1976, ISBN: 9780140030259

Penguin Books. Very Good. 4.33 x 0.91 x 7.09 inches. Paperback. 1976. 592 pages. <br>The early masterpiece of V. S. Naipaul's brilliant career, A House for Mr. Biswasis an unfo… More...

Penguin Books. Very Good. 4.33 x 0.91 x 7.09 inches. Paperback. 1976. 592 pages. <br>The early masterpiece of V. S. Naipaul's brilliant career, A House for Mr. Biswasis an unforgettable story inspired by Naipaul's father that has been hailed as one of the twentieth century's finest novels. n nIn his forty-six short years, Mr. Mo hun Biswas has been fighting against destiny to achieve some semb lance of independence, only to face a lifetime of calamity. Shutt led from one residence to another after the drowning death of his father, for which he is inadvertently responsible, Mr. Biswas ye arns for a place he can call home. But when he marries into the d omineering Tulsi family on whom he indignantly becomes dependent, Mr. Biswas embarks on an arduous-and endless-struggle to weaken their hold over him and purchase a house of his own. A heartrendi ng, dark comedy of manners, A House for Mr. Biswas masterfully ev okes a man's quest for autonomy against an emblematic post-coloni al canvas. n nEditorial Reviews n nReview nNaipaul has constructe d a marvelous prose epic that matches the best nineteenth-century novels for richness of comic insight and final, tragic power.-Ne wsweek n nExcerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved . nI. Pastoral n nShortly before he was born there had been anoth er quarrel between Mr Biswas's mother Bipti and his father Raghu, and Bipti had taken her three children and walked all the way in the hot sun to the village where her mother Bissoondaye lived. T here Bipti had cried and told the old story of Raghu's miserlines s: how he kept a check on every cent he gave her, counted every b iscuit in the tin, and how he would walk ten miles rather than pa y a cart a penny. n nBipti's father, futile with asthma, propped himself up on his string bed and said, as he always did on unhapp y occasions, 'Fate. There is nothing we can do about it.' n nNo o ne paid him any attention. Fate had brought him from India to the sugar-estate, aged him quickly and left him to die in a crumblin g mud hut in the swamplands; yet he spoke of Fate often and affec tionately, as though, merely by surviving, he had been particular ly favoured. n nWhile the old man talked on, Bissoondaye sent for the midwife, made a meal for Bipti's children and prepared beds for them. When the midwife came the children were asleep. Some ti me later they were awakened by the screams of Mr Biswas and the s hrieks of the midwife. n n'What is it?' the old man asked. 'Boy o r girl?' n n'Boy, boy,' the midwife cried. 'But what sort of boy? Six-fingered, and born in the wrong way.' n nThe old man groaned and Bissoondaye said, 'I knew it. There is no luck for me.' n nA t once, though it was night and the way was lonely, she left the hut and walked to the next village, where there was a hedge of ca ctus. She brought back leaves of cactus, cut them into strips and hung a strip over every door, every window, every aperture throu gh which an evil spirit might enter the hut. n nBut the midwife s aid, 'Whatever you do, this boy will eat up his own mother and fa ther.' n nThe next morning, when in the bright light it seemed th at all evil spirits had surely left the earth, the pundit came, a small, thin man with a sharp satirical face and a dismissing man ner. Bissoondaye seated him on the string bed, from which the old man had been turned out, and told him what had happened. n n'Hm. Born in the wrong way. At midnight, you said.' n nBissoondaye ha d no means of telling the time, but both she and the midwife had assumed that it was midnight, the inauspicious hour. n nAbruptly, as Bissoondaye sat before him with bowed and covered head, the p undit brightened, 'Oh, well. It doesn't matter. There are always ways and means of getting over these unhappy things.' He undid hi s red bundle and took out his astrological almanac, a sheaf of lo ose thick leaves, long and narrow, between boards. The leaves wer e brown with age and their musty smell was mixed with that of the red and ochre sandalwood paste that had been spattered on them. The pundit lifted a leaf, read a little, wet his forefinger on hi s tongue and lifted another leaf. n nAt last he said, 'First of a ll, the features of this unfortunate boy. He will have good teeth but they will be rather wide, and there will be spaces between t hem. I suppose you know what that means. The boy will be a lecher and a spendthrift. Possibly a liar as well. It is hard to be sur e about those gaps between the teeth. They might mean only one of those things or they might mean all three.' n n'What about the s ix fingers, pundit?' n n'That's a shocking sign, of course. The o nly thing I can advise is to keep him away from trees and water. Particularly water.' n n'Never bath him?' n n'I don't mean exactl y that.' He raised his right hand, bunched the fingers and, with his head on one side, said slowly, 'One has to interpret what the book says.' He tapped the wobbly almanac with his left hand. 