Es muy difícil escribir un libro y muy fácil una reseña. También es difícil decir que no te ha gustado un ilustre premio nobel incuestionable. Pero así es. Me ha costado mucho acabarlo. Su frialdad hacia los personajes, su profunda misoginia, la historia a kilómetros de distancia de cuanto pueda interesarme, su gelidez sobre todo lo humano que se vislumbra....todo eso no consigue sobreponerme a su indudable estilo y dominio del arte de la escritura.

Nobody Says It's Easy

V.S. Naipaul's "Magic Seeds" (2004) is a philosophical novel exploring issues of personal identity and meaning in individual and political contexts. The book fails for many reasons, chiefly because its preachy, didactic tone takes away from any kind of story or character development. The characters are wooden and the plot implausible. There is value in what Naipaul has to say, but this novel is not a good medium.

The story is about Willie Chandran, a man in his early 40's when the book begins. In mid-life, Willie is an unconvincing subject for a coming of age story. The book takes the reader from Berlin where Willie is leading an idle life in the company of his sister, to India, where Willie spends seven years with a group of guerilla revolutionaries and is imprisoned, and, in a twist, back to England where Willie had gone to college and written a book of stories. The book is a sequel to Naipaul's novel "Half a Life" which tells of Willie's life up to the age of forty. Although "Magic Seeds" is written to be read independently, I thought it presupposed a great deal of Willie's experiences in the earlier book. I have not read "Half a Life" and found this sequel confusing without going back and reading reviews and summaries of the earlier work.

Willie was born in India to a man who gave up a professional career to found an ashram and his lower caste wife. Willie becomes a rootless, divided individual who lacks purpose in life and what is called an identity. This is apparently the premise of the earlier book and it carries through in "Magic Seeds". Willie lacks a sense of what he wants to do in life and becomes prey to all sorts of causes with minimum provocation. Thus, in the heart of this book, he joins a revolutionary movement aimed to free Indian's poor farmers from exploitation. The book explores his motivations and that of his confreres. Naipaul shows just and broad-based skepticism about these and other forms of revolutionary social movements.

The portion of the book that takes place in India is the part of the novel that is most nearly successful but is marred by its preaching. The last third of the book, which deals with Willie's renewed life in Britain after release from prison is nearly intolerable in the disjointedness of the writing, its harsh tone, and its didactic character. I felt I was being beaten over the head with Willie's lack of identity and the importance of being oneself. The focus in the final pages of the book shifts from Willie to the sexual past of one of his friends. It seems to me out of place with the rest of the book.

Themes of identity and activism are pervasive in modern literature, whether from the third world or from the United States or Britain. This book does not explore these issues well because the polemic is not well merged with the form of the novel. For what it says, the book in my view is top heavy with questions of identity. I read this book in a book group and in reading and thinking about it, thought of two other books our group has read out of many that explore issues of identity. First, I was reminded of Saul Bellow, another Nobel Prize winner, and the novel "Ravelstein" written in his old age. The main character of "Ravelstein" stresses the opportunity to study and learn for those fortunate to have the opportunity to do so, to avoid being imprisoned by the narrow concepts of identity, religious or social, in which they were born and to find a thoughtful life for themselves. Second, our group recently read "Butcher's Crossing" by the American National Book Award winning writer John Williams, the author of "Stoner". This Western novels tells the story of a young Harvard student who, under the influence of Emerson, travels West to find his identity in nature. Williams tells a dark, and cohesive story about youthful quests such as this in search of the "unalterable self". Both Bellow's novel and William's novel explore questions of identity but integrate these questions well with the form of the novel. I found them both literarily and philosophically more effective than Naipaul's "Magic Seeds."

