The Enigma of Arrival

Last updated

The Enigma of Arrival
EnigmaOfArrival.jpg
First edition
Author V. S. Naipaul
Cover artist Giorgio de Chirico, The Enigma of the Arrival and the Afternoon - 1910
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Genre Autobiographical novel
Publisher Viking Press
Publication date
March 1987
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages318
ISBN 0-670-81576-4
OCLC 17651091
823/.914 19
LC Class PR9272.9.N32 E5 1987b

The Enigma of Arrival: A Novel in Five Sections is a 1987 novel by Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul.

Mostly an autobiography, the book is composed of five sections that reflect the growing familiarity and changing perceptions of Naipaul upon his arrival in various countries after leaving his native Trinidad and Tobago.

Most of the action of the novel takes place in Wiltshire, England, where Naipaul has rented a cottage in the countryside. On first arriving, he sees the area surrounding his cottage as a frozen piece of history, unchanged for hundreds of years. However, as his stay at the cottage where he is working on another book becomes extended, he begins to see the area for what it is: a constantly changing place with ordinary people simply living lives away from the rest of the world. This causes Naipaul to reflect upon the nature of our perceptions of our surroundings and how much these perceptions are affected by our own pre-conceptions of a place.

He re-examines his own emigration from Trinidad to New York City, and his subsequent removal to England and Oxford. Naipaul's narration illustrates the growing understanding of his place in this new environment and the intricate relations of the people and the land around them.

His landlord is modelled on his real-life landlord Stephen Tennant (1906–1987), a 1920s socialite and a "bright young thing" who is also the model for the Hon. Miles Malpractice in novels by Evelyn Waugh and for Cedric Hampton in Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford. Naipaul rented a cottage at Tennant's Wilsford House estate, north of Salisbury. [1]

Related Research Articles

<i>A House for Mr Biswas</i> 1961 novel by V. S. Naipaul

A House for Mr Biswas is a 1961 novel by V. S. Naipaul, significant as Naipaul's first work to achieve acclaim worldwide. It is the story of Mohun Biswas, a Hindu Indo-Trinidadian who continually strives for success and mostly fails, who marries into the influential Tulsi family only to find himself dominated by it, and who finally sets the goal of owning his own house. It relies on some biographical elements from the experience of the author's father, and views a colonial world sharply with postcolonial perspectives.

<i>A Bend in the River</i> 1979 novel by V. S. Naipaul

A Bend in the River is a 1979 novel by Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul.

Stephen James Napier Tennant was a British socialite known for his decadent, eccentric lifestyle. He was called "the brightest" of the "Bright Young People".

Shiva Naipaul, born Shivadhar Srinivasa Naipaul in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, was an Indo-Trinidadian and British novelist and journalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pamela Wyndham</span> English writer

Pamela Adelaide Genevieve Grey, Viscountess Grey of Fallodon, was an English writer. The wife of Edward Tennant, 1st Baron Glenconner, and later of Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon, she is one of the Wyndham Sisters by John Singer Sargent which were at the centre of the cultural and political life of their time. Like their parents, they were part of The Souls.

<i>Guerrillas</i> (novel)

Guerrillas is a 1975 novel by V. S. Naipaul. The book is set on an unnamed, remote Caribbean island populated by a mix of ethnicities, but dominated by post-colonial British. Probably the island is modelled after Trinidad, Naipaul's birthplace.

Zoë Wicomb is a South African-Scottish author and academic who has lived in the UK since the 1970s. In 2013, she was awarded the inaugural Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for her fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Tennant, 1st Baron Glenconner</span>

Edward Priaulx Tennant, 1st Baron Glenconner, known as Sir Edward Tennant, 2nd Baronet, from 1906 to 1911, was a Scottish businessman and Liberal politician. In 1911 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Glenconner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael X</span> Civil Rights activist (1933–1975

Michael X, born Michael de Freitas, was a Trinidad and Tobago-born self-styled black revolutionary and civil rights activist in 1960s London. He was also known as Michael Abdul Malik and Abdul Malik. Convicted of murder in 1972, Michael X was executed by hanging in 1975 in Port of Spain's Royal Gaol.