'An d when the book says water, I think it means water in its natural form.' n n'Natural form.' n n'Natural form,' the pundit repeated , but uncertainly. 'I mean,' he said quickly, and with some annoy ance, 'keep him away from rivers and ponds. And of course the sea . And another thing,' He added with satisfaction. 'He will have a n unlucky sneeze.' He began to pack the long leaves of his almana c. 'Much of the evil this boy will undoubtedly bring will be miti gated if his father is forbidden to see him for twenty-one days.' n n'That will be easy,' Bissoondaye said, speaking with emotion for the first time. n n'On the twenty-first day the father must s ee the boy. But not in the flesh.' n n'In a mirror, pundit?' n n' I would consider that ill-advised. Use a brass plate. Scour it we ll.' n n'Of course.' n n'You must fill this brass plate with coco nut oil--which, by the way, you must make yourself from coconuts you have collected with your own hands--and in the reflection on this oil the father must see his son's face.' He tied the almanac together and rolled it in the red cotton wrapper which was also spattered with sandalwood paste. 'I believe that is all.' n n'We forgot one thing, punditji. The name.' n n'I can't help you compl etely there. But it seems to me that a perfectly safe prefix woul d be Mo. It is up to you to think of something to add to that.' n n'Oh, punditji, you must help me. I can only think of hun.' n nT he pundit was surprised and genuinely pleased. 'But that is excel lent. Excellent. Mohun. I couldn't have chosen better myself. For Mohun, as you know, means the beloved, and was the name given by the milkmaids to Lord Krishna.' His eyes softened at the thought of the legend and for a moment he appeared to forget Bissoondaye and Mr Biswas. n nFrom the knot at the end of her veil Bissoonda ye took out a florin and offered it to the pundit, mumbling her r egret that she could not give more. The pundit said that she had done her best and was not to worry. In fact he was pleased; he ha d expected less. n nMr Biswas lost his sixth finger before he was nine days old. It simply came off one night and Bipti had an unp leasant turn when, shaking out the sheets one morning, she saw th is tiny finger tumble to the ground. Bissoondaye thought this an excellent sign and buried the finger behind the cowpen at the bac k of the house, not far from where she had buried Mr Biswas's nav el-string. n nIn the days that followed Mr Biswas was treated wit h attention and respect. His brothers and sisters were slapped if they disturbed his sleep, and the flexibility of his limbs was r egarded as a matter of importance. Morning and evening he was mas saged with coconut oil. All his joints were exercised; his arms a nd legs were folded diagonally across his red shining body; the b ig toe of his right foot was made to touch his left shoulder, the big toe of his left foot was made to touch his right shoulder, a nd both toes were made to touch his nose; finally, all his limbs were bunched together over his belly and then, with a clap and a laugh, released. n nMr Biswas responded well to these exercises, and Bissoondaye became so confident that she decided to have a ce lebration on the ninth day. She invited people from the village a nd fed them. The pundit came and was unexpectedly gracious, thoug h his manner suggested that but for his intervention there would have been no celebration at all. Jhagru, the barber, brought his drum, and Selochan did the Shiva dance in the cowpen, his body sm eared all over with ash. n nThere was an unpleasant moment when R aghu, Mr Biswas's father, appeared. He had walked; his dhoti and jacket were sweated and dusty. 'Well, this is very nice,' he said . 'Celebrating. And where is the father?' n n'Leave this house at once,' Bissoondaye said, coming out of the kitchen at the side. 'Father! What sort of father do you call yourself, when you drive your wife away every time she gets heavy-footed?' n n'That is no ne of your business,' Raghu said. 'Where is my son?' n n'Go ahead . God has paid you back for your boasting and your meanness. Go a nd see your son. He will eat you up. Six-fingered, born in the wr ong way. Go in and see him. He has an unlucky sneeze as well.' n nRaghu halted. 'Unlucky sneeze?' n n'I have warned you. You can o nly see him on the twenty-first day. If you do anything stupid no w the responsibility will be yours.' n nFrom his string bed the o ld man muttered abuse at Raghu. 