In a narrative that moves with dreamlike swiftness from India to England to Africa, Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul has produced his finest novel to date, a bleakly resonant study of the fraudulent bargains that make up an identity. The son of a Brahmin ascetic and his lower-caste wife, Willie Chandran grows up sensing the hollowness at the core of his father's self-denial and vowing to live more authentically. That search takes him to the immigrant and literary bohemias of 1950s London, to a facile and unsatisfying career as a writer, and at last to a decaying Portugese colony in East Africa, where he finds a happiness he will then be compelled to betray. Brilliantly orchestrated, at once elegiac and devastating in its portraits of colonial grandeur and pretension, Half a Life represents the pinnacle of Naipaul's career.
toryah1988 has added Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix to their read list.
toryah1988 has added Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire to their read list.
toryah1988 has added Atonement to their read list.
toryah1988 has added New Moon (The Twilight Saga) to their read list.
Monica has added The Da Vinci Code (Large Print) to their wish list.