A review by j_m_alexander
Miguel Street by V.S. Naipaul

3.25

A stranger could drive through Miguel Street and just say “Slum!” because he could see no more. But we who lived there saw our street as a world, where everybody was quite different from everybody else. Man-man was mad; George was stupid; Big Foot was a bully; Hat was an adventurer; Popo was a philosopher; and Morgan was our comedian.

You want a book that is earnest and enjoyable with the pace being right quick, quick? - well you came to right place. This be a collection of vignettes through the eyes of a short pants playing at being a man. It's a collection of characters, but it also be a description of a place and time - it paint a picture real good good. 

My apologies, I know I just butchered the Trinidad dialect, probably making it sound dumb and clunky, but honestly to my mind that is how it read at first. Like most books that are written in dialect though, with time you catch the rhythm, beat, and patterns, and soon you will find yourself engrossed, not just comprehending the words but hearing the earnest voices. This is the type of writing that transports the reader, using language to introduce unfamiliar culture that can be accomplished in really no other way. This book begs you to get to know the people, while not judging them; to become friendly, but never to fall in love.

This book does some amazing work in a short period. It is a shallow dive, but an enjoyable one. I think before the end you not only see the street our narrator grew up on, but you can also imagine how the appearance changed for our narrator as he aged. The writing and the characters are nothing if not colorful and vivid, but they are also brief and thus somewhat static. I can not help but think that there is also something of a staleness about the entire neighborhood by the end, a loss of hope for most of the inhabitants and yet most of the book is filled with lively activity, even if it isn't always pleasant.