poor ole' Biswas

Living legend V.S. Naipaul's masterpiece. This anti-bildungsroman traces the protagonist (supposedly based on Naipaul's father) from being "born wrong" to his tragic but timely death. The sweep and detail of the novel will amaze you, but it's not for the faint-of-heart: Mohun Biswas is not a likeable character, and the circumstances of his life (post-colonial Trinidad) are difficult. Put aside your judgements of him and let yourself get caught up in the story. You won't be disappointed.

I had the greatest connection with what Mr. Biswas was going through. It helped me to find peace with the truth that what is perfect for one person does not actually have to be perfect, it just has to be theirs.

Господин Бисвас је син сиромашних досељеника из Индије на Тринидад и остварење својих снова види у поседовању личног простора у виду куће, макар она била и уџерица склепана на брзину. Упињући се да оствари тај сан, ожениће се девојком из богат(иј)е трговачке породице и почети да живи са породицом своје жене (њеним родитељима, сестрама, њиховим мужевима и децом) у њиховој велелепној кући. Са толико различитих профила, у кући свакако никада неће бити мира, а често је и насиље, како вербално, тако и физичко. Бисвасова „нова“ породица неће имати много милости према њему, често ће бити понижаван, често ће се и селити, а таман када помисли да се коначно скрасио у своја четири зида, омешће га смрт (није спојлер без бриге, ово сазнајемо већ на првој страници).

Нема, дакле, овде неких посебних дешавања. Описује се обичан живот једне бољестојеће велике породице на сиромашном Тринидаду у време око Другог светског рата. Иако има делова који су ми били занимљиви (посебно последња трећина књиге, од тренутка када господин Бисвас почиње да ради као новинар), не могу рећи да сам уживао у читању. У појединим деловима непотребно је развучена, а доста је и референци на хиндуистичку културу и обрасце понашања, који ми/нам нису блиски или до краја разумљиви (нпр. обичај да удате ћерке живе са мужевима у родитељској кући и њихови замршени односи). Осим тога, односи између ликова су често без објашњења или мотивације.

Занимљив увид у једну нама удаљену културу, али могло је то и сажетије.

t is a wonderful book: unsentimental, moving, existential and visual. Gorgeous writing. It is amazing that someone could write such a novel aged 28. It is dubbed as “darkly comic”. But i did not feel it comic at all - melancholic, sometimes angry - yes.

It is about a life of a man, Mr Biswas, trapped in the web of a large, matriarchal and very tightly controlled family which he does not seem to have a will to leave. It is about the life passing by, unnoticed; about small daily struggles which occasionally grow into something existential; and about the eternal question what one leaves behind when the life is over.

Mr Biswas’s character is hardly likable; his occasional spouts of revolt look more like tantrums; his total inability to express love (assuming he feels it) comes across as pathetic. But somehow, by the end of the novel I felt I understood him better. During my childhood in the post-Soviet Ukraine I used to know men, belonging to the generation of my parents, who felt totally trapped within the families of their wives, who hated their position and dreamed about other life, but were not able to change anything. In their cases, they usually ended up drinking heavily. In this novel, Mr Biswas is arguably wiser.

The novel is long, but I never felt it. It flows, and sometimes I was catching myself that i could not find the place to stop turning the pages. However, it splits into two parts. The first one is a fine example of realism about Mr Biswas early life and the Tulsi family he is married into. (I felt the family organisation bear an uncanny resemblance to a beehive but in a more sinister way.) The atmosphere of the family’s home is claustrophobic, domestic violence is a common place, the love is replaced by possessiveness.

The second part of the novel is very different in a way how it is written. It focuses more on Anand, Mr Biswas only son. And, IMHO, it is the best example of auto-fiction 50 years before Knausgaard and the others made this genre a household name. And Trinidad, unknown to me before is playing bigger role in the second part of the novel: its urban parts, its nature and its villages. Naipaul has got a unique way of describing - he mixes the details of the surroundings with the feelings of his characters. The effect is a mirror of complicated interior turmoil with the exterior out there, very visual, almost like a film.

“When he got to Green Vale it was dark. Under the trees it was night. The sounds from the barracks were assertive and isolated one from the other: snatches of talk, the sounds of frying, a shout, the cry of a child: sounds thrown up at the starlit sky from a place that was nowhere, a dot on the map of the island, which was a dot on the map of the world. The dead trees ringed the barracks, a wall of flawless black. He locked himself in his room.”

