OBSESSION FOR FINDING ROOTS IN MAGIC SEEDS

This article is on V S Naipaul’s latest novel Magic Seeds which is a sequel of Half a Life. The protagonist of Half a Life is Willie Chandran who is in search of completeness throughout the novel. At the beginning of the novel Half a Life Willie questions his father why his name is after an English writer. It means that his negation of the self, starts at his very early stage. For his completeness Willie goes to London but unfortunately he finds himself in a different situation. There seem to be some biographical sketches in the last two novels. At the end of Half a Life Willie marries Ana and goes to Africa as Ana’s London man without his personal identity. After he gets a slip while coming down step at Ana’s house, while getting treatment in the hospital, he realizes that he has wasted part of life being Ana’s London man. So he leaves Ana and goes to Berlin to stay with his sister Sarojini but even in Berlin he can’t find himself and starts searching his roots. Magic Seeds starts where Half a Life ends.