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. ( )

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.

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. ( )

'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. ( )

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. ( )