Reviews

The Enigma of Arrival by V.S. Naipaul

sgenheden's review against another edition

challenging informative slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

esquiredtoread's review against another edition

2.0

I’m just not one of literary novels, I think. But I try haha. I keep trying.

Trinidad book around the world.

I’m going to power through and try to get as many of my Book around the World challenge as I can these 2 months as I can.

lalybernard's review against another edition

5.0

I did my research thesis in comparative literature on this book (with Patrick Chamoiseau's La matière de l'absence). This novel is so subtle and clever !

maria_hossain's review against another edition

1.0

Update: I finished it!!! I count this as one of my biggest achievements of 2k19, not because I love it, far from it, I hate this book and I'm in awe of myself to have finished a book I hated since page 01.

Never ever ever gonna pick it up. Nope. Neverrrrr.


Previous review:
Why is this so long??? I only finished Jack's Garden section. The Journey is so loooooooong

lovmelovmycats's review

2.0

So boring. It could have won the Pulitzer Prize for SO BORING if there was one.

esquiredtoread's review

2.0

I’m just not one of literary novels, I think. But I try haha. I keep trying.

Trinidad book around the world.

I’m going to power through and try to get as many of my Book around the World challenge as I can these 2 months as I can.

thebobsphere's review

3.0

Back in the early 00’s I had read two V.S. Naipaul books ; A House for Mr. Biswas – which is brilliant and A Bend in the River – which I enjoyed. It is a pity that I didn’t really like ‘The Enigma of Arrival’

The book itself is a semi autobiographical account of the author’s experiences in England, in both the city and country. As Naipaul is a fine writer, there are tons of evocative descriptions.

However what was needed was humour.

Now Naipaul can be funny – … Biswas is a fine comedy of manners so if there’s a right person to talk about people’s quirks it’s definitely Naipaul but he just dedicates pages to descriptions and barely anything else. now and then there are parts dedicated to eccentric characters but he renders these specimens to dull descriptions. By the end of the book I was a little tired of being bombarded by lengthy passages on how to mow a lawn.

renny's review

4.0

The Enigma of Arrival is about the ephemerality of context. Naipaul’s awareness and maturity grows over the course of his mostly autobiographical musings on change, aging and death as he observes life like a crow circling a field on an updraft, always higher, seeing the same things again and again but with the awareness of his previous self below.

It’s like Thomas Bernhard without the cynicism, humor or irony, and that’s a good thing, but it does feel depressing at times without them. The story would bore me were it not so splendidly written. The book stands on passage after passage of brilliant writing.

My first Naipaul, looking forward to reading more. I marked this one up quite a lot and will probably reread it.

markp's review

3.0

A pleasant ramble and a deep consideration of what it means to be a foreigner. Plot-wise, almost nothing happens. It is more an account of daily life in the English countryside for a Trinidadian who is a barely fictionalized version of Naipaul himself.