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  • The Mystic Masseur

  • A Novel
  • By: V. S. Naipaul
  • Narrated by: Ron Butler
  • Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (43 ratings)

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The Mystic Masseur

By: V. S. Naipaul
Narrated by: Ron Butler
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Summary

The first of Naipaul's 12 novels tells of one man's meteoric rise and hilarious metamorphosis from failed schoolteacher and struggling masseur to the most popular man in Trinidad.

In this slyly funny and lavishly inventive novel, Nobel Prize winner 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.

©2018 V. S. Naipaul (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
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What listeners say about The Mystic Masseur

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I loved this book

I found this book so humorous and a good example of double standards so prevalent at the time in which it was set. I listened to it in the cart with my husband who didn’t find it in the least bit amusing. There is no accounting for taste.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Laugh out loud funny and brilliant performance

This is a great story written with a lot of humour and read brilliantly by Ron Butler

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Great narration and hilarious story

Hilarious story with a great narration. One of my favourite Naipaul books. Happy to hear a west Indian accent and not Indian as often used with Naipaul books

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3 people found this helpful