervising their farm, but they also provide him with constant harassment and grief. Mr. Biswas longs for the day that he can own his own home, and his pursuit of this goal is the novel's persistent theme which gives it its epic quality.

A House For Mr. Biswas is, ultimately, a finely crafted novel. Naipaul's powerful, moving prose beautifully depicts the struggle, pain, and sorrow of one man's life; at the same time he paints a calm and full portrait of the ethnic-Indian experience in rural Trinidad. In many ways, this book does for rural Trinidad what John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath does for Salinas, California. It's only flaw, perhaps, is that the book's length feels somewhat forced, as if Naipaul believed that a 600-page novel would more powerfully depict his character's tragic nature than, say, a 400-page novel. The truth is that Naipaul's prose is so robust, and his characters so genuinely human, that A House For Mr. Biswas achieved the status of epic long before its final page.

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Summary: Naipaul's Masterpiece
Review: This book is deservedly regarded as the new Nobel laureate's masterpiece. It is tells the life story of Mr. Mohun Biswas, a Hindu born in rural Trinidad. Mr. Biswas (and Naipaul ironically refers to him this way even when describing his infancy) is a poor Brahmin struggling to make something of his life. His father dies while he is still a boy and this causes him to exist as a poor relation held in low esteem first living with his mother on the stingy charity of his aunt and uncle and then with his wife's family, who treat him with similar contumely. Along the way Mr. Biswas has several children, including Anand who is the narrator of the story. Anand is, of course, Naipaul and Mr. Biswas is the author's father. On first reading I had believed that the book was much more of an autobiography than it really is. Naipaul has changed many of the names and places, perhaps to avoid giving offense to chararacters still living at the time the novel was first published (1958). Naipaul's brother Shiva, who was an accomplished author in his own right and who died prematurely in 1985, is not described at all. The ironic style gives the book a serio-comic feel that is quite true to life. The title's characters makes numerous failed attempts to at last have a house of his own, to get back to what he lost when his father died those many years ago. Every endeavor to make something of himself goes awry. His first job in a rum-shop ends when he is beaten and falsely accused of theft. His next job as a pundit's apprentice ends when he accidentally throws feces on to a sacred tree. There follow several other jobs, all of which eventually go wrong. Mr. Biswas is a failure at everything he does until the day he leaves his mother-in-law's house for the big city, Port of Spain. It is there that he first becomes a modest success as writer for the one of the island's major newspapers. My description does not do the book justice. The story itself is perhaps not very interesting at face value. It would seem at first that there is little in this book for a reader who is not a Hindu Trinidadian. That is not at all the case. It is the writer's gentle and loving telling of Mr. Biswas' life story interspersed with ironic and sarcastic comments resonating with the reader's own experiences of love-hate realtionships with his own family that make this a masterpiece.

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Summary: In the classical style.
Review: This book is in a direct line of descent from Madame Bovary and reaches a summit of the classical style. Beautifully written and unsurpassed in its perfect balance of detail, structure, and tone.

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Summary: One man's quest for autonomy.
Review: This book was a selection in our reading group and we were unanimous in our enjoyment of it. It remains our highest rated of all books we've read over an eighteen month period, and one of my all-time faves.
It is set in postcolonial Trinidad, and is filled with the wonderful idioms of Trinidadian English.

Mr. Biswas' expectations and dreams are not all that grandiose (or so it would seem). I mean, all the poor guy wants is a house of his own, some dignity and privacy... some distance between his own family and the irritations of his in-laws, the pushy, domineering Tulsis.
But all of his efforts seem to meet with calamity. Time after time, through events hilarious, but at times, downright sad, we learn to love to pity Mr. Biswas.
We follow him through a plethora of jobs, from sign painter and plantation overseer (Mr. Biswas miserable) to hilariously inventive and ever-optimistic journalist (Mr. Biswas happy).
We continue to hope his ship will come in, and we stay with him throughout his entire life as son, husband, father, and family man until his final triumph... a very peculiar house of his own.

The strength of the book is in how Naipaul uses humor to portray the un-funny struggle that people in impoverished circumstances face when trying to reach even modest goals.
As such, Mr. Biswas' world is presented as realistically bleak as ever, in a novel that isn't.
A poignant book, maybe even flawless.

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Summary: A Very Entertaining Read
Review: I was assigned this book for a graduate course in English and it is one of the very few which I thoroughly enjoyed. The book follows all 46 years of the Indo-Caribbean Mr. Biswas' life in Trinidad. Mr. Biswas is a poor sign painter who got tricked into marriage to a woman with a large, annoying extended family. He tries to make a life for himself on his terms, but ends up relying on his in-laws more than he would like to. Because of the setting, the characters often speak in dialect (which is not very difficult to understand), and Mr. Biswas can be relied upon to come up with a funny comeback to the other, more pompous characters in the novel. This book is great on many levels-it can be enjoyed as a "beach read" or seriously studied as a great novel-either way, I thoroughly recommend it.

