A House for Mr. Biswas

Rating:
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.

Rating:
Summary: Mr. Biswas, Homeless
Review: A House for Mr. Biswas, is not so much the story of Mr. Biswas, but of the South Asian extended family - its turmoil, gossip, reunions and joys. Naipaul is unerringly accurate when describing the extended Indian family: the competition between parents over the successes of each other's children; the power of money and elder authority; the elevation of boys over girls in terms of future possibilities and education.

Mr. Biswas is a heartbreaking and frustrating character. His mistakes, his ignorance, flares of tempers, and his valiant attempts at tryng to become independent from his mother's family turn him into a three dimensional character - one that you can both love and hate. His family is also well developed and complex - from his wife Shama to his young son, Anand, struggling under the weight of familial expectations.

This book didn't receive a four star review because it doesn't always capture your full attention. This is not the type of novel you spend all weekend reading. It is the type of novel that you read for a half hour to twenty minutes before going to bed, it's good but it's not enough to keep you up all night unable to put it down.

The second criticism I have of the book is its rushed ending. The novel itself has an interesting structure, in that we learn the future of Mr. Biswas, backtrack and then follow the course of his life up until his death. However, those few pages at the beginning of the novel are the same as what you receive at the end - a rushed and incomplete rendering of Mr. Biswas's dream - a house of his own. Also, the reader after several hundred pages is expected to remember the details from the beginning that Naipaul neglects to reiterate at the end. Considering the tremendous detail that accompanies the rest of the book one has to wonder if this was a planned theme: the realization of a dream isn't all that fulfilling; or was it simply laziness on the part of the author? That dilemma is for you to resolve.

Rating:
Summary: Naipaul's Best!
Review: Having read half a dozen of Naipaul's books I can confidently say that this one is my favorite of them all. Biswas is one of Naipaul's typical main characters that serve as narrator for many of his other books. Biswas is arrogant, repulsive, and abrasive. But Naipaul's magic is that he makes the reader want to follow this curmudgeon through the decades of his life and through the more than 500 pages of the book. By arousing sympathy in the detestable figure the author demonstrates his brilliance. For a long book it reads pretty fast, and unlike many other books of its length it doesn't ever really lag, which is an amazing feat in my opinion. For those who love a good story that never quits, this is a great book to pick up.

Rating:
Summary: Everybody needs a place he can call home
Review: I think that almost everyone can empathize with Mr. Biswas. Born into a poor family of Indian extraction in Trinidad, Mohun Biswas has been put upon right from the start. When he was a youngster Mr. Biswas lost his father through a swimming accident that was blamed on the boy. His mother was self-absorbed, distant and unloving. Mr. Biswas later met a young woman, Shama, with a huge family that never thought that Mr. Biswas would amount to anything. Shama's sisters, most of them either prima donnas, neurotics or both, were constantly criticizing Mr. Biswas for one thing or another. Shama would take her sisters' side over her husband's. Mr. Biswas' brothers-in-law and their sons were little better. To add insult to injury, Mr. Biswas and Shama, due to economic reasons, often found themselves living in extremely close quarters with Shama's family. Just finding breathing room seemed an impossible task. No wonder Mr. Biswas was often irritable, cantankerous, argumentative, and seemingly misanthropic. Mr. Biswas just wanted a house of his own where he could live with his wife in harmony and raise their children in peace.

_A House for Mr. Biswas_ is simply about a man who desparately seeks to find his place in the world, but is frustrated at every turn, including settling on a career. I admired Mr. Biswas and felt that his seemingly difficult personality masked a heroic man of great imagination, resourcefulness, and tenacity. It is ironic that Mr. Biswas, often impoverished himself, worked as a newspaper reporter and then as a government welfare worker, in both capacities getting to know the destitute of Trinidad.

