IniciGrupsConversesMésTendències
Cerca al lloc
Aquest lloc utilitza galetes per a oferir els nostres serveis, millorar el desenvolupament, per a anàlisis i (si no has iniciat la sessió) per a publicitat. Utilitzant LibraryThing acceptes que has llegit i entès els nostres Termes de servei i política de privacitat. L'ús que facis del lloc i dels seus serveis està subjecte a aquestes polítiques i termes.

Resultats de Google Books

Clica una miniatura per anar a Google Books.

Half a Life: A Novel de V.S. Naipaul
S'està carregant…

Half a Life: A Novel (2001 original; edició 2002)

de V.S. Naipaul

MembresRessenyesPopularitatValoració mitjanaMencions
1,4942412,057 (3.13)60
In a narrative that moves with dreamlike swiftness from India to England to Africa, Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul has produced his finest novel to date, a bleakly resonant study of the fraudulent bargains that make up an identity. The son of a Brahmin ascetic and his lower-caste wife, Willie Chandran grows up sensing the hollowness at the core of his father's self-denial and vowing to live more authentically. That search takes him to the immigrant and literary bohemias of 1950s London, to a facile and unsatisfying career as a writer, and at last to a decaying Portuguese colony in East Africa, where he finds a happiness he will then be compelled to betray. Brilliantly orchestrated, at once elegiac and devastating in its portraits of colonial grandeur and pretension, Half a Life represents the pinnacle of Naipaul's career.… (més)
Membre:martella
Títol:Half a Life: A Novel
Autors:V.S. Naipaul
Informació:Vintage (2002), Paperback, 224 pages
Col·leccions:La teva biblioteca
Valoració:
Etiquetes:Cap

Informació de l'obra

Una Vida malaguanyada de V. S. Naipaul (2001)

S'està carregant…

Apunta't a LibraryThing per saber si aquest llibre et pot agradar.

No hi ha cap discussió a Converses sobre aquesta obra.

» Mira també 60 mencions

Anglès (19)  Francès (2)  Búlgar (1)  Italià (1)  Noruec (1)  Totes les llengües (24)
Es mostren 1-5 de 24 (següent | mostra-les totes)
am a great Naipaul fan. I have been, ever since I read A House for Mr Biswas. But Half a Life was disappointing. It doesn't hold together well, the ending is abrupt and I didn't get the point. Very disappointing. ( )
  kjuliff | Feb 9, 2023 |
No rating for this one because I loved the writing style but was so bored with the story. I wish more authors realized how few words one needs to convey meaning if only the right words are used. What an impressive piece of craftsmanship.
  sgwordy | Dec 31, 2022 |
Pretty engaging story of a man looking for his place and the challenges of being unmoored. Travels from very isolated, provincial life to the immigrant life in London, trying to define his talents, his masculinity, and his world view. He is almost aimless until a woman reads his stories and makes him feel understood. He cleaves to her, without having any clear direction, and follows her to Colonial Africa. There he learns the difference between feeling understood and feeling desired. ( )
  brianstagner | Aug 1, 2022 |
'Half a Life' is an extraordinary novel, packing in more events and locations than one would think possible in something only 240 pages long, and yet there is no sense of the story ever being rushed.

Willy Chandran, named in honour of W. Somerset Maugham, grows up in unusual circumstances in India. His father married a low-caste woman in protest to his own life and situation, and lived ever to regret his decision. His children too must regret the lives they have had forced upon them; Willy at least is able to escape to university in London on a scholarship, though even here he cannot escape his half-and-half background. He writes a novel that soon disappears from view, though not before it has attracted the attention of biracial Ana, who he marries and lives with in Africa in the years leading up to the independence of the former Portuguese colony.

The title of this novel works in different respects. Willy always feels like no more than half of what he should, thanks to his father's earlier approach to life. He is mixed caste - half of one, and half of another. He meets others whose predicaments are similar, including Ana, but their relationship doesn't last, and, having lived half of his life, he escapes to stay with his sister in Berlin, then only half a city, divided by the wall.