Reading this novel I understood the origins of Naipaul personality with his often mysogynistic attitude to women, his quiet approval of the cast system (at least superior brahmanism), his desire to belong and his lack of loyalty to people who helped him. I would never be able to justify or to approve some of those things, but i can see how they were affected by his childhood and circumstances of his life. It is a very interesting and serious dilemma whether to consume the creative output of a very talented individual, whose views and deeds one does not approve. There is a lot written on the subject, especially recently. I think, it is the subject of a personal choice. And on this occasion, I am sure I will continue reading Naipaul novels.

To finish, the words by Joan Didion: “The world Naipaul sees is of course no void at all; it is a world dense with physical and social phenomena, brutally alive with the complications and contradictions of actual human endeavour." 

Quotes:

Beautiful:

"And like all other Christmas at Hanuman house, It had turned out to be only a series of anticipations."

"The house faced east, and the memories that remained of these first four years in Port of Spain were above all memories of morning. The newspaper, delivered free, still warm, the ink still wet, sprawled on the concrete steps, down which the sun was moving. Dew lay on tress and roofs; the empty street, freshly swept and washed, was in cool shadow, and water ran clear in the gutters whose green bases had been scratched and striped by the sweepers’ harsh brooms. Memories of taking the Royal Enfield out from under the house and cycling in a sun still cool along the streets of the awakening city. Stillness at noon: stripping for a short nap: the window of his room open: a square of blue above the unmoving curtain…. The promise of the evening; the expectations of the morning."

And the ones which are bound to be controversial, unpleasant even, but thought-provoking as well:

"It had puzzled him (while reading western novels) leaving in a wife-beating society, he couldn’t understand why woman were even allowed to nag or how nagging could have nay effect. He saw that there were exceptional women, Mrs Tulsi and Tara, for example, who could never be beaten. But most of the women he knew where like Sushi, the widowed Tulsi daughter. She talked with pride of the beatings she had received from her short-lived husband. She regarded them as a necessary part of her training and often attributed the decay of Hindu society in Trinidad to the rise of the timorous weak, non-beating class of husband."

"He had known no Indian woman of her age as alert and intelligent and inquiring."

"And in one afternoon the family reverence to India had been shattered; Owad disliked all Indians from India. They were disgrace to Trinidad Indians; they were arrogant, sly and lecherous they pronounced English in a peculiar way; they were slow and unintelligent and were given degrees snout of charity… They realised their responsibilities as the last representatives of Hindu culture."

The last. I was thinking whether to put it here, but then decided it showed what the man needed to put up with and puts his views some perspective. It is taken from the TLS article this week,

“That clever little n—r Naipaul has won another prize”. Waugh 1963

A life, from start to finish.

This is a book for adults--people who have struggled continually to figure out how to live their lives, people who have dealt with the opposing forces of obligation to family and the desire for independence.

It's not a page-turner--and I admire that. There are satisfactions to be found in reading besides wanting to know what happens--the ever-changing balance of power in families; the slight accidents that change lives forever; the mulled-over decisions which change lives very little; the hard-won tiny victories; the slight ratcheting up and down of expectations.

This is a crazy thing to say, but if I was responsible for teaching an alien what it is to be human, what it felt like to move through life as a human, I might give it this book.

Mr Biswas, nasce virado ao contrário e com 6 dedos numa mão, um mau presságio diz o pandita (Título honorífico dado na Índia aos brâmanes possuidores de conhecimentos linguísticos, religiosos e filosóficos.) A família foi aconselhada a manter a criança longe da água. A história edifica-se no início do século XX.

Na infância, Mr. Biswas abeirou-se do rio com uma vitelinha que tomava conta, ao estar a brincar na água não reparou que a vitela se afogara, escondera-se em casa com medo, o pai e alguns aldeões cercam-se do rio para procurar Mr. Biswas, o pai mergulha e encontra o cadáver da vitela, torna a mergulhar para procurar o filho e perde a vida.

Mr. Biswas, o filho mais novo de 4 crianças, a mãe viúva e sem dinheiro, foi vivendo com uns e com outros, ora para trabalhar, ora para estudar. O gosto pela leitura abriu-lhe caminhos, primeiro como pintor de letras e mais tarde como jornalista.

Foi a pintar letreiros para um armazém que viu uma bonita moça e lhe enviou um recado num papel a manifestar o seu amor, essa brincadeirinha chegou ao conhecimento da matriarca Tulsi que, não deixou passar a oportunidade e tratou de casar os dois imediatamente.

