A House for Mr Biswas
Ratings8
Average rating4
15
Ratings8
Average rating4
Naipaul’s breakthrough novel is a marvellous comic tale of a Trinidadian of Indian descent striving to improve his lot. Continually making big plans for himself he constantly finds himself thwarted by his wife’s family and by his own ineptitude and over-reaching ambition.
Reviews with the most likes.
Amazingly well written with great observations.
But awfully dry in many parts. Would find it difficult to recommend this to friends.
Mr. Biswas (and that is his name, even when he is a little boy) is cursed from birth. The fortuneteller when he is born predicts a terrible life for him and every prediction comes true. Mr. Biswas inadvertently causes the death of his father. He has great difficulty finding a way to make a living and he struggles, moving from unsuccessful job to unsuccessful job. Mr. Biswas is tricked into an unhappy marriage. He has great problems connecting with his in-laws, his siblings, his mother, his wife, his neighbors, and even his children. Throughout all his life, his one dream is to obtain a house of his own and this dream proves to be the most elusive of all.
I purchased my copy of Biswas over ten years ago, after reading A Bend in the River for class and finding this on the Modern Library top 100 list. I found this to be a solid story but I never completely fell into the plot or characters, which made it easy to put down. The writing is solid, but the plot felt a bit like wandering and I didn't feel sympathetic toward any of the characters.