V.S. Naipaul has written a book that is always lively, thought-provoking and never sentimental. Naipaul could have made Mr. Biswas an embittered and hateful person or loaded his book with pathos. He instead created a fighter and like Naipaul, who is himself an exile from his native India, a restless man who yearns to live out his final years in a place he can finally call his own.

Rating:
Summary: In the classical style.
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.

Rating:
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.

Rating:
Summary: One man's quest for a house of his own. [4.5 stars]
Review: Mr. (Mohan) Biswas had an unlucky birth. He was born at the wrong time of day and the midwife claimed that he would "eat up his own mother and father." From his birth Mohan struggled with the midwife's prophesy while trying to get his life on the correct track, gain independence, and most importantly, to purchase a house for his family away from his meddling in-laws that would give him some peace and quiet. At the surface this novel appears to tell a simple tale of one man's life, but as the story progresses it becomes evident that there is much more to this story than what first meets the eye.

V.S. Naipaul spins a delightful tale of rural Indian populations in the Caribbean island of Trinidad. The reader gains a perspective on the multi-cultural history of this island nation while assimilating new beliefs and customs. This novel creates an atmosphere full of poverty, dirt, and apathy but in the midst the main protagonist is determined to make it one his own terms and conditions. Amongst it all there is a clear sense of hope.

There is little doubt that the character of Mohan is certainly not an overall likeable man. He has a tendency to be selfish and rude to those who have helped him. But at other times I felt pity and compassion as some of his dearest altruistic actions failed miserably. Mohan is a wonderful yet flawed character.

One of the aspects of this novel that I loved most was the humor that often made me laugh out loud! Mohan's interactions with his wife's extended family are often hilarious and riotous. He can certainly make a fool of himself if left to his devices. But I have to admit that the best part were the stories that he wrote while working as journalism in Port of Spain. I continue to laugh just thinking about them!

Overall, THE HOUSE OF MR. BISWAS was a wonderful and rewarding reading experience for me that drew on virtually all emotions. I was immediately drawn into the plot and the plight of Mr. Biswas and felt compassion for him (except, of course, when he was making a fool of himself). Don't let the length of this book put you off; it is definitely worth the time investment. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: One man's quest for a house of his own. [4.5 stars]
Review: Mr. (Mohan) Biswas had an unlucky birth. He was born at the wrong time of day and the midwife claimed that he would "eat up his own mother and father." From his birth Mohan struggled with the midwife's prophesy while trying to get his life on the correct track, gain independence, and most importantly, to purchase a house for his family away from his meddling in-laws that would give him some peace and quiet. At the surface this novel appears to tell a simple tale of one man's life, but as the story progresses it becomes evident that there is much more to this story than what first meets the eye.

V.S. Naipaul spins a delightful tale of rural Indian populations in the Caribbean island of Trinidad. The reader gains a perspective on the multi-cultural history of this island nation while assimilating new beliefs and customs. This novel creates an atmosphere full of poverty, dirt, and apathy but in the midst the main protagonist is determined to make it one his own terms and conditions. Amongst it all there is a clear sense of hope.

There is little doubt that the character of Mohan is certainly not an overall likeable man. He has a tendency to be selfish and rude to those who have helped him. But at other times I felt pity and compassion as some of his dearest altruistic actions failed miserably. Mohan is a wonderful yet flawed character.

One of the aspects of this novel that I loved most was the humor that often made me laugh out loud! Mohan's interactions with his wife's extended family are often hilarious and riotous. He can certainly make a fool of himself if left to his devices. But I have to admit that the best part were the stories that he wrote while working as journalism in Port of Spain. I continue to laugh just thinking about them!

Overall, THE HOUSE OF MR. BISWAS was a wonderful and rewarding reading experience for me that drew on virtually all emotions. I was immediately drawn into the plot and the plight of Mr. Biswas and felt compassion for him (except, of course, when he was making a fool of himself). Don't let the length of this book put you off; it is definitely worth the time investment. Highly recommended.

Rating:
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.

Rating:
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.