The back cover of this book described it as a thriller. While I don't particularly fancy that genre, something about it intrigued me and I decided to give it a shot. And I was truly rewarded for the experimentation.
How does a high flying, young Pakistani man look at the politics of the world unfurling around him? What does really matter, at the end of the day, when you close your eyes and will yourself to be true to yourself? Can the fear in one instill hatred in another? Can the east and the west ever truly understand where they are coming from, what makes them what they are?
The book is a brilliantly crafted piece of work, written in the polite conversational tone of a Pakistani host. It beautifully showcases the west from the eyes of an Asian, whose family has seen both glorious days and abject poverty. Mohsin Hamid vividly describes the coming to grips with love and life in the west and the failure of both to live up to one's expectations. If there is one bit that I felt could have been more clearly sketched out, it was the protagonist's internal conflict, why he chose to keep the beard and everything related to it. Its there for you to see and feel and understand, but its not spelt out. So you give it the colours that you see it in. Nothing wrong with that, just that I would have liked to see it from the author's perspective, given his exceptional insight everywhere else in the book.
Another little bit of interest was the tangential reference to India and the perceived threat from India. It was very interesting indeed to see things from the other side, their fears and apprehensions, in a clearly unstable world.
Does the book justify terrorism? Can anything justify terrorism? Not really, in my opinion. But it gives a powerful account of one young man's journey in the quest for self-realisation, and his decisions, for better or worse. I'm really glad I picked this one up - couldn't put it down till I had finished it.
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