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Summary: unbearable
Review: I'm amazed that I'm completely at odds with the majority of the reviewers. Now, I consider myself an intelligent person and an avid reader but I fail to see what's so great about this novel. For the first time in my life, I stopped reading a book after 400 pages into it. It was, with the only word I can think of, unbearable.
Why would you like a novel? The least sophisticated reason might be the story being interesting, or entertaining. If your idea of an interesting story is one of a lifetime loser who keeps changing jobs, constantly complaining about his rich in-laws but after every failure goes back to them to live with 50 other people in the same house, sleeping on the floor; endless family quarrels; ignorant people who speak broken English etc, this book might be for you, because from the beginning to the end, that's what you get. There is nothing that gives you a curious, exciting feeling of "what's going to happen next?"; from his birth to his death you read the uninteresting life story of a loser with uninteresting details. You don't feel badly about him, you don't sympathise with him, you don't hope him to "make it this time", but you read and read and read and nothing changes. As such, I woudn't be exaggerating much if I say that there isn't really a plot. If you listen to your grandfather's life story one night and write it the next few days, you can do just as well as the author of this novel, if not better, because at least there is a good chance that anybody's grandfather had a more interesting life than the comletely uninteresting life of the protagonist, Mr. Biswas. As for humor like the other reviewers found, that's also a complete mystery to me. There is no humor.
I read other novels with stories that doesn't interest me but the way the story was told was so beautiful that I couldn't stop reading. Immediately, "Old Man and the Sea" of Hemingway comes to my mind. Fishing, personally, is not interesting for me; as such if a fishing lover friend starts telling me how he tried to catch a fish in details, I would quickly find a way to change the subject. But "Old Man and the Sea" happens to be one of my favorite novels because the language, the prose is just beautiful. Naipaul, however, is not Hemingway. It was further amazing for me to read that a lot of reviewers praised Naipaul's prose. In my opinion, his prose is better than an average high school student, but that's as good as it gets. There is no "art", no elegance in his prose. He just writes Mr. Biswas' life in historical order. It's like a chronology without the dates.
If I should force myself to say anything good about the book, maybe it exposes you to a foreign culture little bit. But just little bit and not in a thought provoking way.
I realize I feel and think so much opposite to the majority. When so many people like and praise this book and my position is the exact opposite, maybe the problem is me. Maybe I fail to see what they see. Logically, it is quite possible that I am just wrong. But as a well-read person, it is hard for me to put aside my confidence and accept that. So another possibility I can think of is as follows: Giving literary awards is not an easy task. Literature is not mathematics, literary taste is in some degree, subjective. Sometimes there might even be other influences, political or otherwise. One way or another, once a work gets awarded Nobel prize however, it becomes difficult for people to openmindedly critisize it. They try to force themselves to like it, and if they can't like it they don't express it for fear of sounding unsofisticated, unintelligent, or downright stupid. So usually you only see positive critisisms.
If you are still curious about the book, read it. I leave it up to you to decide between the to possibilities.

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Summary: This one will take some time...
Review: A House for Mr. Biswas was my first foray into V.S. Naipaul's writing. Perhaps I should have started with a shorter book. However, the character of Mr. Biswas is one I will never forget.

Take your time reading this one. Naipaul's writing is wonderful but a bit slow at times. You will be rewarded in the end as this novel will stay with you for quite some time. It definately makes me want to explore other novels by Naipaul.

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Summary: Naipaul's Masterpiece, to Date
Review: I've known many people who didn't like A HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS because of the bleakness of the story. And, it is bleak, but V.S. Naipaul is such a marvelous writer that he can write about bleakness and cause that very bleakness to enrich our lives and reward us as readers. He can even turn that bleakness, at times, into gentle comedy. That is certainly genius.

The protagonist of the book, Mr. Mohun Biswas, has yearned for one thing all his life...a house of his own. For him, having his own house represents autonomy and triumph over the adversities of life. In many ways, I found Mohun Biswas to be the quintessential "Everyman."

Mohun Biswas was born into the world in Trinidad, with an extra finger (a bad omen, said some) and he was born into a life that was almost completely devoid of opportunities to better himself no matter how much he tried. The opening scene of the book is both bleak and darkly comedic and it sets the stage for all that is to come. Needless to say, Mr. Biswas doesn't have an easy time in life and much of the book is filled with despair and deprivation. Still, Naipaul manages to infuse these grim scenes with a dark comedy that offers some relief from the book's bleakness.

There isn't a lot of plot in A HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS, but that doesn't really matter. At least it didn't to me. The narrative is very straightforward, without gimmicks or twists and turns of any kind. I think it says a lot about Naipaul's towering talent (and he is a towering talent whether you like him or not) when you realize that gimmicks and twists and turns were simply not needed. This very simple story of a very simple man is so beautifully told that it stands on its own.

Mr. Biswas seems to be thwarted in his quest for his own home when he marries Shyama. Shyama belongs to the Tulsi family and this family of many daughters insists that the sons-in-law move in with them, rather than establishing their own independent households. Shyama's mother, in particular, is very much at odds with Mr. Biswas. The problems Mr. Biswas encounters with his in-laws provide many of the book's lighter moments (if they can be termed, "light").

Mr. Biswas, however, is not a man to give up so easily, even in the face of overwhelming odds. He attempts to overcome his misfortune with a variety of jobs, but none of them work out very well and he rarely manages to rise above the poverty level.

