I have read Naipaul’s books drenched with fetching travel accounts, especially his African tales. This was my third fiction from the author. Though by the time I am posting my thoughts on this book, I have already read a few more novels and non-fiction by the author. I guess I am getting intimate here. But when I was starting on this book, I was under the impression initially that it will be yet another sort of travelogue-type, but it turned out to be a fictitious short story collection. I am using the word travelogue –type, because I don’t know why, every time I read about the brief of his new book, it gives a sort of ‘predisposed globe-trotting feel’ in my mind. This is an inhabited thing since a young age.
“Look, boys, it ever strike you that the world not real at all? It ever strike you that we have the only mind in the world and you just thinking up everything else? Like me here, having the only mind in the world, and thinking up you people here, thinking up the war and all the houses and the ships and them in the harbour. That ever cross your mind?”
But when I ended the book I even fancied I was perhaps reading a novel. The book had been written in a very distinct style. All the stories are though distinct, in the end, we find that these stories were interconnected. There is a recognizable pattern of relatedness. A common narrator tells the stories of multiple characters in each chapter. All characters are very interesting. If you will read the introduction of each of these characters, there are high chances you will chuckle sometimes and their portrayal in the author’s style is enough to get you to bust a gut. They are laughable. Some of them are as cool as a cucumber.
These characters are flawed and they all live in the same street. ‘Bogart’ is a unique character you will find in the beginning. ‘Popo’, the carpenter is another interesting one. ‘George’ is short and fat and keeps muttering to himself. George briefly runs a brothel of sorts. There was a man called ‘Man-man’, everybody said he was mad. He had some curious habits. He participated in the election every time and always got 3 votes, one was his own but who were the other two? That question remained for long. A character named ‘Big Foot’ was like those dogs, which never bark but look at you through the corner of their eyes. He was big and always silent, his silence scared the people. There is one uncle, ‘Uncle Bhakcu’, who is considered educated. But he is educated not in the book, but in something else. He is called a ‘mechanical genius’.
Men in Miguel Street are considered with high repute if they are adventures. To show their manliness some men take the route of adventure and entertainment to the reader follows. There are a few interesting women characters too in Miguel street, they bring life to the community there. Laura and Miss Hilton are the prominent ones. If I go to the timeline, this was only the third book of Naipaul and written two years later than his first book ‘a mystic masseur’. If I compare it with his first book, the language and both comic sense have been noticed by me, as getting better.
This is a very unique book and I liked the way it has been written. These characters and the comic sense have made this book such an entertaining read, but it also shows the community values and belief in the street. I will call this book a ‘slapstick humor‘. If you are a short story lover, you must try it. I will highly recommend this book to those who have yet not read any fiction of the author, I will say, go with this book first. In my opinion, this is a very charming book with endearing prose.
“We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.”
― J.K. Rowling
“If ever my life can be of any use to you, come and claim it.”
― Anton Chekhov
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