ttgapers.com

Kindle version of this book full of errors - otherwise great read

This is a fantastic book but suggest you might want to buy the paper version. My Kindle version is literally riddled with typos and missing words. This is the first book I bought for my new Kindle and I'm sorely disappointed. I hope this is not indicative of all Kindle books.

GROLIES

I am hastening firstly to explain that I normally avoid fiction that has won a prize or been shortlisted for a prize, particularly British prizes, and most definitely that I avoid paying for them. However, one is occasionally obliged to read them, so I do so diligently and quickly to get the duty out of the way. Rather like eating your boiled cabbage first. Secondly, to whom is story likely to appeal - who will like this novella? To answer this, see the title of my review, which comes from a tabloid article on the acronymous notations which doctors (particularly GPs) allegedly make on our case notes - eg, `GOK'= God Only Knows, and `UBI'=Unexplained Beer Injury. I read these articles avidly, as they say so much in so short a space, and I am sometimes convinced of their accuracy. So it is that the last article I read has `GROLIES'=Guardian Reader Of Limited Intelligence in Ethnic Skirt, and it to this class of person that I commend this story. (Guardian - socialista UK newspaper.)

BACKGROUND, BUT NOT PLOT SPOILER
Bright young man from Pakistan goes to Princeton, gets prestige job in New York as business analyst valuing companies (eg, for flotation on stock market, or selling on). Meets American girl. 9/11 happens. Things go pear-shaped. Bright less-young man is back in Pakistan and meets an American tourist and sort-of has an astoundingly long conversation with him as the tourist drinks tea. The tone is calm, the story very eventful but even-paced and retrospective whilst still maintaining a rooted in the now feel.

ANALYSIS
The prose is literate but not written as by one who rejoices in the full-blooded Anglo-Saxon-Latinate-Greco-British Empireness of the English language. The grammatical structures of another language lurk beneath the English cadence, and there is a sense of having been fluently translated-as-written from a foreign thought pattern into good English, which subtly avoids being instinctual English. The interior monologue style is tiresomely stifling and palls on the page, the first page in fact, as a stranger who approached an American tourist in that manner anywhere, let alone in Pakistan, would be dismissed as a lunatic or creep of some sort. It reminds me of a mangled, uneven, ill-at-ease `Catcher In The Rye' first person POV technique. The story is clearly to some extent autobiographical, as the back cover blurb itself makes clear as it echoes the central character's experiences in the author's life. This adds to the rich detail and vividness, and naturally works well with the first person-ess of it all. The descriptions of food and buildings in both places are good as far as they go, but are not enough to bridge the gap or glue it all together. Rather like a cheese grater on mild Cheddar.

Our sensitive protagonist is alienated from the US culture, but not as in Catcher in the Rye because he is disorientated by coming to terms with the world of crass and superficial adult hypocrisies which he will all too soon leave school to embark upon himself, unless he is strong enough and quick enough to define his own principles and start to live by them as he means to go on. No, our protagonist is of an alien culture and alone in his personal bubble. He outwardly and materially succeeding in his work but is inwardly isolated and not adopting the country which has adopted him. He is an actor and a spectator at the same time but never really at ease in his own skin. He does not suspect that America is built on deeper and greater foundations than simple meritocracy, essential though that is. (Forget not that the ever-recurrent pernicious tendency to promote on other than merit was long ago skewered by Socrates, who asked his listeners did they prefer to be treated when ill by the most skilled doctor available, or take the advice of their friends who were skilled in shoe-making or horse-riding?)

Although the story is nominally rooted in our 21st century clash of cultures and the war on terror there is no sense of the real motivations that underlie jihadism and deep roots of the conflict. The reference to the janissaries is grossly misused, as they were abducted and enslaved, but he is a volunteer. This distinction makes the two not just worlds apart, but makes all the difference in any world. The emotional pivot of the story is the flash of truth in the protagonist's inner reaction to the 9/11 attack. The moral compass and generic intellectual background of the protagonist are socialist-sympathy-for-poor concerns. But you have to make wealth before you can distribute it. The protagonist is unable to truly engage with the spontaneous order and success of the free market, even though (in the story) having at one level fully comprehendingly encountered it and successfully taken part in it as a high-powered business analyst. Many a businessman understands business but economics not all. But this poor character does not really even understand business. Buying and selling requires two parties, and they both must benefit, or they do not do business. Simple as that. And the business does not guarantee anything beyond that, even though all prosperity and wealth flow from it and it alone. What you do with it is up to you. Irony within irony, but socialist is as socialist does. This is the heart of the story, but it is an empty heart. It reminds of why I avoid shortlisted books, I am fearful of why they were really shortlisted.

A Memoir, A Confession, or A Speech?

This short work is hard to put down. I found it rather compelling, well-written, and convincing, in the sense that the narrator's voice seemed sincere. The story of disgruntled Ivy League graduates is going to be very much on everyone's minds now that the First Lady is in the spotlight. Mrs. Obama seems to have her own story to tell about feeling out of place among America's trust fund brats. Be that as it may, Hamid convincingly tells his story of upward mobility at Princeton and then on to Wall Street. Resentment is easily cultivated; this is the story of a fellow who rises quickly, wanting nothing but money and success until he realizes that there is more to life than first-class flights to the ends of the earth. It is not entirely clear whether this is all the Princeton had to teach; what is clear is that this is all that Hamid came to America for. When he sorts it all out, he blames America. Something tells me that this is what he learned at Princeton, since this is more or less all that one hears from writers educated in such places. Still his story is not to be dismissed. The relationship between the Princeton grad from Pakistan and his reluctant girlfriend stikes me as the heart of the story, but this relationship is not nearly as easily sorted out as the politics of the author. He's found himself a deeply disturbed gal who can't get over the death of a previous boyfriend. Just what this means is unclear, but one can't help wondering if the author is trying to wrap a political parable around a soft psychological center.

clever, but fundamentally unconvincing

It's very readable, and generally well-written, but fails in the end for three basic reasons. First, the entire American girl-as-desired object is a cliche (doomed, brilliant, rich, beautiful!)-- the only thing convincing about her is his desire for her. Second, the real-time narrative-- the mannered dialogue with the ominous American "dinner guest" is utterly over the top and rings false in virtually every way. Third, and most important, I at least simply didn't believe the hero's transformation into a fundamentalist. The author understands national and class resentments,and the spoiled privilege of the Pakistani upper class, but I don't believe he understands Islamic fundamentalism at all, and it shows. Those hoping for a window into the psyches of the Mohammad Attas of this world will be no wiser for having read this.

Very inciteful, makes you think

I like many people thought religious fundamentalism when I picked up this book, but it was never once mentioned in the book. Not once was religion mentioned. The fundamentalism is based on the bottom line mentioned when Changez finally had enough. He was being instructed to overlook the people who he originally respected for their hard work and expertise and base his evaluations on the "bottom line". Money mattered, not people. He was attaracted to a woman he could and should not have, lived in a culture that could accept him -- only with limits. This book is a fast read because it is written conversationally written.