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The Mystic Masseur

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The Mystic Masseur Cover

 

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

In this slyly funny and lavishly inventive novel–his first–V. S. Naipaul traces the unlikely career of Ganesh Ramsumair, a failed schoolteacher and impecunious village masseur who in time becomes a revered mystic, a thriving entrepreneur, and the most beloved politician in Trinidad. To understand a little better, one has to realize that in the 1940s masseurs were the island’s medical practitioners of choice. As one character observes, “I know the sort of doctors they have in Trinidad. They think nothing of killing two, three people before breakfast.”

Ganesh’s ascent is variously aided and impeded by a Dickensian cast of rogues and eccentrics. There’s his skeptical wife, Leela, whose schooling has made her excessively, fond. of; punctuation: marks!; and Leela’s father, Ramlogan, a man of startling mood changes and an ever-ready cutlass. There’s the aunt known as The Great Belcher. There are patients pursued by malign clouds or afflicted with an amorous fascination with bicycles. Witty, tender, filled with the sights, sounds, and smells of Trinidad’s dusty Indian villages, The Mystic Masseur is Naipaul at his most expansive and evocative.

Synopsis:

Ganesh is transformed from an unsuccessful primary-school teacher and clumsy masseur in Trinidad into a healing mystic, in a novel set against the backdrop of 1940s Trinidad. Reprint. 17,500 first printing.

About the Author

\V. S. Naipaul lives in Wiltshire, England.

Product Details

ISBN:
9780307776518
Publisher:
Vintage Books
Subject:
Fiction : Literary
Author:
V.S.Naipaul
Author:
Naipaul, V. S.
Subject:
Mystics
Subject:
Trinidad and tobago
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Political fiction
Subject:
Humorous fiction
Subject:
Satire
Subject:
Political fiction, Trinidadian and Tobagonian
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Subject:
main_subject
Subject:
all_subjects
Publication Date:
20020108
Binding:
ELECTRONIC
Language:
English
Pages:
207

Related Subjects

Fiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z

The Mystic Masseur
0 stars - 0 reviews
$ In Stock
Product details 207 pages Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group - English 9780307776518 Reviews:
"Synopsis" by , Ganesh is transformed from an unsuccessful primary-school teacher and clumsy masseur in Trinidad into a healing mystic, in a novel set against the backdrop of 1940s Trinidad. Reprint. 17,500 first printing.
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