The Nightwatchman's Occurrence Book
V. S. Naipaul
<p>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.<br /><em>The Suffrage of Elvira </em>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 <em>Mr. Stone and the Knights Companion</em> 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 <em>A Flag on the Island</em> 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.<br /><em><br /></em>  </p><p><em>From the Trade Paperback edition.</em></p><p>**</p>Review<p>“V. S. Naipaul is the world’s writer, a master of language and perception.” –<em>The New York Times Book Review</em>  </p><p>“As delightful as anything Naipaul has written.” –<em>The New York Review of Books</em>  </p><p>“V. S. Naipaul has a substantial claim as a comic writer. . . . This humor, conducted throughout with the utmost stylistic quietude, is completely original.” –Kingsley Amis, <em>The Spectator</em>  </p><p><em>From the Trade Paperback edition.</em></p>From the Inside Flap<p>l’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.<br /><em>The Suffrage of Elvira </em>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 <em>Mr. Stone and the Knights Companion</em> 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 <em>A Flag on the Island</em> 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 budg </p>