Half a Life

by V.S.Naipaul (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $3.25

  In Half a Life we are introduced to the compelling figure of Willie Chandran. Springing from the unhappy union of a low-caste mother and a father constantly at odds with life, Willie is naively eager to find something that will place him both in and apart from the world. Drawn to England, and to the immigrant and bohemian communities of post-war London, it is only in his first experience of love that he finally senses the possibility of fulfilment. In its humorous and sensitive vision of the half-lives quietly lived out at the centre of our world, V.S. Naipaul's graceful novel brings its own unique illumination to essential aspects of our shared history. The best novel I have read this year ...the prose is crystalline and seductively so you hardly realize that you are consuming a work of genius until you are plunged deep into a dramatic story which stretches across three continents - Antonia Fraser, Irish Times . A small masterpiece and a potent distillation of the author's work to date. Mr Naipaul endows his story with the heightened power of fable - Michiko Kakatuni, New York Times . A brilliant, withering story of the bitter consequences of empire ...Writing with a degree of wit and subtlety beyond the grasp of most writers, Naipaul has built a bleak world of discomfort and yearning from which, paradoxically, the reader will not want to escape - Jeremy Poolman, Daily Mail . Parts are as sly and funny as anything Naipaul has written. Nobody who enjoys seeing English beautifully controlled should miss this novel - John Carey, Sunday Times .

• Used

  Paperback
  2001

  $3.25

• Used

  Hardcover
  2001

  $4.18

  In a corner of India untouched by anti-colonial agitation, Willy Chandran's father stood at odds with the world - aspiring to greatness whilst living out the dreary life marked out for him by his ancestors. In an attempt to defy his past, he marries a low-caste woman only to find himself at the mercy of his own fury. From this unhappy union the utterly compelling character of Willy Chandran emerges, oddly like his father, naively eager to find something that will place him both in and apart from the world. He is drawn to England and the immigrant community of post war London, its dingy West End clubs, and sexual encounters, and even to the eccentric milieu of the English writer. But it is Willy's first experience of love that might bring him the fulfillment he so desperately seeks.His wife Ana leads him to her home, a province of Portuguese Africa, a country whose inhabitants are all uncertainly living out the last days of colonialism. Naipaul delineates the relationship between father and son with wonderful clarity and compassion; the comic brilliance of the London scenes and the penetrating descriptions of Africa are hard to beat.