A House for Mr. Biswas
A house for Mr. Biswas is one of the greatest books I’ve ever read, and I’ve read thousands of books. AHFMB follows the life of Mr. Biswas from the moment he was born to the time when he dies. His life is very ordinary. Mr Biswas is an ambitionless man who just goes through his life trying to find some pleasure in small things. To call him ambitionless will not be entirely true, he has a half baked ambition in his heart, that is to have a house of his own. We are introduced, to the house he finally builds, in the prologue itself. The way Mr. Naipaul has described the house in the prologue is marvellous.
It is a slow book but every line of this book is excellent. This book is even listed in the course material for IAS examinations which is quite a surprise.
Read this book slowly and take pleasure in the wonderful writing of Mr Naipaul who won the Nobel Prize in literature in the year 2001.
Tags: review, v.s. naipaul, nobel prize, literature
pushpendra says:
I CAME ACROSS THIS SONG OF BC SUTTA AND THROGH THAT I KNEW BOUT YOUR NAME,,AND WHEN I GOT THIS LINK MAN THE WAY YOU HAVE DESCRIBED THE STORY,,I MEAN THE NARRATION,,,I THINK I WILL SURELY READ THIS AND LET YOU KNOW BOUT IT,
REGARDS
HAPPY NEW YEAR
November 2nd, 2005 at 10:04 pm
pushpendra says:
When Mohun Biswas married his wife, Shama, he effectively married her entire family, the daunting, smothering Tulsis. Set in the Hindu community in postcolonial Trinidad—where Naipaul was born—A House for Mr. Biswas is the life story of a man who wanted only a home, but who was a magnet for misfortune, oppression and humiliation, “a wanderer with no place he could call his own, with no family except that which he was to attempt to create out of the engulfing world of the Tulsis.” Mohun’s survival is a triumph of resilience and persistence and humor, an epic of dignity and self-respect doggedly clung to.—L.G.
From the TIME Archive:
Naipaul’s House, though built of excellent exotic materials, sags badly; ‘economy, style, and a less elastic blueprint would have done wonders
—TIME Magazine, Jun. 22, 1962 (Read This Review)
November 2nd, 2005 at 10:06 pm