A House for Mr. Biswas

Rating:
Summary: Biswas and Self Worth
Review: A House for Mr. Biswas is a sprawling epic that displays Naipaul's comic gifts to the fullest. It's too bad that Naipaul became such a bitter man in his later years. Novels such as A House for Mr. Biswas, The Mystic Masseur, The Suffrage of Elvira and his comic masterpiece, Miguel Street, reveal his critical discernment and shatter all the pretensions of Caribbean life. Naipaul gives us a rare picture of ourselves as a vibrant people who are just as foolish as everyone else.

Rating:
Summary: You can go home again...and again...
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Didn't Work For Me (middle-class, white, male American)
Review: 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

Rating:
Summary: A classic from last years Nobel winner.
Review: This is one of the handful of true classics written since the Second World War, and the greatest novel ever written by someone who lived and grew up in the Third World. It is a story told with great compassion and humor of Mohun Biswas, a man who, despite all his faults and weaknesses, is head and shoulders above his provincial but wealthy in-laws. The novel chronicles Mr. Biswas's sad but dogged struggle to attain a level of dignity among people sunk in stupidity and a mania for status. Reading this book, I began to understand Naipaul's especially pessimistic non-ideological conservatism. He sees all too clearly how the problems of the Third World are a product of certain type of congenital dysfunction. This is the tragedy of the novel. The people he describes are victims of their own states of mind. Any attempt to "liberate" them would surely fail, because you cannot cure sicknesses of the soul. Biswas realizes he can do nothing about his in-laws. They are hopeless cases. When they move to a country state, instead of harvesting the many orange trees on the property, they begin chopping them down so they can pick the oranges that much easier. By this time, Biswas is too much of a fatalist even to be angry about this any more. In Biswas fatalism we see the seeds of Naipaul's pessimistic vision of the Third World.

Rating:
Summary: Accessible but unlikeable
Review: I picked up this book at the recommendation of a friend, shortly after Naipaul was awarded the Nobel Prize. Though I had hopes, I must say I didn't enjoy the book. The language is very straighforward and accessible, which is both surprising and welcome. However, none of the characters is sympathetic or especially interesting. The eponymous Mr Biswas is a milquetoast and unlikeable protagonist, forever bemoaning his lot in life but seemingly determined to do nothing to improve it. He marries into a selfish and domineering clan full of equally unlikeable characters. Though the writing is crisp, the story itself is meandering and slow, only occasionally punctuated by events of interest, amid Biswas' incessant whining.

Rating:
Summary: A struggle for independence
Review: As a British colony, Trinidad became the home of many Indian immigrants, and "A House for Mr. Biswas" tells the story of a man who is born into and grows up in this society searching for a place he can call his own. In this novel, V.S. Naipaul vividly and picturesquely describes Trinidad as a thriving but generally poor island populated by a strong Hindu community with a waning observance of the caste system and where, even well into the twentieth century, the most common mode of transportation is the bicycle.

Naipaul's titular protagonist, Mohun Biswas, was born a bad omen, declared by a pundit (Hindu scholar) to be the eventual downfall of his parents; the prophecy is seemingly fulfilled when his father accidentally dies because of his mischief. After some brief schooling, Mr. Biswas (as he is called throughout the novel, even as a young boy) embarks on a series of odd jobs: After an unsuccessful apprenticeship to a pundit, he is sent to work in a relative's rumshop and later becomes a sign-painter. It is on this job that he meets a pretty girl named Shama, whose family, named Tulsi, owns many properties and businesses in Trinidad. A marriage is arranged between Biswas and Shama, and he soon finds himself a prisoner of the Tulsi family in a way, a situation which becomes the basis for his lifelong struggle for independence.

The Tulsis' house, called the Hanuman House, is crowded with members of Shama's extended family, including her mother, her uncle Seth, who manages much of the family's businesses, brothers, sisters, and innumerable and indistinguishable nieces and nephews -- living conditions which lead to irritation and violent arguments with in-laws. The Tulsis give him a shop to run and a sugarcane field to oversee, but he lets deadbeats and workers take advantage of him. His attempt to build his own house and move away from the Tulsis for good, with the help of an incompetent carpenter, ends in disaster.

On his own initiative, he becomes a reporter for a Trinidad newspaper, the Sentinel, writing sensational and often embellished stories, interviewing "Deserving Destitutes," and learning a new kind of creativity which grants him true vocational freedom from the Tulsis. Meanwhile, Shama bears him four children, among whom there is only one son, Anand, whose fragile relationship with his father instills the novel with touching moments of realism.

It's easy to empathize with Mr. Biswas, for he is a character of the most universal sort -- everyone can relate to his desire for autonomy, freedom, and independence. He could be a symbol of the emancipation of a controlled people -- specifically, Indian independence from the British empire -- but the novel also succeeds on its surface level. We know from the prologue that Mr. Biswas eventually does escape the Tulsis and obtain a house, a decrepit, boxlike affair that hardly seems like a personal triumph. But it is *his* house, his declaration of independence, a final confirmation that he is indeed his own man.

Rating:
Summary: Great writing, real social criticism, so human, so much fun
Review: I'd always gone along with the bias against Naipaul due to his conservative, some would say neocolonial, politics. Big mistake. This is great writing, a fun book, and real social criticism. Though it is hundreds of pages long, this read felt bad when he finished it that there were not another 500 pages to read!
He really captures the argot and ways of the East Indian commmunity in T & T, and captures the foolishness, greed, and ridiculous caste and caste striving. All of this is done in manner that preserves the real humanity of everyone involved. This is so much fun!

Rating:
Summary: Disfunctional family Indian-style
Review: Naipaul is a great wordsmith, and I suspect that this novel has some autobiographical elements. It is essentially the story of a struggling , disfunctional Indian family . It is clear that the author knows the suject and the setting very well, but unless this is an area the interests you, it is likely that the book will be a long and not totally satisfying read. Tony Soprano's family is more interesting, and has more depth.

Rating:
Summary: This book defines "engaging"
Review: This book defines "engaging". Though I have never been to Trinidad, I now feel like I've spent significant time there. Using very few words, Naipaul paints a portrait of what poverty in Trinidad looked like, emotionally, economically and socially. He also takes a protagonist who seems very harsh and abrasive at first, and makes him into a sympathetic character. We grow as he does. I've seldom read books that have made me able to so fully climb into the skin of a character, but this one does it. You feel his anguish, and understand his few joys. All of this is done with a very economical use of words. This is truly one of the best books I've ever read. I can't reccommend it enough.

Rating:
Summary: I can't--
Review: Despite the tears, nobody ever says this thoughout this long, fascinating book. A story of generations, of family dispute and disparity, A House For Mr. Biswas is a stirring, masterful dispiction of life going on. It tells of one man's humble independance that he keeps private, not realizing how such subtle virtue affects those he comes in contact with.

Never dull, always anticipatory, one of the greatest books ever written--