A House for Mr. Biswas

Author:

Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932. He wrote more than 30 books throughout his 50 year career and received high honors such as the Booker Prize, the Jerusalem Prize, the Trinity Cross, the Nobel Prize in Literature, and a knighthood. His earlier novels were known for their comic relief and this, A House for Mr Biswas, is known as his breakthrough novel published in 1961. Naipaul died in his home in London in 2018 at the age of 85.

Learn More about V.S. Naipaul

Three words to describe this read:

Slow- The story is more or less a play-by-play of Mr. Biswas’s life and is not very entertaining or captivating at times.

Difficult- Overall, I did not like Mr. Biswas’s character so it was difficult to root for him, but it was even more difficult to root for his enemies; the Tulsis, his in-laws. Any moment of reconciliation was short-lived. There were very few moments of joy and even when there were, it was hard to be happy for any of the characters.

Anticlimactic- From the beginning of the book, the reader is told the ending which makes the rest of the book seem pointless and depressing and there doesn’t seem to be one revealing moment where everything locks into place and starts making sense.

Quote:

“Time would never be dismissed again. No action would merely lead to another; every action was a part of his life which could not be recalled; therefore thought had to be given to every action: the opening of a matchbox, the striking of a match. Slowly, then, as though unused to his limbs, and concentrating hard, he had his evening bath, cooked his meal, ate it, washed up, and settled down in his rocking chair to pass - no, to use, to enjoy, to live - the evening. The house was unimportant. The evening, in this room, was all that mattered.”

I like that this quote addresses a term in English that I’ve been thinking about ever since I studied abroad in 2018. We learned that when you ask someone in French how they spend their time, it translates to, “How do you pass your time?” This is a huge difference in attitude between the French and Americans; passing time versus spending time. This quote is a nice depiction of that difference.

I also like that it addresses this idea that every action, no matter how meaningless it may seem, is important. Sometimes it is these meaningless actions that greatly impact our lives.