A House for Mr Biswas | Suggested Reading

A House for Mr Biswas Related Titles

A House for Mr Biswas is a more mature and assured work than Naipaul's earlier novels, which are lighter in tone and more comic. Part of the reason for the complexity of A House for Mr Biswas is its narrative point of view. Although the narration is in the third person, the "Prologue" and "Epilogue" have a more personal quality, almost as if Anand were telling the story. Unlike Naipaul's earlier novels where the comedy is external, the comic element in A House for Mr Biswas is more internal and connected to the title character.

The comic humiliations of Mohun are both funny and sad. As Mohun moves from an extended to a nuclear family, from country to city, from a traditional culture to Western values, one is not certain whether to applaud his individuality or to laugh at him and censure his selfishness. He is comic butt,...
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