Neither is the country or city he lives in nor his wife or son, who are all referred to in generic terms – his lover is always “the pretty girl” no matter how old she grows. Written as a self-help book, he addresses his protagonist as ‘you’. Like Hamid’s previous novels, this too is narratively unconventional.
If the story is slightly overfamiliar, the way it is told is most certainly not. To this end, she could be Daisy to his Jay Gatsby: the yearning for wealth and position is caught up in a yearning for her. Embedded within this tale of smooth self-invention is a not-so-smooth love story: a pretty girl and sometime lover is just out of his reach and the desire to win her over is partly what motivates his upward climb. Mohsin Hamid’s third novel is a classic rags-to-riches story told in experimental form.Īn Asian boy hailing from the harsh terrain of village life pulls himself up by his bootstraps to become a hotshot water industrialist in the city.
0 kommentar(er)
