Really disappointing, it sounded like such an interesting book. The writing was so bland, and maybe that’s the point, but it wasn’t compelling or gripping. The actual subject matter was interesting, it just could have been executed and written soooo much better. Felt like there no was point to it? I skimmed it towards the end.

It's easy to see why Naipaul (and Half a Life) upset people. It reads like the thinly veiled confessional of a man who blames the zeitgeist for his personal failings. It's a refreshing brand of post-colonial literature that doesn't focus as much on the storied shortcomings of the colonialists as on the buy-in from sections of the colonised. It's not fair, even-handed or historically principled but it does home on the pernicious influence of class, caste and colour in the human mind. It's highly readable but feels relentless with only occasional asterisk breaking up the dense paragraphs of Willie Chandran's recollections. Bravely and beautifully written, it hints at dark corners in Naipaul's personality and private life.

About 50 pages into this one, I realized I didn't really like it much. Hoping it would get better (after all, it did win a Nobel for literature), I forced myself to plow on. Sadly, it was all but impossible for me to enjoy the story of this insufferably spineless protagonist and his exceptionally uneventful life.

When NY Times reviewer John Chamberlain panned Green Hills of Africa he noted the dialogue, so poetically functional in Hemingway's other major works, was simplified almost to a style of self parody. Instead of being employed as a tool to develop the international cast of characters, everyone from an illiterate local gun bearers to a cosmopolitan German fanboy talks like an imitation of the hero from "A Farewell to Arms."

Half a Life, is similarly pared away. You have the features of a V.S. Naipaul book; a frank catalog of sexual self-discovery, a vagabond Indian of indeterminate caste, allusions to kerosene lanterns and dust, a lonely disillusionment of post-war London, and a calm prose to make the exotic seem familiar. But there's little more. It's difficult on first reading to figure out of if this is because Naipaul is becoming more expert in efficiency or if he is simply recycling. Naipaul and is his main protagonist, Willie Chandran, flit from country to country, relationship to relationship without much tenderness or attention to bringing characters alive beyond what is necessary to populate his striking scenes.

I can't say the book wasn't entertaining, lacked truth, or was unpleasant to read. I can't say I haven't found myself thinking of my own vagabond nature, thinking of all the ways we bring ideas and plans in our life for brief flashes of time, just barely long enough to populate our actions with borrowed meaning. But I can't recommend the book. Read his earlier work.