[Fireflies] is a masterpiece. It's a long book … and a reviewer's first inclination, when confronted with a long book, is to see what he can safely skip. It must say something for Mr Naipaul's power that despite a firm determination to skip whole pages and even whole chapters at a time, I was unable to miss a page of his absorbing, inconsequential narrative.

The story … centres around the disintegration of one family in Trinidad's upper-class Indian community. As subjects go, this might not seem to be one which automatically commands a wide readership. Those who approach novel-reading as a vehicle for self-improvement might be prepared to accept some (passionately) involved, committed, compassionate, etc. treatise on the problems of Trinidad's Indians, or even a biting satire on Trinidad's upper class, but a poignant, uncommitted account of what it is to be a conservative, upper-class Trini-Shiva Naipaul 1945– © Jerry Bauer...