The Nightwatchman’s Occurrence Book, and Other Comic Inventions
- Author V. S. Naipaul
- Narrator Simon Vance, Ron Butler, Vikas Adam
- Publisher Blackstone Publishing
- Publish Date 24 December 2018
- Run Time 19 hours and 41 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Fiction: general and literary, Humour, Short stories.
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What to expect
V. S. Naipaul’s legendary command of broad comedy and acute social observation is on abundant display in these classic works of fiction—two novels and a collection of stories—that capture the rhythms of life in the Caribbean and England with impressive subtlety and humor.
The Suffrage of Elvira is Naipaul’s hilarious take on an electoral campaign in the back country of Trinidad, where the candidates’ tactics include blatant vote-buying and supernatural sabotage. The eponymous protagonist of Mr. Stone and the Knights Companion is an aging Englishman of ponderously regular habits whose life is thrown into upheaval by a sudden marriage and unanticipated professional advancement. And the stories in A Flag on the Island take us from a Chinese bakery in Trinidad—whose black proprietor faces bankruptcy until he takes a Chinese name—to a rooming house in London—where the genteel landlady plays a nasty Darwinian game with her budgerigars.
Unfailingly stylish, filled with intelligence and feeling, here is the work of a writer who can do just about anything that can be done with language.
Critics Review
“V. S. Naipaul is the world’s writer, a master of language and perception.”
“As delightful as anything Naipaul has written.”
“A skilled trio of narrators…bring listeners three novellas. Adam embodies Trinidadians of all backgrounds in the election campaign that is at the heart of ‘The Suffrage of Elvira.’ He maximizes the dramatic personalities to hilarious effect. Vance brings us a quintessential Englishman whose life is thrown into disarray through marriage and unforeseen events in ‘Mr. Stone and the Knights Companion.’ Butler helps us believe the incredible journey of a black businessman who ends up living in London with a Chinese name in ‘A Flag on the Island.’”
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