Skip to main content

Book Review: Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

Those who have finished ‘Exit West’ by Mohsin Hamid may feel that this book is half-migrant literature, half-globalist. The author is not only interested in revealing how the human lives are changing by migration, but by how constant migration in-and-of itself leads to the blurring of location and nation-state construction. This assumption is evident by the constant interruptions in the lives of Nadia and Saeed. Can there be re-imagination of global identities in a denationalizing world vision? Somehow this novel could not convince this peculiarity.


May be the novel is built too much on concepts and not enough on character. Neither of the two characters seem to function or think outside of their movements and Hamid's occasional insights. Also, the lack of specificity of location. For a book with so many random places, readers were made to feel that they have to detach from one place to place, in a sense a backdrop is lost. The book sounds a piece of abstract writing. All of it seems so unreal, so rushed.

This book could have been a masterpiece if all the details, locations, and characters, had been firmly developed. At least it left behind an interesting experiment that deserved more.

The plot of this book is quite topical: immigration and the sense of identity. It is a relevant issue that is plaguing the world today…immigration of people from strife-ridden places to other countries and regions that hold promise of a new life: a life that is safe, idyllic, and nurturing. However, often the migrants underestimate the distrust, inhumanity and apathy that await them in their imagined future worlds. The story captured this worry, and how the migrants try to make sense of their fractured families, changed loves, and disrupted lives. The writer is fond of composing long, very long sentences that flit from here to there, often vaguely, but then, miraculously, just when the readers  begin to lose the thread, gathers the words together to build a coherent sentence that captures, quite elegantly, what he sets out to achieve in the first place.

The first half was interesting then it became a story more about migration and yes there were too many doors. Too many countries covered from Europe to America. But overall the novel is good .The depiction of migration crisis and its impact on personal relationships was brought out well in the novel.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review: The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond

Among all Ruskin Bond books, The Blue Umbrella has, so far, gathered immense applaud from readers and critics alike.  This is a short novel, but the kind of moral lessons it teaches to us are simply overwhelming. This is a story of Binya, a poor little girl living with her mother and an elder brother, Bijju, in a small hilly village of Garhwal. One day while herding her two cows back home, she stumbles upon some city people enjoying the picnic in the valley. She is enthralled to see them well-groomed and rich. She craves to be one like them and among many other things of their, a blue frilly umbrella catches her attention. She begins craving for it. On the other hand, the city people get attracted by her innocent beauty and the pendant in her neck. The pendant consists of leopard’s claw – which is considered a mascot widely in the hills. Binya trades her pendant off with the blue umbrella. The blue umbrella is so much beautiful that soon it becomes a topic of conversatio...

Poem Summary: Where The Mind Is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore

Poem by Rabindranath Tagore: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. Short Summary: This poem is written by Rabindranath Tagore during pre-independence days, when India was a colony of the British. The underlying theme of the poem is absolute freedom; the poet wants the citizens of his country to be living in a free state. According to the poem, we see that the poet is expressing his views there should be a country, like where people live without any sort of fear and with pure dignity…they should ...

Character Sketch of Binya from ‘The Blue Umbrella’ by Ruskin Bond

The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond is a popular children’s story. It features Binya as the main character, though there are other important characters as well, but the story revolves around Binya and her little beautiful umbrella. The story is widely popular among children, thus it has also been included in the schools’ syllabus all across the country. Since it is often taught in the school, thus the character sketch of Binya is often demanded by students from year to year. Character Sketch of Binya from The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond Binya is the main character of the novel ‘The Blue Umbrella’ by Ruskin Bond. Her full name is Binyadevi. As in the hills or anywhere in India it is a kind of trend to call children with their short nicknames. Binya’s elder brother’s name is Bijju, whereas his real name is Vijay. Binya aged eleven is a hilly girl. She lives with her small family in the hills of Garhwal. Her father died when she was two years of age. For sustenance, the...