With all that is going on in our world, and specifically in our country due to the orange baboon in charge, my friend and I decided we wanted to do something to educate ourselves, specifically regarding Muslim people. Sort of a “fight the piles of ignorance with education” personal growth assignment. I came across an article via lithub that gave 10 contemporary books to read, so we both took a look. She narrowed down the list to a few, and then I made the final call. […]
A heartbreaking work of beautiful writing
Have you ever read a book right after it was published and realized that this book was meant to be read right now, right at this time, and that it speaks powerfully about what is unfolding around the world? I don’t think it’s an accident that Mohsin Hamid is writing about refugees fleeing their native country which has crumbled, or that he speaks to the family ties that we forge and break from this kind of global uncertainty. I was surprised by this short novel, […]
“We are all migrants through time”
I’ve been meaning to read Mohsin Hamid for years now so when I found it right after it was added to my library’s collection, I took it as a sign. Sidenote: Can we talk about how beautiful this cover is? I can’t stop staring at it. The cover designer for the US version should be given a raise. I knew Exit West had something to do with immigrants, but that was the extent of my knowledge going in. Turns out I was in for much, […]
Up to some of his old tricks
I mostly liked The Reluctant Fundamentalist but I thought the weird framing device of a conversation in a cafe was actually quite bad. This novel did not have quite a strange device at the center of its story, but it did have a little trickery. This novel kind of starts us off in Syria, but the ambiguity of the narration suggests it could be a lot of different places in the world. As Nadia and Saeed meet, fall in….something, avoid and circulate sex and marriage, their […]
You you you you you you you you you TOO MANY YOU’S.
This one comes down to personal taste. I don’t write very many reviews like this — where it’s clear the author was good with words and had a brain in his head, even some good things to say — but where I just can’t stand the way it’s presented. The Reluctant Fundamentalist, I gather, was somewhat revelatory when it was first published, as it was among rare company in being a post-9/11 novel told from a non-white, non-American perspective. I don’t know very much about Mohsin […]
Who’s Reluctant? Who’s the Fundamentalist? And more questions…
I first read The Reluctant Fundamentalist three years ago for a seminar on literature and terrorism for my MA in English. It’s a beautifully rendered novel with a frame narrative, not unlike Marlow’s rendering of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness. And really, there are more than a few analogies one could make with Conrad’s novella. Changez, the narrator of the novel, is living in Pakistan where he encounters an American stranger who appears to be more than just someone on a pleasure tour of Pakistan–post […]