The Mimic Men: A Novel

By V. S. Naipaul

From the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Enigma of Arrival comes a profound novel of cultural displacement, masterfully evoking a colonial man’s experience in a postcolonial world.

“No one else … seems able to employ prose fiction so deeply as the very voice of exile.” —The New York Review of Books

Born of Indian heritage and raised on a British-dependent Caribbean island, Ralph Singh has retired to suburban London, writing his memoirs as a means to impose order on a chaotic existence. His memories lead him to recognize the paradox of his childhood during which he secretly fantasized about a heroic India, yet changed his name from Ranjit Kripalsingh. As he assesses his short-lived marriage to an ostentatious white woman, Singh realizes what has kept him from becoming a proper Englishman. But it is the return home and his subsequent immersion in the roiling political atmosphere of a newly self-governed nation that ultimately provide Singh with the necessary insight to discover the crux of his disillusionment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Oct 20, 2010
• ISBN: 9780307776563

V. S. Naipaul

V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932. He came to England on a scholarship in 1950. He spent four years at University College, Oxford, and began to write, in London, in 1954. He pursued no other profession. His novels include A House for Mr Biswas, The Mimic Men, Guerrillas, A Bend in the River, and The Enigma of Arrival. In 1971 he was awarded the Booker Prize for In a Free State. His works of nonfiction, equally acclaimed, include Among the Believers, Beyond Belief, The Masque of Africa, and a trio of books about India: An Area of Darkness, India: A Wounded Civilization and India: A Million Mutinies Now. In 1990, V.S. Naipaul received a knighthood for services to literature; in 1993, he was the first recipient of the David Cohen British Literature Prize. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. He lived with his wife Nadira and cat Augustus in Wiltshire, and died in 2018.

Reviews for The Mimic Men

[profh-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Cruel, brutal, unflinching: The Mimic Men is one of the most important novels of the century. A foundational piece in postcolonial studies.

[dorritt_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

On the surface this is the memoir of a disgraced former colonial minister, Ralph Singh, exiled from the island country he briefly ruled and now living in a run-down hotel in London. But perhaps it’s more accurate to think of this as the trellis upon which Naipaul has woven a much deeper, much more complex examination of colonialism, politics, race, society, culture, and human psychology. I’m struggling to figure out how to characterize a story in which much happens internally while very little actually occurs externally. One insight that occurs early is that Naipaul has chosen his narrator well. Singh’s life story provides opportunities to explore so many complex issues – from his childhood spent navigating a chaos of adolescent, intellectual, religious, racial and class issues, to his brief career as a radical politician in which he explores the complex realities of colonialism and the emptiness and futility of revolutions that arise from anger and despair, to his “retirement” in exile, which provides the opportunity for exhaustive self-examination about identity. Throughout the narrative, however, weaves at least one common theme: the extent to which a life spent mimicking the values & ambitions of others – other people, other cultures, other classes, other religions, other economies, other political systems – can ever be “true” or fulfilling. Can identity ever be wholly organic, or do we inevitably define ourselves through the perceptions and expectations of race/class/society/gender we are born into? In 250 short pages Naipaul packs an almost indescribable amount of observation and reflection, couched in language that borders on lyrical at times. Seriously, I was underlining passages almost every paragraph – beautifully turned phrases, dazzling flashes of insight, deftly observed universal truths. Which makes for an intense intellectual experience, but possibly not riveting reading if your aim is entertainment or distraction. So consider yourself warned: while this definitely isn’t something you’d want to take with you to the beach, it will amply reward readers who are willing to devote to it the time and reflection it deserves.

[whitewavedarling · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a somewhat slower read than some of Naipaul's other works, in my opinion, but I think there's more subtlety here the more I look at it---the difficulty in seeing it is that a lot of the work comes together in the end, moreso than in other books, so that this is one of those books that might require two reads to get a real feel for. The characters and plot, though, are humorously built, and fun to explore. As a result, it's worth reading, and great entertainment with a complex structure that still comes across as being both necessary and thoughtful. For readers who want to see the subtlety of Naipaul's beautiful language and and twists, a second read might be in order as well. Naipaul, though, as usual for me, constructs the most beautiful prose, and those sentences that make you stop at a moment's notice to reread.So, not my favorite Naipaul, but certainly worth reading and recommending.

[piefuchs · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A story and character that stays with you. An excellent discussion on how corruption starts and stays. Good to be read with "The Inbetween world of Vikram?".