Magic Seeds

A. Yes, somewhat. It picks up where Half a Life leaves off, with Willie Chandran having left Africa and living with his sister outside of West Berlin, Germany. This book can stand alone, but I think it does help to read Half a Life before reading Magic Seeds. Q. What did you think of this book? A. It gripped me as soon as Willie decides to go back to India and make contact with some people his sister believes are working on behalf of the poor and dispossessed. My first question, though, was why, exactly, Willie does this. Why would he go to live and "work" with a so-called revolutionary force, maybe like the Tamil Tigers or something similar. Clearly, he doesn't know what else to do with himself. And he admits he's following his nose. But he also admits that he feels some guilt about having risen higher than these peasants making a few cents a day doing hard labor. After all, his father was an "upper" caste person, though his mother was not. Maybe he's doing penance. Q. So is this a first person narrative by Willie Chandran? A. No, everything is in the third person. Willie does a lot of thinking, which is always introduced as, "Willie thought," followed by a quotation of longer or shorter length. As the book proceeds, Willie's character, as protagonist, begins to vary more and more from what I imagine to be the author's life. Q. In what way? A. Willie begins doing things I don't think Mr. Naipaul actually did, but I don't know for sure. Read the book yourself to see if you agree. Q. But Willie seems to be an alter ego for the author in some ways? A. Yes. Willie is a thinker, not really much of a doer at all. He comes to boring periods where he has to, for example, count the number of beds he has slept in. He uses a type of yoga, which was very interesting to me because I've had similar thoughts. Naipaul writes as follows on page 31: There is a kind of yoga in which the disciple is required to move very slowly, concentrating the while on what his mind is making his body do; until after months of practise (or for the worldly and engulfed, perhaps years) the disciple feels each separate muscle move within himself, minutely obeying the impulses of his mind. For Willie, in those first days of return to India, the mechanics of day-to-day life had become a kind of yoga like that, a series of hurdles; every simple thing had to be re-thought, learned afresh. Q. So you found this intriguing? A. Yes. I've had to adopt this method many times in my life without really identifying it as yoga. Being from India, Willie and Naipaul both identify it with yoga. Here, in the U.S., we might just call it meditating or concentrating or even "working out." The book is full of truths, or maybe I should say pithy phrases like this that I could relate to, personally. Q. Would you recommend this book to others? A. Yes, but with a disclaimer. Naipaul is a story teller in the top ranks. He has some stories to tell that I, as an American, or better said, a Californian, learned much from. Sure, I've traveled to London, one of his settings; and to parts of Asia, though not India. But I could never have penetrated these societies as Naipaul has done, and if I had, I probably could not have written these succinct stories as he has. He deserves all the literary prizes he has won, I think. Q. What's the disclaimer? A. Many women will find nothing in the book with which to identify. The women portrayed here are ineffectual and slovenly. Basically, you can say, it's a man's book. The men use the women available. Willie does this. Roger, the attorney, does it, but not as blatantly. The only exception to this caricature of women may be Willie's sister, but even she has to share her "husband" with another woman. Q. So women will not like the book? A. That's my feeling now, looking back. I didn't even think about it while I was reading it