This book was not my favorite, but it is also not even near being one of the worst books I've read. I just had a very hard time staying awake while reading this book (I actually missed two nights of tracking because I fell asleep while reading) due to its relatively dry subject matter and tediously paced plot. Thus, as you can probably derive from my previous statements, this book was a pretty slow read for me and what would've normally taken me 20 minutes to read, took me 40. I was just constantly catching myself either dozing off or letting my mind wander to other homework assignments I had to complete after I finished reading. However, vapidness aside, there were certain redeeming qualities about this novel as well. The actual writing itself was honorable, which I would expect from an author who has won the honor of a Nobel Prize in literature. The characters were also intriguing although at times it felt as though Naipaul was trying so hard to make them appear multi-dimensional that they lost all depth and simply became archetypes. Additionally, he did such a superb job of making me hate the father in the beginning that I couldn't seem to shake it, even in the portions where my hate was supposed to subside. Another redeeming quality was the setting as it took place in three different continents (Asia, Europe, and North America) so while the plot dragged, the reader was never bored with the location. This also allowed the reader to learn about the culture and landscape of each continent and how they differed from one another. Thus, all in all, this was not a bad book, it just wasn't a great one either.

I really enjoyed the first two thirds of the book. As an immigrant myself, I really identified with the themes of alienation, diaspora, identity, image and new beginnings. I also think Naipaul illustrates the absurdity of the Indian caste system and also importance of social class to certain societies really well.

I did not enjoy the last third of the book though because the focus shifted away from the protagonist and the narration focused on lots of side characters and their lives and the main themes got somewhat lost. In other words, the coherence of the text was gone. Also, the ending was a great disappoitment and I felt the story was left hanging right in the middle.

The book was published a good while ago and I've had it in my bookshelf for ages. Thus, the freshness of it took me by surprise. The great writers of our times often tell us stories about rootlessness, lack of meaning, race and power structures as if they were invented yesterday. Naipaul's smartly woven journey through space and time served as a gentle reminder of the loop-like nature of things. Sub sole nihil novum.

There seems to be a lot of commenting on the writer's personality. Not having the faintest idea about his personal history, I can only regard him as a very clever and skillful story teller.

For me, this book was an old-school colour atlas of blind spots, the subtle and often invisible borders between us.

تاريخ القراءة الاصلي : ٢٠٠٢

أظن أن كثيرا من جمال النص الأصلي تساقط مع الترجمة

I bought this book at our local library book sale. After glancing at the author's name and skimming through a few pages, I immediately felt an affinity. I had just finished "The Boys in the Boat" and "The God of Small Things". The setting in those two master pieces are in the 1930s and 60s respectively. "Half a life" takes place in the 50s. Perhaps, it's the time frame or the immigrant narrative -- I decided to buy it.

Turns out the author is a Nobel Laureate, so naturally I had high hopes.

After finishing it, I walked away disappointed. The story follows Willie's insipid life and his travails from place to place. It felt like the author was re-counting his own experiences (my hunch) in Willie but somehow fails to deliver a compelling narrative. The straightforward prose didn't do justice in engaging me either.

I do hope this novel is an aberration and not to be considered a barometer of the author's work.

One of the few Naipaul books I hadn't read so I was curious. The main character was pretty unlikeable. Extremely self-centered and disloyal, there isn't really anything positive to say about him. The historical context of the time and locations was interesting. The ending was extremely abrupt and left me reeling a bit.

3 stars for India; 2 stars for London; 4 stars for Africa

The protagonist goes to school and meets a woman from a lower caste, and then just sitting with her at a cafe invites potential violence from her family. Sure. Nevertheless, the India tale is OK, especially with a neat morality tale of a rich man in the past.

The London part is useless - dinner parties, banging his only friend's girl, getting a book published, walking past an Indian politician. Any chance that Naipaul had at writing a Big novel fell by the wayside here.

The unnamed former Portuguese colony in East Africa is the best part, with a multiracial wife who he never appears to be able to read in total, constant fear of coming in the wrong side of a revolution, living a life separated from your country and your culture

The main character was a fairly ineffectual and rather annoying individual. I felt no empathy for him and perhaps that is what the author is striving for. If so, he succeeded. Perhaps the protagonist is supposed to represent post colonial India, not yet knowing how to be independent and taking several wayward paths before realizing that to be independent you have to take your own path. Or maybe I'm grasping for straws here to somehow justify in my mind why this author is so lauded. The dehumanizing effects of the colonial life in Africa was the most interesting part of the novel. I will be reading other works by this author.

V.S. Naipaul fue premio Nobel de literatura en 2001 y esta fue la primera obra que publicó después de recibirlo: la historia de vida de Willie Chandran, un hombre que llega a la mitad de su vida después de haber vivido todo tipo de experiencias en tres continentes.

El libro es muy corto, pero tiene mucho contenido. La primera parte está dedicada a contar la historia del padre de Willie, un indio (de la India) que termina convirtiéndose por pura casualidad en un santo venerado; la segunda parte cuenta la experiencia de Wilie en Londres, en donde estudia, empieza a dedicarse a la literatura y conoce a una africana con la que se va a vivir a Mozambique, en donde transcurre la última parte del libro.

En cada una de estas partes Willie conoce a personas diferentes y vive experiencias particulares que lo llevan a tomar las decisiones que van definiendo su vida. La primera parte es divertida, irónica y satírica, porque el padre de Willie es todo un personaje y la India es el lugar perfecto para que pasen cosas curiosas. La segunda es reflexiva, de descubrimiento y en ella Willie vive la experiencia de la inmigración, enfrentándose con el hecho de pertenecer y no pertenecer que es propio de una vivencia de este tipo. La última parte es la más oscura; aunque inicialmente parece ser aquella en la que Willie va a encontrar la tranquilidad, resulta convirtiéndose en la más compleja, porque a sus situaciones personales se suma el hecho de vivir en un país colonizado y a punto de vivir la revolución que le dará la independencia.

