SOURCE: King, Bruce. Review of Half a Life, by V. S. Naipaul. World Literature Today 77, no. 1 (April-June 2003): 90.

In the following review, King provides a favorable assessment of Half a Life.

V. S. Naipaul's new novel, Half a Life, tells of someone like the author but his opposite, someone who does not know what he wants to do, who wastes his opportunities, who drifts, never takes root, never builds a house, never becomes morally or financially independent. He does many of the things Naipaul has done, such as go to England for further education, write for the BBC, write a book of short stories, travel to Africa, but each parallel ends with flight revealing lack of purpose. Having fled from Africa, Willie Chandran laments, “I am forty-one, in middle life … I have risked nothing. And now the best part of my life is over”; at the conclusion, before leaving...