Although it might seem that a book about a poverty-stricken man with little opportunity to rise above the misfortunes in his life would not be interesting, this is absolutely not the case. The writing in A HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS is straightforward, but it is so lovely and fits the story so well, that it is totally engrossing. Even though I have never been to Trinidad and have never been as poor or as destitute as Mr. Biswas, I could identify with him and sympathize with him. If life doesn't offer us financial challenges, it offers us other, sometimes greater ones, and, for me, at least, Mr. Biswas personified the challenges we all face.

This book is bleak. It's not a book that's going to make the reader feel good about life (it might do just the opposite), but it does have its moments of gentle comedy. And, more importantly, this is a very rich book, one that is infused with the full spectrum of the indomitability of the human spirit. I think only the most superficial of readers could fail to see the humanity in the character of Mr. Biswas and fail to identify with him on some level.

Although, as I said, I know people who do not care for this book because of its bleakness and despair, I think it is an absolute masterpiece of post-colonial literature. Anyone who is serious about literature and wants to familiarize himself with the work of the greatest authors simply cannot afford to pass this up. It is, I think, Naipaul's masterpiece...so far.

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Summary: Magnificent
Review: I've read a number of books by Naipaul, and I can truthfully say that I believe V.S. Naipaul to be one of our very greatest living writers. Without a doubt (in my opinion anyway) A House for Mr. Biswas is his masterpiece, and perhaps one of the most beautiful books ever written.

I don't say this because Biswas contains pages of flowery prose or some sort of cheesy feel-good plot. In fact, it is one of Naipaul's greatest strengths that he needs no gimicks in his writing whatsoever. What you see is what you get. Its like listening to Brahms, but different in that Naipaul is a completely modern writer. Modern, but without anything uncomfortably experimental or trendy.

The beauty of Naipaul's writing is deep, and always somewhere just beneath the surface. First of all it is in his structure. The over-arching themes of the novel are integrated seamlessly into the a plot-line that reads more like an actual life than your conventional exposition, climax, etc. The comedy and the tragedy of Biswas are to be found side-by-side, and every page bears the imprint of a master stylist. There is beauty in Naipaul's clarity, in his realism, and perhaps above all, in his sincerity.

For anyone who has enjoyed Naipaul in the past, A House for Mr. Biswas is an obvious next step. For those new to Naipaul, or even those who have been turned off of him in the past, A House for Mr. Biswas, of all Naipaul's works, is probably the most balanced and the most timeless. Although it touches on many themes common to Naipaul (alienation, colonialism, the search for independence) A House for Mr. Biswas ties them all together into one magnificent work. Perhaps the perfect modern novel.

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Summary: Realism over sentiment-not fun to read, but worthwhile
Review: This early V.S. Naipaul novel is a detailed look at his father's life on the Caribbean island of Trinidad. While the book does at times bog down in relaying the details of a life that included mundane and ignoble aspects, it is saved by both Naipaul's astounding writing ability and the realism of the depictions. If you believe that great literature transports you to another place, it is impossible to dismiss this book. Few authors can capture the essence of a place and its people as Naipaul can.
Of course he has himself endured criticism, being called too detached and too negative, particularly in his depictions of developing countries. I for one welcome his critical approach, particularly given that so many 'travel' books are by contrast superficial, rosy, and romantic. Is the latter type of approach really more respectful than investing time and energy in really trying to understand and immerse oneself within a culture?
In some ways this critique does not apply so much to this work, since Naipaul is not as disconnected; he is describing his own father as seen (largely) through his own eyes. But Naipaul's characteristic and often brutal observations and insights are here. It is often painful to read about the petty vanities and passive dismissals described here, but I feel Naipaul's tone is ultimately compassionate. I feel the message may be that it takes time for an oppressed culture made up of an amalgam of immigrants living in poverty to incubate heightened (self and other) awareness. This is certainly a controversial idea, and it cannot be totally dismissed by simply noting that people in 'developed' countries often show very limited awareness and compassion as well.
Like so much of Naipaul's works, this is a realistic novel. It is about flawed individuals, but in the case of Mr. Biswas, who is (effectively) deprived even or a first name we come to feel for him nonetheless because we see what has made him this way and why he operates as he does. One certainly can learn a lot from studying exceptionally heroic and world-shaping personalities who appear to transcend their backgrounds and immediate environments. But there is also something to be said for those who, perhaps by necessity here, address the more modest goals of giving meaning to their life through subtle manipulation of their nearby environment. Perhaps Naipaul, who probably belongs more to the former category of people, is drawn in some ways to the latter lifestyle.
One final minor point. While I too couldn't help at points wishing for more action here, it should be noted that one section of the book (the end of part 1) in particular departs radically from the somewhat mundane narrative tone. This section is handled quite skillfully, and adds a depth not only to the narrative style but more importantly to Biswas' character.
A couple of the books this one connects with in my mind are A Bend in the River (my favorite by Naipaul also about cultural displacement), and Buddenbrooks (not my favorite by Thomas Mann, about family life.) 4.5 stars