A família Tulsi composta por dois filhos e dezasseis filhas, que viviam na casa Hanumam. Para Mr. Biswas, habituado a viver com pouca gente, vê-se a partilhar o lar com mais de 50 pessoas, entre adultos e crianças, era a confusão total.

Curioso como Naipaul faz um relato tão pormenorizado sobre a hierarquia, a envolvência, o sentido de partilha e pertença entre os membros da família, a intimidade dos casais, o respeito e as regras associadas à boa convivência entre as famílias. Os relacionamentos entre as crianças e os adultos, as intrigas entre os adultos e a forma como os filhos reagem às mesmas, a competição entre as famílias pelos objetos e/ou pelo demonstrar orgulhosamente das conquistas dos seus filhos.

Mr. Biswas só estava bem onde não estava, por isso arranjava confusão constante com os vários membros da família, alcunhara-os a todos e provocava-os permanentemente, por isso saiu de casa diversas vezes, umas vezes sozinho, outras carregando a família, a mulher submissa lá ia tendo paciência para o aturar.

A família crescia e o espaço disponível diminuía. Mr Biswas sonhava em ter uma casa apenas para a sua família.

Gostei do humor refinado de Naipaul, assim como a escrita leve e escorreita.

Difficult to keep the clear idéees when a book is preceded such a reputation. Sublimate, inevitably sublimates. We can only find that brilliant. Respect. End of history.
Can we not like what everyone likes. Can one not hate but find that only well made but not transcendantal.
If not it is well written, but I have difficulty to impassioning myself for this history.

حال و روز آقای بیسواس آنقدر بر افکار من تاثیر گذاشت که هر چقدر تلاش کردم  متن مناسبی برای این کتاب بنویسم موفق نشدم! ( این تاثیر نشان از هنرمندی نایپل دارد) اینقدر که این آقا بی‌حال و حوصله بود و انگیزه‌ای برای زندگی و کار نداشت!
گاهی از اینکه جرات و جسارت لازم برای دفاع از خودش نداشت و در خفا به طرف مقابلش بد و بیراه می‌گفت حرصم می‌گرفت تلاش او برای ساختن خانه‌ای برای خودش قابل تحسین بود گرچه هم اغلب ناموفق بود با وجود تولد نامیمون و زندگی فلاکتبارش در نقطه ضعف‌ها شباهت‌هایی به ما که خواننده کتاب هستیم پیدا می‌کرد و بعضاً موفقیت‌هایی هم به دست می‌آورد که شبیه معجزه بود.
 به اندازه خیابان میگل باشکوه و جذاب نبود اما لحن بیان و قلم نایپل از آن هویدا بود اگر آدم صبور و پرحوصله‌ای باشید می‌توانید این کتاب را بخوانید و اگر آدم دقیق و نکته‌سنجی باشید می‌توانید از خواندنش لذت ببرید!

My favourite novel to date.

For those who are giving this book bad reviews... this might be helpful:

I highly doubt that Mr. Naipaul’s primary goal in this book was to entertain or teach anyone about Indo-Trinidadian culture. I have to say, though, there’s plenty to learn in this book about the latter. Primarily, this is the story of one Mohun Biswas, who was born the wrong way and with an extra finger. The childhood of Mr. Biswas was very interesting, especially to someone who’s ever walked to school barefoot, and lived in poor people’s quarters belonging to some rich relatives, and seen his or her siblings sent into laborious, low paying jobs as children, so that they become adults much faster than the average person. This book, I must say, is very keen, totally alert on every page and full of irony and realistic characters. Above all, the book is about Mr. Biswas’s independence, owning a house of his own. For a book of this length, the writer did excellent to stick to his main theme, without ignoring the flesh. Every time a house is mentioned, it is described in great detail, for that’ what Mr. Biswas notices most of the times, this being his main preoccupation. I read it about four years, and will list some memorable moments, either for their comedy, irony, character revelation, social depth, beauty of the process.
tThe book begins with a prologue, (doesn’t rely at all on suspense) as Mr. Biswas’s age of death is revealed, and that he has at last found a house of his own… Ina single paragraph, Naipaul renders foreshadows the entire novel for us. (Pay attention to the prose here)
1.tHe thought of the house as his own, though for years it had been irretrievably mortgaged. And during these months of illness and despair he was struck again and again by the wonder of being in his own house, the audacity of it: to walk in through his own front gate, to bar entry to whoever he wished, to close his doors and windows every night, to hear no noises except those of his family, to wander freely from room to room and about his yard, instead of being condemned, as before, to retire the moment he got home to the crowded room in one or the other of Mrs. Tulsi’s houses, crowded with Shama’s sisters, their husbands, their children. As a boy he had moved from one house of strangers to another; and since his marriage he felt he had lived nowhere but in the houses of the Tulsis, at Hanuman House in Arwacas, in the decaying wooden house at Shorthills, in the clumsy concrete house in Port of Spain. And now at the end he found himself in his own house, on his own half-lot of land, his own portion of the earth. That he should have been responsible for this seemed to him, in these last months, stupendous.
2.tAnother scene is when Mr. Biswas, having decided to build his own house on a property owned by his in laws not far from Arwacas, goes to his uncle Ajodha to borrow some money to complete the house. Ajodha welcomes Biswas and throws around a few jokes, even picks a visiting nephew, and immediately after lunch, retires to his bed, telling Mr. Biswas… denying Mr. Biswas the opportunity to ask. It turns out every time Biswas tried to say something about the house, Ajodha would interrupt him at the beginning of the sentence with something unrelated, and only a page or so later, will the reader realize that Ajodha has known what Mr. Biswas came for all along, and interrupting him out. This is revealed by the visiting nephew who says to Biswas as the latter heads to the bus stop. ‘The old man can smell a thing like that before you even think it.’ Read back at Ajodha’s behavior with Biswas, and you get what am saying here. It was genius I thought.
3.tConsider how so much can be said about a character in very few words and in uncommon prose, nearly inventive in its execution. For instance, in the early pages, Naipaul writes of Biswas’s niece Suniti… ‘The news that Mr. Biswas was negotiating for a house of his own had gone around Shama’s family. Suniti, a niece of twenty-seven, married, with two children, and abandoned for long periods by her husband, a handsome idler who looked after the railway buildings at Pokima Halt where trains stopped twice a day, Suniti said to Shama, “I hear that you come like a big-shot, Aunt.” She didn’t hide her amusement. “Buying house and thing.”
4.tAt one point, Biswas finds a little boy breaking bottles in his shop, and grabs him b the collar, pulling him out. The boy cries, the mother is upset that Biswas touched her child. Her response, read this “The mother broke two switches on the boy, speaking as she beat. “This will teach you not to meddle with things that don’t belong to you. This will teach you not to provoke people who don’t make any allowances for children.” She caught sight of the marks left on the boy’s collar by Mr. Biswas’s fingers, sticky from the tin-lid. “And this will teach you not to let big people make your clothes dirty. This will teach you that they don’t have to wash them. You are a big man. You know right. You know wrong. You are not a child. That is why I am beating you as though you are a big man and can take a big man’s blows.” Get the irony? If one can’t get such stuff, one need not read third world literature at all. Executing such a scene, with this sort of dialogue is near impossible to an ordinary writer, and Naipaul, is no ordinary writer.

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I'm not sure what to say here. This book smacked me around for 2 months straight, and I developed an antipathy. But it is undeniably genius, and I have not stopped thinking about it (Literary Stockholm syndrome? Larsson syndrome?).

My hangup is easy to state. VS Naipaul is a miserable son of a bitch, and this book is bursting at the seams with detestable losers. Mr Biswas is a sort of embittered Don Quixote, thwarted in an episodic and (truly) hilarious manner. But with Quixote the fundamental joke is his naïveté undercutting the shallowness of cynics. With Mr Biswas the joke is that he can never muster the self assuredness to beat back the manipulations of his family and friends. Naipaul's joke is I think more true to life, but it makes for a draining read.

That being the case, the prose is gorgeous, the characters are vivid (maybe because they are so clearly the author's own family, which is juicy), and the portrait of mid century Trinidad is perfect. The book could also never have been written in 2021. Mr Biswas detests his traditional family, but is constantly having his pocket picked by modern life. Sir Vidia is having none of this Bon Sauvage nonsense (looking at you, American Literary Fiction), but he also perfectly satirizes the callousness of individualism? As I say, the dude sucks, but the book slaps.

NB: This book is a perfect example of fiction giving a clear window into an author, that interviews and profiles galore proceed to miss without fail. I've read a fair number of profiles now, and they all give the same image: accomplished snob, pissing his peers off with his enormous ego. That is definitely part of the picture, but the guy has given a full origin story here in black and white; he is the insecure progeny of a bunch of vulgar rubes (as I said, antipathy).