'Shameless, wicked. When I see th e behaviour of this man I begin to feel that the Black Age has co me.' n nThe subsequent quarrel and threats cleared the air. Raghu confessed he had been in the wrong and had already suffered much for it. Bipti said she was willing to go back to him. And he agr eed to come again on the twenty-first day. n nTo prepare for that day Bissoondaye began collecting dry coconuts. She husked them, grated the kernels and set about extracting the oil the pundit ha d prescribed. It was a long job of boiling and skimming and boili ng again, and it was surprising how many coconuts it took to make a little oil. But the oil was ready in time, and Raghu came, nea tly dressed, his hair plastered flat and shining, his moustache t rimmed, and he was very correct as he took off his hat and went i nto the dark inner room of the hut which smelled warmly of oil an d old thatch. He held his hat on the right side of his face and l ooked down into the oil in the brass plate. Mr Biswas, hidden fro m his father by the hat, and well wrapped from head to foot, was held face downwards over the oil. He didn't like it; he furrowed his forehead, shut his eyes tight and bawled. The oil rippled, cl ear amber, broke up the reflection of Mr Biswas's face, already d istorted with rage, and the viewing was over. n nA few days later Bipti and her children returned home. And there Mr Biswas's impo rtance steadily diminished. The time came when even the daily mas sage ceased. n nBut he still carried weight. They never forgot th at he was an unlucky child and that his sneeze was particularly u nlucky. Mr Biswas caught cold easily and in the rainy season thre atened his family with destitution. If, before Raghu left for the sugar-estate, Mr Biswas sneezed, Raghu remained at home, worked on his vegetable garden in the morning and spent the afternoon ma king walking-sticks and sabots, or carving designs on the hafts o f cutlasses and the heads of walking-sticks. His favourite design was a pair of wellingtons; he had never owned wellingtons but ha d seen them on the overseer. Whatever he did, Raghu never left th e house. Even so, minor mishaps often followed Mr Biswas's sneeze : threepence lost in the shopping, the breaking of a bottle, the upsetting of a dish. Once Mr Biswas sneezed on three mornings in succession. n n'This boy will eat up his family in truth,' Raghu said. n nOne morning, just after Raghu had crossed the gutter tha t ran between the road and his yard, he suddenly stopped. Mr Bisw as had sneezed. Bipti ran out and said, 'It doesn't matter. He sn eezed when you were already on the road.' n n'But I heard him. Di stinctly.' n nBipti persuaded him to go to work. About an hour or two later, while she was cleaning the rice for the midday meal, she heard shouts from the road and went out to find Raghu lying i n an ox-cart, his right leg swathed in bloody bandages. He was gr oaning, not from pain, but from anger. The man who had brought hi m refused to help him into the yard: Mr Biswas's sneeze was too w ell known. Raghu had to limp in leaning on Bipti's shoulder. n n' This boy will make us all paupers,' Raghu said. n nHe spoke from a deep fear. Though he saved and made himself and his family go w ithout many things, he never ceased to feel that destitution was very nearly upon him. The more he hoarded, the more he felt he ha d to waste and to lose, and the more careful he became. n nEvery Saturday he lined up with the other labourers outside the estate office to collect his pay. The overseer sat at a little table, on which his khaki cork hat rested, wasteful of space, but a symbol of wealth. On his left sat the Indian clerk, important, stern, p recise, with small neat hands that wrote small neat figures in bl ack ink and red ink in the tall ledger. As the clerk entered figu res and called out names and amounts in his high, precise voice, the overseer selected coins from the columns of silver and the he aps of copper in front of him, and with greater deliberation extr acted notes from the blue one-dollar stacks, the smaller red two- dollar stack and the very shallow green five-dollar stack. Few la bourers earned five dollars a week; the notes were there to pay t hose who were collecting their wives' or husbands' wages as well as their own. Around the overseer's cork hat, and seeming to guar d it, there were stiff blue paper bags, neatly serrated at the to p, printed with large figures, and standing upright from the weig ht of coin inside them. Clean round perforations gave glimpses of the coin and, Raghu had been told, allowed it to breathe. n nThe se bags fascinated Raghu. He had managed to get a few and after m any months and a little cheating--turning a shilling into twelve pennies, for example--he had filled them. Thereafter he had never been able to stop. No one, not even Bipti, knew where he hid the se bags; but the word, Penguin Books, 1976, 3<

