A House for Mr Biswas

V. S. Naipaul, 1961 Date Read: March 17, 2022

30th book completed! 6 months - average 5 books per month.

I really enjoyed this novel, just as I enjoyed A Bend in the River. The author has a way of making you feel you're sitting next to him, watching things happen.

I honestly knew almost nothing about Trinidad before I read this novel, and did not realize there was a substantial Indian population there. I found a lot of the details really fascinating, such as that they speak English to each other and the children (who would be my parent's and husband's generation) could understand Hindi but not speak it. I guess that's why Nicki Minaj doesn't have an accent? Because they all speak English? I don't know.

Anyway. Mr Biswas is an asshole and the entire story is all the bad things that happen to him because of it. He seems to go out of his way to make people dislike him. He really strives for it, especially in the early years of his marriage.

I found it interesting that they say he was "born the wrong way". I looked it up and I think this means born facing up, rather than facing down. My younger son was also born that way (nearly had to have a C section because he got stuck - 18 years later I'm still traumatized) and he's also kinda an asshole so... :-)

Anyway, like I said, I knew nothing about this culture or place before reading this novel, and yet I felt right at home with the characters and their lives. I mean, people are people, no matter when or where they live. Naipaul deserved the Nobel he won for literature. He was an incredibly gifted writer.

Time to read: three days

ReReadability: yes, I most likely will reread this

Classic: very much so