Detmar Jellings Blow was a British architect of the early 20th century, who designed principally in the arts and crafts style. His clients belonged chiefly to the British aristocracy, and later he became estates manager to the Duke of Westminster.

<i>The Lonely Londoners</i> Novel by Samuel Selvon

The Lonely Londoners is a 1956 novel by Trinidadian author Samuel Selvon. Its publication was one of the first to focus on poor, working-class black people following the enactment of the British Nationality Act 1948 alongside George Lamming's (1954) novel The Emigrants. The Lonely Londoners was included on the "Big Jubilee Read" list of 70 books selected by a panel of experts, and announced in April 2022 by the BBC and The Reading Agency, to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's platinum jubilee in June 2022.

<i>The Mystic Masseur</i> (novel)

The Mystic Masseur is a comic novel by V. S. Naipaul. It is set in colonial Trinidad and was published in London in 1957.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">V. S. Naipaul</span> Trinidadian-British writer (1932–2018)

Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was a Trinidadian-born British writer of works of fiction and nonfiction in English. He is known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad, his bleaker novels of alienation in the wider world, and his vigilant chronicles of life and travels. He wrote in prose that was widely admired, but his views sometimes aroused controversy. He published more than thirty books over fifty years.

Rent control in Scotland is based upon the statutory codes relating to private sector residential tenancies. Although not strictly within the private sector, tenancies granted by housing associations, etc., are dealt with as far as is appropriate in this context. Controlling prices, along with security of tenure and oversight by an independent regulator or the courts, is a part of rent regulation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woodford, Wiltshire</span> Human settlement in England

Woodford is a civil parish in southern-central Wiltshire, England, on the west bank of the Salisbury Avon, about 4 miles (6 km) north of Salisbury. Its settlements are the villages of Lower Woodford, Middle Woodford and Upper Woodford, the last of which is the largest of the three. In 1871, the population was 523; in 1951, this had decreased to 405 people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilsford cum Lake</span> Human settlement in England

Wilsford cum Lake is a civil parish in the Woodford valley in Wiltshire, England. The parish is bounded to the east by the Salisbury Avon and contains the small settlements of Wilsford, Normanton and Lake. Wilsford is about 2 miles (3.2 km) southwest of Amesbury and 6 miles (10 km) north of Salisbury.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881 was the second Irish land act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1881.

<i>The Mimic Men</i> 1967 novel by V. S. Naipaul

The Mimic Men is a novel by V. S. Naipaul, first published by Andre Deutsch in the UK in 1967.

<i>You Cant Get Lost in Cape Town</i>

You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town was the first book by Zoë Wicomb. Published in 1987, it was a collection of inter-related short stories, set during the Apartheid era and partly autobiographical, the central character being a young Coloured woman growing up in South Africa, speaking English in an Afrikaans-speaking community in Namaqualand, attending the University of the Western Cape, leaving for England, and authoring a collection of short stories. This work has been compared to V. S. Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival (1987). As Rob Gaylard notes, "Central to Wicomb's collection of stories is the question of identity, and intimately bound up with this are the polarities of home and exile. Significantly, the stories were written while Wicomb was in exile in England."

"One out of Many" is a short story within an unconventionally formatted novel entitled In a Free State, written by V. S. Naipaul and originally published by André Deutsch in 1971. The protagonist, Santosh, is forced to give up his familiar life inside the stratified castes of India to move with his employer, now an Indian ambassador, to Washington D.C during the civil rights protests and commensurate "hippie era". Themes developed in the story reflect Santosh's abrupt displacement from a comfortable, life-long acclimation in India, to an alien environment in the United States, where his beliefs, perceptions, and sense of belonging are upended.

References

  1. "Wilsford cum Lake". Wiltshire Community History. Wiltshire Council. Retrieved 10 February 2016.