The Enigma of Arrival
by V.S. Naipaul
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A perfect example of writing that feels very staid and traditional until, about half way through the book, you pick your head up and realize that it's doing something completely original. Not exactly fiction, not exactly non-ficiton (not exactly poetry for that matter), but filled with lush sentences that relay the slow, unstoppable movemements of a vegetative mind, Naipaul's, thinking about a particular place and a particular time so well that the meditation becomes about Place and Time, rather...more
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I think this book may win the award as the most boring book I have ever read in my life. Hats off, I guess, to this superlative achievement. If you're going to suck, you might as well suck hard and long. Mr. Naipaul, I salute you. You've proven that Nobel committee is as inept as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. No matter what exceptional art humanity may endeavor to create, there will always be committees, award panels, and critics to bring us back to this kind of pretentious al...more
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Read in March, 2007
This is a curious book because, in the end, nothing much happens in it. But to me it is the best Naipaul I have read besides A Turn in the South, and the best one at unpacking his conflicted feelings of self without the kind of self- and other-loathing that plagues his travels to the Caribbean and India. For anyone who has traveled in countryside of England, or feels torn between where one is from and where one is/wants to be, I think this is a surprisingly marvelous read.
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I just love the title of this half fiction half memoir by V.S. Naipaul. Apparently it's named after a famous, old painting. The novel itself though is neither engrossing nor "enigmatic"; it's enigmatic only in the sense that it's not clear what it's about. I enjoyed the novel most when Naipaul wrote about his life before coming to England, and his hopes and dreams and struggles to become a writer. Parts of the novel are beautifully written, though.
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Recommended by my sister in laws uncle. So far- the first chapter was boring at first but then I realized it was absolutely brilliant. I don't think you can explain it. I think you have to read it to get it. I also think you have to be it. Like seriously, be it. I don't think I've ever really read anything like this, that was too smart for me and at the same time I intuitively "get". Good ol' VS Naipalm! Blowing me away.
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Read in May, 2008
He hems inside a cyclical narrative narrative happenings which are descriptive, thus converting the descriptive – which abounds– in its principal deliberative strategy.
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No real plot to speak of but still absorbing. That's quite a trick. Avoid this if you're put off by extended descriptions of the English countryside.
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Flat - that's the best word to describe how I felt while reading this book. It's unbelievably repetitious. I have nothing good to say about it
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To be fair, I didn't finish reading this book. I just couldn't get past the first hundred pages. Frankly, I was bored. It went nowhere.
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Dense, stimulating, reflective...a book of constant reminders, but little else.
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Read in September, 2002
recommends it for:
anyone.
How to ponder. It's a beautiful slow mediation of a book.
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