The characters are all well-drawn and endlessly fascinating. Indeed, you could argue that there is a lot of Maugham in this novel. Not only does the story open with the great writer meeting Willy's father at his temple, looking for material for the book that would become The Razor's Edge, the tone of the book and its exploration of the psychology of sex has many Maughamesque overtones. The appearance of the real-life writer in this fictionalised setting is handled with sensitivity by Naipaul, just as he handles well those characters of disparate background that we meet along the way.

All in all, a triumph of a book. I've now read several books of Naipaul's, and loved each and every one of them. ( )
  soylentgreen23 | Apr 5, 2021 |
Not super memorable. A bit sluggish if I recall correctly. I finished it a week or so ago and haven't retained much of it. ( )
  dllh | Jan 6, 2021 |
Es mostren 1-5 de 24 (següent | mostra-les totes)
''Half a Life,'' the fierce new novel by V. S. Naipaul, the new Nobel laureate, is one of those rare books that stands as both a small masterpiece in its own right and as a potent distillation of the author's work to date, a book that recapitulates all his themes of exile, postcolonial confusion, third world angst, and filial love and rebellion while recounting with uncommon elegance and acerbity the story of the coming of age of its hero, Willie Chandran.
 

» Afegeix-hi altres autors (10 possibles)

Nom de l'autorCàrrecTipus d'autorObra?Estat
Naipaul, V. S.autor primaritotes les edicionsconfirmat
Verhaart, MarianneTraductorautor secundarialgunes edicionsconfirmat

Pertany a aquestes col·leccions editorials

Té una guia d'estudi per a estudiants

Has d'iniciar sessió per poder modificar les dades del coneixement compartit.
Si et cal més ajuda, mira la pàgina d'ajuda del coneixement compartit.
Títol normalitzat
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès. Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
Títol original
Títols alternatius
Informació del coneixement compartit en neerlandès. Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
Data original de publicació
Gent/Personatges
Llocs importants
Esdeveniments importants
Pel·lícules relacionades
Epígraf
Dedicatòria
Primeres paraules
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès. Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
Willie Chandran asked his father one day, "Why is my middle name Somerset?"
Citacions
Darreres paraules
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès. Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
Nota de desambiguació
Editor de l'editorial
Creadors de notes promocionals a la coberta
Llengua original
Informació del coneixement compartit en neerlandès. Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
CDD/SMD canònics
LCC canònic

Referències a aquesta obra en fonts externes.

Wikipedia en anglès (2)

In a narrative that moves with dreamlike swiftness from India to England to Africa, Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul has produced his finest novel to date, a bleakly resonant study of the fraudulent bargains that make up an identity. The son of a Brahmin ascetic and his lower-caste wife, Willie Chandran grows up sensing the hollowness at the core of his father's self-denial and vowing to live more authentically. That search takes him to the immigrant and literary bohemias of 1950s London, to a facile and unsatisfying career as a writer, and at last to a decaying Portuguese colony in East Africa, where he finds a happiness he will then be compelled to betray. Brilliantly orchestrated, at once elegiac and devastating in its portraits of colonial grandeur and pretension, Half a Life represents the pinnacle of Naipaul's career.

No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca.

Descripció del llibre
Sumari haiku

Debats actuals

Cap

Cobertes populars

Dreceres

Valoració

Mitjana: (3.13)
0.5 2
1 12
1.5 2
2 22
2.5 8
3 64
3.5 22
4 46
4.5 3
5 11

Ets tu?

Fes-te Autor del LibraryThing.

 

Quant a | Contacte | LibraryThing.com | Privadesa/Condicions | Ajuda/PMF | Blog | Botiga | APIs | TinyCat | Biblioteques llegades | Crítics Matiners | Coneixement comú | 203,230,357 llibres! | Barra superior: Sempre visible