A House for Mr Biswas-VS Naipaul

***/*****                                                                                                                                 Novel

A House for Mr Biswas

V.S. Naipaul

Mr Biswas, born six fingered, and in the wrong way, has been cursed that he would eat up his mother and father. This book is the life story of Mr Biswas, from his birth to his death. He is born in penury, without a firm roof over his head. All his life he strives to make two ends meet, and to acquire a proper house that he can call his own.

This is also Naipaul’s first book that achieved immense fame and critical acclaim. It is considered one of the great novels of twentieth century and also Naipaul’s magnum opus.

It is a very big book, six hundred pages in all. A novel of this length, dealing with the life of one individual, here Mr Biswas, is a detailed chronicle of such life. Mr Biswas, born to poor parents struggled all his life to acquire material possessions for a dignified life. Foremost amongst these is a proper house. In search for a house, Mr Biswas and his growing family move from one inadequate house to other; from Hanuman House to The Chase to Green Vale to Shorthills, and finally to a rental in Port of Spain. In the end he finds a house for himself and thinks ‘how terrible it would have been to have failed in this quest…to have lived without even attempting to lay claim to one’s portion of the earth, to have lived and died as one had been born, unnecessary and unaccommodated.’ Search for a house, though it occupies major portion of the story, ultimately feels a metaphor for Mr Biswas’ search for happiness, independence, a modicum of self-respect and tranquillity in life. He receives only minute servings of these in his short life of forty-six years.

Tone of the book is comic, its style realistic. Dialogues are written in the dialect of English as must be spoken in Trinidad. Naipaul eschews sentimentality, like the protagonist Mr Biswas. Some passages, where he describes emotions of Mr Biswas, are therefore poignant, both because of paucity of such in the book and Naipaul’s effervescent prose.

Mr Biswas is portrayed, warts and all. I could not love him, but couldn’t help pitying his circumstances. He is mean, petty, petulant, quarrelsome, bossy, vain and surprisingly also a snob. Rare glimpses of his fondness for his first-born child, a daughter, and later a son, are touching. In his search for stability and contentment in life, he moves from one job to another; painter of shop signboards, shopkeeper, overseer of a farm and finally a journalist with Trinidad Sentinel, the job that is closest to his heart. For, he is an avid reader and harbours a longing to be a writer.

Mr Biswas’ travails present a plethora of characters to the reader. Predominantly amongst these is Mrs Tulsi, Mr Biswas’ mother-in-law, in whose domineering behaviour he feels suffocated, but stays under her yolk for most of his married life because of his straitened circumstances. Tulsi’s household is home to innumerable daughters, their husbands, their children and two sons of Mrs Tulsi, revered like ‘Gods’. Naipaul paints each character vividly. One can’t marvel enough at his powers of observation of human behaviour and the astuteness of his writing skills. Book is an extended narration of the family drama as it unfolds around Mr Biswas, with and without his active participation. Then, there is Mr Biswas’ immediate family, his wife Shama, who has an onerous task of appeasing her mother’s family, on whom she, her children and Mr Biswas are dependent for most of their needs. Simultaneously, she cannot be too unkind on Mr Biswas either. Naipaul draws an alluring picture of Mr Biswas’ sensitive boy, Anand. Other players in this long saga of Mr Biswas are his mother Bipti, his brothers and sisters, his aunt Tara and her husband Ajodha, and many more, each receiving a sensitive portrayal.

I have read only one other work of fiction by Naipaul, The Enigma of Arrival. Then, I was impressed by his sublime prose, perhaps one of the best in contemporary English writing. I found only glimpses of this in the present book. I found it a bit tedious at times and repetitive too. I cannot say that this is an easy read. There is no plot. I feel, Naipaul has skilfully written about life he has witnessed from very close quarters. It feels autobiographical in its sensitive and intricate detailing of human character, relations and interpersonal interactions. I found writing of this review one of the most arduous I have attempted. I feel I have only been able to touch upon few of my ramshackle ideas and ill-conceived notions. I am not able to develop these coherently and completely. I am overawed, not in a small measure, by book’s immense reputation and lack courage to opine on it frankly.

Dec 2018