The Enigma of Arrival, by V.S. Naipaul

[Jamie]

In this fictionalized memoir, an author leaves his home on the Island of Trinidad to attend university in England and to become a writer. He starts out as many young people do, assuming that as a teenager he knows all he needs to know to judge the world and the people around him, and to write profound things from the wealth of his understanding. The novel is centered not around this younger man, but on his middle-aged self living in a cottage on the grounds of an English manor that is so far still mostly intact, but is showing signs of the financial strain and social pressure that often break up these large estates. The author at first settles into the nice illusion that the English countryside around him is timeless, but after a while he begins to recognize how artificially constructed or at least temporary the countryside he appreciates really is. Things in fact change rather constantly, and in sometimes drastic ways, and it is only because he and some of those around him stay put that they can recognize the constant flux around them. And, perhaps than, the author is also not as permanent and unchanging as he feels himself to be.
I got a bit bogged down midway in this book, but overall I did enjoy this one, and I certainly found the themes satisfying- gardening, the ways people and communities change over time, and how orderly spaces decay over time and are sometimes reinvented by new people once these spaces lose the value they once held in their earlier states.
I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads.

[Kristel]

This semi autobiographical, travel journal, historical, social commentary, how to write a novel book. V.S.Naipaul creates a story that does all of the above. The main character is a young man from Trinidad who decides he will be a writer and he goes to England to become this author.

Structure: Book in 5 parts but it is not linear. It loops from place to place, past to present, present to future. As a reader I found myself having thoughts of "have we been here before? Did I lose my place because this all seems familiar. It is somewhat disorienting. The novel is named after the the art work of Giorgio de Chirico. The scene is of a cityscape but behind the wall is unknown but we see an old ship mast and in front of the wall there are 2 alienated figures. One figure is going and the other is coming. It is rather bleak picture and Naipaul references this picture.

Themes are the journey, arrival, dislocation and alienation. Another theme is change. Over all it was enjoyable but not engaging. I can appreciate the quality of the work. Naipaul is truly a great author deserving of accolades.

another interesting tidbit; the landlord is modeled after Stephen Tennat (1906 to 1987), a 1920s socialite. He also is used as model in E. Waugh's novels, Cedric Hampton in Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford.
Rating 3.4 stars

[Valerie]

read Feb. 2022

I listened to this book as narrated by Simon Vance. My goodness, I loved this book essentially from the first sentence. It’s to explain exactly why, since there are elements that probably annoy me in another author’s hands. The narrative is circular and slow moving, but this was effective because this was the narrator/the author gaining a deeper understanding of the seemingly unchanging English country life he was observing, and so allowed us a deeper insight. I particularly enjoyed the narrator’s close observation of the environment around him. This book reads more like (and apparently is) an autobiography than a novel. 5*