Robin Friedman

Willie Chandran, an Indian, the chief character in this novel, appeared in a previous book that I haven’t read. During most of this book, he is part of a guerrilla group in a rural area in India, having lived in Africa for many years. It’s not clear exactly what the guerrillas are fighting for or why Willie has joined them and stayed with them. After he is arrested and imprisoned, he manages to get to England, and the book goes in an entirely different direction. Perhaps this is intended as a character study, but Willie doesn’t ever seem to be especially interesting nor are his reflections on his experience especially compelling. The book is worthwhile reading but far from Naipaul’s best work.

Booooring! I picked up this book, because I had heard so much about Naipaul. I guess I should have started with the other book first. But if this is the same style he writes in, then I doubt I would have liked that one either. It's a story about a nobody, who goes like a nomad from one country to another, get's caught in a guerrilla movement that isn't his, nor does it mean anything or lead anywhere. comes out of it, and goes and meets a bunch of nobodies, and sees how their lives are screwed up. I kept suffering through this book, because I thought, that maybe I was not getting it, because, he is after-all such a renowned author. All I got from this book was, that the lives of those on the top of the beanstalk are just as screwed up as of those at the bottom of it, only difference being, the ones at the bottom preferred to be screwed up at the top :)

Sorry for such a negative review, but that's how I felt about it.

Naipaul truly has a gift. "Magic Seeds" follows a tale that not many would be willing to read yet it is highly captivating and enlightening. Reading this book one may think that the life of the protagonist is very different from theirs but his journey speaks to all those wishing to find their purpose in life and may have some difficulty in realizing exactly what that is. If we are not to careful about our decisions and the choices we make we may find ourselves exactly in his position.

Story about an Indian guy who can't find meaning -- he lives in Africa with a rich wife (this happens before the book starts), prodded by his sister he confusedly joins a small revolution in India and things go comically wrong there. The bad part is that there are zero funny parts to this book. The only thing interesting is the main character's unique viewpoint of life. Decent writing, but the book ends trying to be meaningful by saying that the thing that shouldn't be done is to try to map your life to one, single ideal -- duh.

I finished reading it. It was a trial to read. It’s either too subtle for me, or the author is riding on his own coattails.

This books is written wonderfully. Naipaul's descriptions of place and character are extraordinary. But the story of the the aimless (lost) Indian revolutionary reahes its peak in the jungles and prisons of India. When the story shifts back to London, after the misguided revolutionary is freed from prison, the narrative focus becomes fuzzy and the power of the story is lost.

To. me, an aimless plot. Liked his early work. This one uh, no.

Written beautifully, but with minimal engaging plotline; I just got bored after the first chapter or so. Wikipedia revealed there wasn’t much else to be expected for the rest of the book.

Even better than "Half A Life," for my money. The story of Willie Chandran continues and while he can be a maddening character - he is constantly looking for some ineffable quality in his life; forever unable or unwilling to accept where he is and prosper instead of constantly considering himself rootless - but an awful lot happens to a guy who thinks nothing is happening. In what amounts to a 2-volume fictional biography, we see Willie go from India to London to Africa to Germany, then back to India and then back to London where the action, so to speak, just sort of ends.
The section Willie spends with the guerrillas in India's teak forest and smaller towns is terrific. Willie's passive approach allows Naipaul to spin a tale laced with scenes of beauty and philosophical heft. At one point, "the movement" is losing: ground, stature, purpose. Willie quickly sees through the madness of these guerrillas and the personal bloodlust that motivates so many of them.
When he returns to London, the story stalls, very briefly, and then the last section switches to his oldest, most decent friend, Roger. Here Naipaul gets to riff on London's historical development and creeping decay.
Above all, both "Magic Seeds" and "Half A Life" have the remarkable quality of offering high art - beautiful scenes and writing; characters you come to know and care about; a penetrating look at the modern situation - while reading easily. Naipaul has what only the greats do: the ability to entertain and enlighten at once. Highly recommended.

Forgot to write a review when it was fresh in my mind, but I didn't like this at all. Other reviewers will give better criticism since they actually remember it.