When an ordinary man moves to another
state within his country, he faces a situation which could be either a boon or
curse in his life. In that case, I just imagined the condition of our fellow
man when he leaves behind our country with all his traditional values and
ethics, and goes to totally a different land. In such case, a thirst of
curiosity to know about his life in new land, whether it changes for better or
worse is my inspiration to read this novel Half a Life by V S Naipaul.
V.S.Naipaul long ago
declared the novel dead. But Half a Life, his study of inner exile and post
–colonial chaos is a novel-and it proves him wrong, -Jason Cowley
The story is set
in the recent times after the independence of India. The protagonist of this
novel is Willie Somerset Chandran. I can see that his mind and thoughts were
influenced to join Christian missionaries in Canada when he studied in a
mission school. All his imaginations vanished when he saw a missionary magazine
having its cover where a priest was standing with one foot on a statue of
Buddha. This marks the reason as how he changed his mind from moving to Canada.
As a result of his father’s Endeavour’s, Willie got
scholarship in a college of education in London. Willie had no idea on London
except his fantasies of the Hollywood films of the thirties and forties that he
had seen at the mission school. I can see Willie’s first disappointment in
London when events happened in contrary to what he expected. For example, he
expected the place Speaker’s Corner to have big, radical, shouting crowds but
he saw only idle scatter of people around half a dozen talkers, with big buses
and the cars rolling indifferently by all the time.
In London, Willie did not want to use his father’s name
and so he neglected the name his father gave him to have touch with, except the
writer after whom he had been named. He wrote letter to the writer and to a
journalist. At first he got reply from the journalist who asked Willie to meet
him in the newspaper office. Here I feel that the protagonist in the new land
began to expand in his narrow society. Further In the office, from journalist
conversations I came to know that the journalist didn’t like independent India.
Willie’s new feel or a kind of freedom which he could not find in his native
place is well seen. He re-made himself and his past. He made his mother, who
actually belonged to a low caste, as a Christian and he kept his father as
Brahmin himself and his grandfather as ‘courtier’. Remaking himself makes me
clear that Willie was excited and felt a kind of power in him.
The new confidence drew people to him and one of them was
Percy Cato, a Negro, who introduced the real England society to Willie. Through
the character of Percy Cato, I understand that author reveals the immigration
life of Africans well. African girls in the new land became whores for their
survival even though they have better job. For example, Percy Cato’s girlfriend
June who was working in a perfume counter but still had relationship with
Willie. Percy also worked as real estate business apart from his studies.
Through his job, I can see the struggles of the immigrants whom are lighted up
and difficulty for them in finding a proper place to live. The native people
found it hard to give their houses for rent to immigrants especially blacks (it
includes both Africans and Indians).
From the voice of Richard, I can clearly find out the
history of African immigrants in short. Richard said once that when a Negro
heiress lived in London, she would be in a great demand and later in a couple
of generations her gene would be changed to white. This shows me how African or
Negro lost in the white population also this idea is openly accepted by an old
Negro man who waited and wished for opening his bank account in a white
people’s bank where blacks were restricted. Another character Marcus, the west
Indian West African, said that during eighteenth century , there were half a
million black people in England and all disappeared in local population. His
friend, a French woman, wanted Marcus to visit her home town but was very worried
about what her people would think of him.
In the second half of the novel I can see the mixed races
in Africa .Willie did not belong to any of these but I feel that he became Indo
African in that society. At the end of the novel the reason for the war fever
which spreaded to vacate Non –Africans to move out of Africa and Willie’s
Alienation in Africa at this time is clearly understood. When he decided to
join his sister Sarojini, Willie was shocked on hearing her husband has
deserted her. But her survival in the new land which is out of the range for
any typical Indian Brahmin girl and her change from saree to jeans shows me the
brave side of Sarojini apart from her origin.
As an average reader, I
like this book which comprises of alienation, losing and gaining of identity,
striving to assimilate in the new land; England and Africa, emptiness of life,
pre- and post-independence of India, war in Africa and its effects and racial discrimination that non-white people
under go in the host country.
Some memorable lines which I like to quote are:
·
“His ignorance seemed to widen with everything
he read.”
·
“Life doesn't have a neat beginning and a tidy
end, life is always going on. You should begin in the middle and end in the middle, and it should
be all there.”
·
“I could scarcely bear to look at her eyes. They promised such
intimacies.”
I happily
recommend this book HALF A LIFE for readers who need some basics in Diaspora. Though it has few problems,
including some stilted dialogue and a scrambled, distracting chronology,
Naipaul’s style made it so frank .The intimate and awful characters are studied
and well crafted.
·
My rating of the book based on its plot, characterization, and
language is 6.5 out of 10.
- - Kumara Sethupathi
- - Kumara Sethupathi
