First Impression Friday will be a meme where you talk about a book that you JUST STARTED! Maybe you’re only a chapter or two in, maybe a little farther. Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end.

Synopsis:

Spanning three continents and an entire history of caste, class, exile, and dislocation, Half a Life is a beautifully resonant study of the fraudulent bargains that make up an identity. V.S. Naipaul’s protagonist is Willie Chandran, the son of a Brahmin ascetic and the lower-caste woman he married out of ideological spite. At an early age, Willie senses the hollowness at the core of his father’s self-denial and aspires something more genuine.

His search takes him to the immigrant and literary bohemias of 1950s London; to a facile, unsatisfying career as a writer; and, finally, to a decaying Portuguese colony in East Africa, where he finds a happiness he will then be compelled to betray. Masterfully orchestrated, at once elegiac and devastating in its portraits of colonial grandeur and pretension, Half a Life represents the pinnacle of Naipaul’s career.

It’s the end of the workweek—yay! I hope the week has been kind to everyone and that you’re all ending it on a high note. Just like that, we are nearly through the second month of the year—the so-called love month. How time flies! March is just around the corner. At times, it feels like nothing of consequence has happened, yet at the same time, it also feels like a lot has happened, although it is just the second month of the year. Nevertheless, I hope the year is providing everyone with plenty of opportunities to grow and be better. With the weekend looming, I hope everyone has a great one and ends the workweek on a high note. It is now time to dress down and wear more comfortable clothes. I hope you spend the weekend wisely—whether by resting from the rigors of a demanding career, pursuing your passions, completing household chores, spending time with loved ones, or simply relaxing. I hope you’re all doing well—physically, mentally, and emotionally.

After a couple of tedious weeks at the office, I have had a relatively calmer week, although there are still a lot of things I need to do. At every turn, I still encounter a new challenge. On the other hand, I am slowly getting my “accounting” groove back. At work, there are several avenues for change and improvement. It seems like a tall task, but I know I can make it. I just have to take it one step at a time, and before long, things will get whipped into shape. Anyway, I commenced my reading year with a literary journey across Latin American literature. Toward the end of 2025, I realized it had been some time since I dedicated a full month to this region—the last time was toward the end of 2023. With February drawing to a close, I am slowly wrapping up this literary venture by reading the remaining works of Latin American literature in my bookshelf. One of the last titles that grabbed my attention – because I nearly forgot about it – is Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul’s Half a Life, my current read.

Actually, I forgot that the Nobel Laureate in Literature is Trinidadian, until I came across Half a Life while sifting through my bookshelves for my next read. I never considered it when I commenced my venture into Latin American and Caribbean literature. His lineage is interesting. His grandparents have Indian (as in the South Asian country) heritages. He was born in Trinidad and Tobago, but eventually gained British nationality. I believe it was must-read lists that first introduced me to him, before I learned he was an awardee of the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 2022, I read my first Naipaul novel, A Bend in the River, making Half a Life his second novel I read. This also breaks the streak of new-to-me writers; I read three in a row before I started reading Half a Life. Interestingly, the last familiar writer before this run of new-to-me writers is also a Nobel Laureate in Literature, the renowned Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez.

I just started reading Half a Life, the eighteenth book I read this year. At the heart of the 2001 novel is Willie Chandran. His middle name is Somerset. The novel actually opens with Willie asking his father, a Brahmin, where he derived his middle name. As you can guess, it is after the British writer, Somerset Maugham. His other, meanwhile, was a Dalit, a term used for untouchables and outcasts, who represent the lowest stratum of the castes in India. Apparently, the British writer visited Willie’s father in the temple where he was living under a vow of silence. As a homage to the writer, Willie’s father gave him his middle name. This query also prompted Willie’s father to delve into the past, with an emphasis on the challenges their family had to scale from the 1890s. Willie’s great-grandfather was a priest who left his vocation and impoverished temple to join the court of a maharaja.

By joining the maharaja, Willie’s great-grandfather has paved the way for his family’s upward mobility, a luxury not often allowed to people of their station. Originally, Willie’s father was to attend a professional school. He was also arranged to be married to the daughter of his college principal. However, he decided to rebel against his Brahman family by taking up with a black, low-caste girl. As I have just started reading the novel, this is the furthest I have gone. Still, it is more than enough to create an image in my brain of how the story will develop. Willie’s mixed heritage is already a giveaway of the concerns that the novel will explore as Willie’s and his family’s story unfolds. When the Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize, their motivation was his “having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories.”  

Anyway, I expect that Naipaul will be examining the undercurrents of colonialism while expounding on the intricacies of mixed heritages. Also, this is a nod to the Swedish Academy’s motivation: seeing the presence of suppressed histories. I look forward to how Willie Chandran will be developed as a character. So far, his father is stirring the narrative. I expect that Willie’s story will eventually unfold, and that his voice will take on a firmer shape as the story moves forward. Longlisted for the Booker Prize, Half a Life feels like a quick read, and I expect I will be done by the end of the weekend. How about you, fellow reader? What are you reading this weekend? I hope you’re enjoying your current book. Happy weekend!