I read a couple of chapters of that book..my impression pretty good book from Naipaul, sequel to Half a life and very interesting. He starts the book with gandhi and his obsessions (same tone as a chapter on gandhi in his book- India a wounded civilisation) and the protagonist willie trying to follow gandhis path of returning to indian political system bored with life in england and africa.Gandhi became a mahatma while willie just fails badly and had to return back to england. Naipaul wants to make sure his readers understand Gandhi and his obsessions.

And now I feel after reading most of naipaul’s novels,probably his protagonists in all his novels are leading Gandhi’s life ( england, africa and returning back to india), yet looking at all these countries from Naipaul POV and his personal experiences in these countries since he lived there.

The chapters I read he still retains a unique way of looking at india, pretty realistic probably depicting indian middle class communist/rebels in kerala, assam and probably some chapters are like life in srilankan LTTE camps. Disillusioned willie trying again to fit into an exotic culture just the way he does in england and africa. I did not read the whole novel but the ending chapters of return to england and some romance seemed boring. He started out well.

Regarding editing this novel probably his earlier novels also need some editing,specially enigma of arrival needed a lot more of that..that whole book had so many paragraphs written on gardens,houses, long descriptions and lot of repeated descriptions.

And I think this might be his last book. Its hard to write when someone is 70 yrs old..I can never write or be so active that when Iam that old..And I still think he has a unique style of writing, most of his books are like travelogues about lives of people in different countries and the protagonist trying to fit into the culture and his experiences in those countries.