2017, ISBN: 9780140030259

Hardcover

The Reagan fan has to have this book! Fine condition, unmarked save for prior owner's name on inside front endpaper., Doubleday, 2002, 5, Doubleday, 2002-10-15. Hardcover. Good. Ships q… More...

The Reagan fan has to have this book! Fine condition, unmarked save for prior owner's name on inside front endpaper., Doubleday, 2002, 5, Doubleday, 2002-10-15. Hardcover. Good. Ships quickly. Mild to moderate shelf/reading wear. Orphans Treasure Box sells books to raise money for orphans and vulnerable kids., Doubleday, 2002-10-15, 2.5, Now an HBO series starring Kathryn Hahn!"Light, zingy, and laugh-out-loud funny" (People), the New York Times bestselling novel about sex, love, and identity as seen through the eyes of a middle-aged woman and her college freshman son.A forty-six-year-old divorcee whose beloved only child has just left for college, Eve Fletcher is struggling to adjust to her empty nest. One night she receives a text from an anonymous number that says, "U R my MILF!" Over the months that follow, that message comes to obsess Eve. While leading her all-too-placid lifeserving as Executive Director of the local senior center and taking a community college course on Gender and SocietyEve can't curtail her own interest in a porn website that features the erotic exploits of ordinary, middle-aged women like herself. Before long, Eve's online fixations begin to spill over into real life, revealing new romantic possibilities that threaten to upend her quiet suburban existence.Meanwhile, miles away at the state college, Eve's son Brendana jock and aspiring frat boydiscovers that his new campus isn't nearly as welcoming to his hard-partying lifestyle as he had imagined. Only a few weeks into his freshman year, Brendan is floundering in a college environment that challenges his white-dude privilege and shames him for his outmoded, chauvinistic ideas of sex. As the New England autumn turns cold, both mother and son find themselves enmeshed in morally fraught situations that come to a head on one fateful November night."The sweetest and most charming novel about pornography addiction and the harrowing issues of sexual consent that you will probably ever read" (The New York Times Book Review), Mrs. Fletcher is a timeless examination of sexuality, identity, parenthood, and the big clarifying mistakes people can make when they're no longer sure of who they are or where they belong. "Tom Perrotta's latest might just be his best" (NPR)., Scribner Books S&S, 2017, 3, MOORINGS is the winner of the Nina Mae Kellogg First Place Award for Graduate Fiction.When twenty-three year old Anne Holloway travels from the lower forty-eight up to Alaska to meet the father she's never known, she learns finding her roots is not as simple as it seems.Surrounded by misty fjords and receding glaciers, the town of Snug Harbor shelters more than a small fishing community still struggling to survive more than two decades after a major oil spill; the locals here spin tall tales to avoid discussing their volatile pasts.While unraveling the violent, deceitful truth about her history, Anne's presence precipitates break-ups, boat crashes, and, even, unexpected storms. But in the process, she gains an identity all her own., Feather Mountain Press, 2013, 2.5, Penguin Publishing Group. Good. 180mm / 110mm. Paperback. 1976. 589 pages. Cover worn. Text tanned<br>The early masterpiece of V. S. Naipaul's brilliant career, A House for Mr. Biswas is an unf orgettable story inspired by Naipaul's father that has been haile d as one of the twentieth century's finest novels. In his forty -six short years, Mr. Mohun Biswas has been fighting against dest iny to achieve some semblance of independence, only to face a lif etime of calamity. Shuttled from one residence to another after t he drowning death of his father, for which he is inadvertently re sponsible, Mr. Biswas yearns for a place he can call home. But wh en he marries into the domineering Tulsi family on whom he indign antly becomes dependent, Mr. Biswas embarks on an arduous-and end less-struggle to weaken their hold over him and purchase a house of his own. A heartrending, dark comedy of manners, A House for M r. Biswas masterfully evokes a man's quest for autonomy against a n emblematic post-colonial canvas. ., Penguin Publishing Group, 1976, 2.5<

ISBN: 9780140030259

Penguin Books. Paperback. GOOD. Spine creases, wear to binding and pages from reading. May contain limited notes, underlining or highlighting that does affect the text. Possible ex libr… More...

Penguin Books. Paperback. GOOD. Spine creases, wear to binding and pages from reading. May contain limited notes, underlining or highlighting that does affect the text. Possible ex library copy, will have the markings and stickers associated from the library. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included., Penguin Books, 2.5<

ISBN: 9780140030259

Paperback. Acceptable., 2.5