Magic Seeds

Starred review from October 18, 2004
At the end of Half a Life
, Naipaul's previous novel, Willie, a young Indian in late 1950s London, travels to Africa. At the beginning of his new novel, Willie is in Berlin with his bossy sister, Sarojini. It is 18 years later. Revolution has uprooted Willie's African existence. Sarojini hooks him up with a guerrilla group in India, and Willie, always ready to be molded to some cause, returns to India. The guerrillas, Willie soon learns, are "absolute maniacs." But caught up, as ever, in the energy of others, Willie stays with them for seven years. He then surrenders and is tossed into the relative comfort of jail. When an old London friend (a lawyer named Roger) gets Willie's book of short stories republished, Willie's imprisonment becomes an embarrassment to the authorities. He is now seen as a forerunner of "postcolonial writing." He returns to London, where he alternates between making love to Perdita, Roger's wife, and looking for a job. One opens up on the staff of an architecture magazine funded by a rich banker (who is also cuckolding Roger). Willie's continual betweenness—a state that makes him, to the guerrillas, a man "who looks at home everywhere"—is the core theme of this novel, and the story is merely the shadow projected by that theme. Sometimes, especially toward the end of the book, as Willie's story becomes more suburban, there is a penumbral sketchiness to the incidents. At one point, Willie, remarking on the rich London set into which he has been flung, thinks: "These people here don't understand nullity." Naipaul does—he is a modern master of the multiple ironies of resentment, the claustrophobia of the margins. In a world in which terrorism continually haunts the headlines, Naipaul's work is indispensable. Agent, Gillon Aitken.

February 7, 2005
Mandvi turns in a soft, reserved performance of Naipaul's novel about idealism, revolution and self-discovery. The book follows on the heels of Naipaul's Half a Life
, continuing the story of Willie Chandron, the product of a mixed-caste marriage, as he attempts to find his place in the world and come to terms with himself and others. Perhaps the nature of Naipaul's spare yet powerful writing is what led Mandvi to take such a quiet and nearly monotoned approach to his narration. It's a fitting idea, as Naipaul himself seems to write with a detachment to his character, and Willie is frequently swept along by the wills of others. But what might seem right in theory doesn't translate in practice, and Mandvi's narration has as much a tendency to be soporific as dreamlike. His characterizations are likewise subtle, and though he has a natural capacity for the Indian accents that figure so heavily in the book, he seems to struggle with whether or not to fully embrace the voices of English characters. It's less of a poor performance than it is a daunting task, and while Mandvi's reading may show deference to the text of a recognized master, it doesn't make for a compelling listen. Simultaneous release with the Knopf hardcover (Forecasts, Oct. 18, 2004).