V. S. Naipaul is a British novelist and
travel writer of Indian and Trinidadian descent, winner of the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 2001.
Influences
on Naipaul: One author Naipaul has publicly cited as an
influence is Joseph Conrad, another British immigrant (from Poland) whose
novels forced the British, and the world, to examine the disturbing
implications of empire.
Critics have noted that the dark,
brooding atmosphere, tropical settings, and alienated perspective in Naipaul’s
prose resemble similar qualities in Conrad’s writing, including the latter’s
most famous work of fiction, Heart of
Darkness (1899).
As in that work, some of Naipaul’s
European characters come emotionally undone as their pretensions are exposed in
the alien African setting. A Bend in the
River bears direct comparison with Heart
of Darkness in the journey each work’s protagonist undertakes. However,
some critics have interpreted Naipaul’s work as a defense of the colonial
project rather than an indictment of its bitter consequences.
Literature
of Displacement: Naipaul has contributed richly to the
body of modern literature dealing with the theme of displacement, exile, and
rootlessness, as dealt with by major authors such as James Joyce, Albert Camus,
Ezra Pound, Vladimir Nabokov, Milan Kundera, and Conrad.
This theme is embodied in characters such
as Salim in A Bend in the River, an
Indian Muslim living in Africa who is treated like an outsider during his
country’s political upheaval. It is also shown in the story ‘‘One out of Many’’
from In a Free State, in which an Indian servant finds himself in New York and
realizes he is utterly lost regarding matters of money and law in the strange
land.
In the late 1950s, the islands of
Trinidad and Tobago, once colonies of the British Empire, began the process of
becoming an independent nation. In his first four novels, culminating in A House for Mr. Biswas (1961), Naipaul
drew on his Trinidadian background and current events for subject matter.
A
House for Mr. Biswas marks a turning point for Naipaul. Many
critics regard A House for Mr. Biswas
as Naipaul’s first masterpiece. In 1998, The Modern Library listed the work
among the finest one hundred novels written in English.
Reader’s Guide to the Novel: A House for Mr. Biswas follows the life
of Mr. Mohun Biswas, a protagonist inspired by Naipaul’s father, as he
struggles to find his freedom and a house of his own.
The son of a poor laborer in Trinidad,
Mr. Biswas is forced to live as a guest in one crowded, inhospitable house
after another. After his father dies, his family moves in with his mother’s
sister, Tara, and he is humiliated and beaten by Tara’s brother-in-law Bhandat.
Mr. Biswas vows, "I am going to get
a job on my own. And I am going to get my own house too. I am finished with
this" [p. 64].
He goes to work as a sign-painter for the
Tulsi family, and there he begins a flirtation with Shama.
After his love letter is discovered by
Mrs. Tulsi, Mr. Biswas is bullied into marrying Shama, thus beginning a long
and unhappy marriage that produces four children, a constant struggle for
money, and countless bitter quarrels. After a brief and failed attempt to run a
dry goods store in The Chase, Mr. Biswas and his family return to live with the
Tulsi family, a pattern that recurs thoughout the novel.
It is in Port of Spain that Mr. Biswas
comes closest to happiness, working as a journalist for the tabloid Sentinel,
writing outlandish stories, and achieving a degree of local fame. Here, too,
his son Anand excels in school and shows signs of talent as a writer. But Mr.
Biswas’s fortunes suffer several reversals, and it is not until the very end of
his life that he is finally able to buy a house–only to find the experience
much different than he had imagined.
A vivid portrait of a man who fights to
free himself from the entanglements of family, custom, and religion, A House
for Mr. Biswas is also an unforgettable look inside colonial society at the
beginnings of great transition.
- Gale/Routledge/Britannica
