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Miguel Street | 
 enlarge | Author: V.s. Naipaul
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy Used: $4.89
You Save: $9.06 (65%)
New (33) Used (23) from $4.89
Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 50433
Media: Paperback
Pages: 224
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 0375713875
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780375713873
ASIN: 0375713875
Publication Date: July 23, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: This item is NOT a former public library item and does NOT contain library markings. Unless specifically noted to the contrary, item may contain library markings; 100% of this purchase will support literacy programs through a nonprofit organization!
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Product Description
“A stranger could drive through Miguel Street and just say ‘Slum!’ because he could see no more.” But to its residents this derelict corner of Trinidad’s capital is a complete world, where everybody is quite different from everybody else. There’s Popo the carpenter, who neglects his livelihood to build “the thing without a name.” There’s Man-man, who goes from running for public office to staging his own crucifixion, and the dreaded Big Foot, the bully with glass tear ducts. There’s the lovely Mrs. Hereira, in thrall to her monstrous husband. In this tender, funny early novel, V. S. Naipaul renders their lives (and the legends their neighbors construct around them) with Dickensian verve and Chekhovian compassion.
Set during World War II and narrated by an unnamed–but precociously observant–neighborhood boy, Miguel Street is a work of mercurial mood shifts, by turns sweetly melancholy and anarchically funny. It overflows with life on every page.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 My Favourite Naipaul Book October 30, 1999
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
This book was a standard for Literature when I was going to high school. Ten years later, the characters are still as colourful, the prose just as lyrical, and Naipaul still weaves a wonderful story.
 hilarious early voice May 11, 2001
Robert J. Crawford (Balmette Talloires, France)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
This novel crackles with laughter and detail, using local language to great effect. While there are some issues of sadness in the background, Naipaul puts the liveliness to the fore, in this, his first novel. He wrote it while freelancing at the BBC, just out of Oxford and a fearfully anxious young man. It is so different from the utter darkness of his later work that it is hard to believe it is from the same pen. But that is a measure of the talent of this man and the breadth of his vision. Warmly recommended.
Makes me laugh just to think about it again! June 6, 2002
Cipriano (Planet Claire)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
There's no two ways about it... this book is funny. Witty. Endlessly sarcastic. There I am, reading it in the park, and laughing out loud in certain parts, like a bit of a loonie!
At one point, the author calls what he's doing here "sketches". That's exactly what it is... connected vignettes. Observations of the lives that make up Miguel Street, a street in Port of Spain, Trinidad. It is all set down and seen through the eyes of a young, fatherless boy.
It is written with such a clear eye that it seems autobiographical, and here on Miguel Street we see the germ or the kernel of many of the characters that Naipaul would develop further in his excellent book "A House For Mr. Biswas" which he published two years after this one.
As others have mentioned, the language, the idioms, the vernacular here are priceless... 1940's Trinidad bursts into view.
I give it 4.5 stars. Refreshing. A little book with big laughs!
An Excellent Read March 8, 2000
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Naipaul's novel about daily life on Miguel Street is a masterful piece of literature. The characters are colorful and believable, the writing style is fluid and very readable, and the issues raised about (post)colonialism and neocolonialism are oh so real. Entertaining at times; thought-provoking at others--Naipaul's MIGUEL STREET is a must read for any fan of literary genius.
NOT MY STYLE June 30, 2001
Jerry Engelbach (Brooklyn, NY)
4 out of 11 found this review helpful
Colorful, lyrical ... yes, yes, all that. Funny? Well, in a forced kind of way. I recognize in Naipaul a writer of great talent, whose quasi-folk style is just not to my taste. But then, this is a youthful work. Chacun a son gout.
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