The Nightwatchman's Occurrence Book: And Other Comic Inventions (2002) - Plot & Excerpts
Reading this early Naipaul I find it has engraved itself on the part of my reading memory that includes works such as "Our Town" or "Huckleberry Finn." --timeless, haunting elaborations of our less-than-meaningful aspirations, and our basic and base natures. Try as we writers might, the characters we painstakingly attempt to develop into whole, yet flawed and we hope fundamentally likable people may be completely abominable to some readers. V.S. Naipaul somehow manages to escape that seeming inevitability. He has created archetypal oily, corrupt, and not-at-all-attractive characters, yet I am right in there with them because of their spirited, funny, dogged survival instincts (not to mention the fantastically hysterical moments they provide). Naipaul's characters are miles more memorable than many moms and pops and Aunt Sophies I've encountered in other books, and with whom I might have felt more comfortable and more familiar. And their character flaws are so poignant at times, I want to cry.
This is a collection of Mr. Naipaul's comic novels and short stories. My review will centre on the title story - a little gem of a nightwatchman in colonial trinidad writing his nightly log. as the guests cavort and the nightwatchman flounders, you have no choice but to laugh till you cry. And people of the English speaking Caribbean will recognise the nightwatchman, he is definitely still alive and well and walking around and making his comments on life in the 21st century. Most memorable is one of his complaints that he thought "nightwatchman work was quiet"...
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