Once in a while, I come across a book that gives me hangover for days after finishing it. One such book is the first work of V.S. Naipaul – A House of Mr. Biswas.
I had bought it almost three years ago but I kept putting off reading it because I thought it would be tedious to read almost 500 pages book about a man trying to buy a house of his own. How wrong I was.
This book starts with protagonist’s birth and ends with his death. Once I had read some pages, it gave a Dickens vibe to me and I love Dicken’s works. But that is not why I loved this book. It’s a masterpiece on its own, about a man living in Trinidad of Indian origin. The words paint a vivid picture of his life, his marriage, about his wife and her family, his children and all of their struggles and the book radiates a warmth but also at times helpless of life of those characters. The characters are from Trinidad but their Indian-ness strikes chords. The way Naipaul captured emotions and dynamics of relationships is amazing and the subtlety with which he delivers them in his words – is something to both ponder about and learn from.
I am still in a kind of hangover, not able to get out of the mood of this book even though I have started another book. I keep thinking and even feeling about this one. I feel amazed to think that from not knowing what to expect from this book when I had bought it, it has become one of my most favourite books of all time.