La sensación que deja esta novela es extraña, es una sensación de insuficiencia, de historias sin terminar, en fin, de vidas incompletas.

Más en: https://vistoleidohecho.com/

Sometime in the late 90s Sir Vidia declared that the novel as we know it is dead. It has been supplanted by other forms of entertainment. And soon after he comes out with ‘Half a Life’. 
As someone who has admired his works. I was swept by the grace and simple beauty of ‘A House for Mr Biswas’. I was overwhelmed by the journey that I undertook with him in Among the believer and Beyond Belief. The Indian trilogy has shocked and enlightened me in equal measure. I did provide me with an alternative way of viewing at my people.
 
And so when Sir Vidia after declaring the death of the novel brings out Half a life (at 228 pages it is not onerous), I was intrigued.
 
Half a life evokes among other things the conflicting identities of the colonised people.
Willie Chandran, the protagonist, is born out of an unusual wedlock between a high caste father and a low caste mother. Half a Life charts his journey of reinvention upon reinvention in quest of a life that he so strongly desires. This takes him from post colonial India to England, Portuguese outpost in Africa and finally to an empty life inGermany. Willie’s constant struggle to deny his true self and give himself new selves is never fully successful.  In the end with a failed marriage behind him, Willie ends up in Germany with his sister who herself has been on a similar quest.
 
The story at its core is evocative. But it never seems to be rooted anywhere. Willie Chandran is from India. But he leaves it at that. Names – of places and languages – give a solid anchor to a story. There give a sense of connection or empathy for the reader. Sadly Naipaul never gives us that.
 
The following quotes prove this. Wilie’s father says, “My grandfather knew no English.  He knew Hindi and the language of his region.”
 
And while describing a visit to his half brother-in-law in the un-named African Portugal colony, Willie says, “Without looking at Ana he talked to her in a kind of mixed local language which was not easy for me to follow. She replied in the same language.”
 
 
Naipaul never fully succeeds in evoking sympathy for Willie. The ideas of conflicting identities are not fully explored. The quaint style of writing instead of adding charm to the tale only seems to hamper it. But Sir Vidia being Sir Vidia does succeed in giving us his  insight into a few things rather sardonically.
 
About sex and Indian attitudes to it Naipaul, obviously through his character Willie, is rather blunt.
 
“The trouble is that I don’t know how to go out and get a girl on my own. No one trained me in that. I don’t know how to make a pass at a stranger, when to touch a girl or hold her hand or try to kiss her. When my father told me his life story and talked about his sexual incompetence I mocked him. I was a child then. Now I discover I am like my poor father. All men should train their sons in the art of seduction. But in our culture there is no seduction. Our marriages are arranged. There is no art of sex. Some of the boys here talk to me about Kama Sutra. Nobody talked to me about that at home. It was a upper-caste text, but I don’t believe my poor father, Brahmin though he is, ever looked at a copy. That philosophical, practical way of dealing with sex belongs to our past, and that world was ravaged and destroyed by the Muslims. Now we live like incestuous little animals in a hole. We grope all our female relations and are always full of shame. Nobody talked about sex and seduction at home, but I discover now that it is the fundamental skill all men should be trained in.”

This is something that is so very true.
 
And later, “Sex comes to us in different ways; it alters us; and I suppose in the end we carry the nature of our experience on our faces.”
 
I fully agree Sir Vidia. These words more than make up for the shortcomings of the larger story.
 
After having declared that the novel is dead, Naipaul has brought out two novels (Half a life and Magic Seeds).
 
Sir Vidia, we don't mind it. We are rather thrilled!
 
As for Half a Life. I cannot quite make up my mind. I found it half baked. Yet I was not disappointed. And well there were a few gems in the book that more than made my day.
 
(I haven't yet read Magic Seeds. I will be putting a review as soon as I have read it)

In this book, Naipaul displays his talent for portraying genuine characters and getting us to sincerely sympathize with them, and thus suffer with them as a consequence of their weakness. The sickness of family, social, national, ethnic, and cultural relationships are all on display, and no one is spared from the low-simmering misery and spiritual oppression that appears to be the universal human condition, at least as perceived from the subjective view of the protagonist. But he wouldn't put it that way. He has a highly conflicted and incomplete self-image.

The cynicism isn't as raw and harsh as we see in A House for Mr. Biswas (my only other point of reference for Naipaul's writing so far), but the novel has a kind of relative maturity in the way that desperation of circumstance is downplayed, while the character's plight is more defined by his anxiety, lack of self-esteem, and absence of a foundation of ethics. Son of a sham, son of a cold-bastard even, he's got all of the childish innocence and idealism somewhere inside him, but this aspect of his personality is sort of taken for a ride by his more aimless, callous, and even amoral side which tends to dominate his decision making... and he doesn't even really know why.

There's a lot of truth in this book, and there's also a lot of personality. There is a unique perspective. There some things (warfare, for example) which seem genuine at the same time that they are presented in a way I have never experienced before.

No book has ever made me laugh as much as half a life. There was a point ( the story of King Cassota and the beggar queen by Wily ) when I closed the book, sat staring at the wall and laughed my heart out.

Half a life is the tale of Wily, the son of a brahmin who (without any wish whatever) marries a girl of lower caste. And thus begin the travails of Wily.

It has all the ingredients of a characteristic Naipaul novel; a classic satire on the Indian society. Full of anecdotes and dark comedy