Magic Seeds

Magic Seeds

From V S. Naipaul - a spare, searing new novel about identity and idealism, and their ability to shape or destroy us. Willie Chandran - whom we first met in Half a Life- is a man who has allowed one identity after another to be thrust upon him. Now, in his early forties, after a peripatetic life, lie succumbs to the demanding encouragement of his sister - and his own listlessness - and joins an underground movement in India ostensibly devoted to unfettering the lower castes. But seven years of revolutionary campaigns and several years in jail convince him that the revolution 'had nothing to do with the village people we said we were fighting for, and lie feels himself further than ever 'from his own history and ... from the ideas of himself chat might have tome to him with that history' When he returns to England where, thirty years before, his psychological and physical wanderings began, he finds the fruit of another unexpected social revolution (more magic seeds), and he comes to see himself as a man 'serving an endless prison sentence' - a revelation that may finally release him into his true self, Magic Seeds is a masterpiece, written with all the depth and resonance, the clarity of vision and precision of language that are the hallmarks of this brilliant writer.