#72 A House for Mr Biswas (1961)

[Sir] V[idiadhar]  S[urajprasad] Naipaul

I think it is pointless to condemn books solely because the writer was some variety of wretch.  But I have done so if I think it will create a smoke-screen for the fact that I did not understand the book.  If I liked it, I am inclined to be more relaxed, to make hand gestures and say things like “What a man, but what an artist.”  For example, the poems of Ezra Pound mystify me, so I make sure to remind everyone quite needlessly that he was an anti-semitic, Grade A Best Quality fuckwad.  On the other hand, I recently learned that Eric Gill, famous book arts figure and maker of things like this, sexually abused his children and his dog, which I think is worse than anything old Ezra ever got up to.  But I still think his art is neat and I think it’s okay to think so.

Several years ago I remember reading Naipaul’s A Way in the World and finding it very boring and hard to understand.  Although, having just this minute skimmed a few reviews, it seems that either I was actually reading a different book altogether, possibly a math textbook, or that I am an incurable philistine and must be killed.   In fairness, this may have been during one of the still frequent and inexplicable periods in my life when the only things I want to read are A Girl of the Limberlost or Betsy In Spite of Herself (why, why), and should attempt nothing else.  Recognizing that V. S. Naipaul is a Distinguished Man of Letters I felt sheepish about not enjoying his book, but a couple of years later I received a boon in the form of an article about him, one which revealed him to be a terrible bastard.  So I felt that all was well, and turned my defeat into a victory over sin.  It was in this admirable spirit that I approached A House for Mr Biswas, disdainful and yet cagy, as you would a fraud you suspect is smarter than you.  My prejudice colored the first third of the book, so that when things got grimly fun and picaresque, I reminded myself that V. S. Naipaul is a jerk.  By the end, though, I had become a quiet convert to the novel’s quiet charms.  By which I do not mean to say that I wish to hold hands with V. S. Naipaul or lie down next to him, rather that I found the story very stirring and sad.  It warmed and then unpleasantly squeezed my small heart.

The novel is about the shortish life of a singular man named Mohun Biswas.  The narrative opens with a prologue, which explains the whole story in a nutshell, and tells us that Mr Biswas is ill and not long for this world.  Chapter one begins with his birth in a village hut on the island of Trinidad, and the story takes us through the whole circus of his life.  Mr Biswas is born, he gets hustled into marriage, and for 500 pages he laments his life, has nervous breakdowns of varying degrees of magnitude, and schemes to acquire a house.  He gets the house, it’s miserable and then magical, he gets sick, and dies.  He has four children, lots of jobs, little money, a shitload of inlaws, and the most ornery, pathetic, foolish, cruel and marginally lovable disposition you could imagine.  And I don’t mean he is simply the third-world equivalent to the protagonist of a My Dick novel.  He is something special.  This is not a bildungsroman; it is a Biswasroman.

Although, like I said, I started the novel with an ill will and was disinclined to like anybody in it, I think Naipaul very carefully forged the narrative so that the reader goes through a variety of stages with regard to Mr Biswas.  You are angry that he is such a pain in the ass and mean to his wife.  You are depressed about his living conditions, even though he is living better than many.  You admit that his life has become unmanageable.   You deny that you are enjoying the book.   You accept that you kind of like Mr Biswas.  You write V. S. Naipaul a letter apologizing.  Or something like that.  He also lulls you, that V. S. Naipaul, referring to Mr Biswas as “Mr Biswas” from page one.  The use of the honorific for someone to whom so little honor is given, but who takes himself so seriously, it tugs at the heart.   There are lots of things that tug at the heart, especially toward the end.  Their son Anand, a clever, touchy bastard like his father, gets third in the school exhibition exams, and I felt so relieved, like I, too, had put all my happiness eggs in his brain basket.  I just wish he had written more letters home once he went off to abroad.

There is something distant, almost cold, about the writing; it doesn’t feel like Naipaul is holding everybody in his hand, rather at arm’s length.  But he must have had some affection for this family to write about them so; maybe it’s a case of being very stern and grumpy with everyone so that you don’t collapse into sniffles.

Sexy time! The first edition is London: Andre Deutsch, 1961.  There do not seem to be very many really nice copies for sale.  Adrian Harrington has one at $1,400.  There are signed copies at $4,500, $6,950, and a signed copy with the wraparound band for $12,500.  Here is the signed copy of the first American edition, New York: McGraw Hill, 1961, offered by Matthew Raptis for $2,750; the dust jacket is the same design on both editions, except that the American says McGraw Hill on it.  Sorry this picture is tiny:

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