This book report will contain spoilers, because I’m pissed off and I don’t really care if I ruin this book for anyone. It’s going on my Do Not Read list, which I just created for the purpose of saying that.
There’s a lot going on here. The two main characters, the nameless narrator and the protagonist, Zafar, are living in England when they meet, though they are both from South Asian backgrounds. Zafar was born in Bangladesh to a peasant family; the narrator is from a privileged Pakistani family and was born in the US. It’s been years since they last saw one another, but Zafar returns to England in 2008, in the shadow of the financial crisis, and tells his story to the narrator. Well, “tells” his “story”. And, I guess, “narrator”. The book’s ultimate point is centred around the need to understand a story backwards once all the details are known. In pursuit of this, Zafar’s narrative is told in chronologically jumbled chunks, with looooong digressions to explain minor points through allegory or analogy that draw from other incidents in Zafar’s life, including books he’s read. On top of this, the narrator also inserts episodes from his own life, both reflecting on the circumstances in which Zafar is narrating the story, and illustrating their shared history, as well as the narrator’s personal history including the breakdown of his marriage. So the narrative would already be confused, but on top of this, there are long discursive sections reflecting on race, class, religion, colonialism, the Western intervention in Afghanistan, the culpability of the finance industry in the collapse of the housing market…take your pick, really, of any significant talking points from the last quarter century or so. In the end, it was so overburdened with its own content that it took me weeks to grind my way through, even though it was actually shorter than the David Mitchell novel I read before it, which I tore through in a matter of days. (Note to ZHR: of the two of you, who made this year’s Booker long list?)
However, the most offensive aspect of the book lies in the revelation contained in the penultimate chapter. The whole novel has been building up to it, dropping hints along the way, and it turns out that Zafar raped his ex-girlfriend. My objection to this is not as content per se. I mean, it happens in the world, it has to be able to happen in fiction. My problem is with its treatment by the novel. Zafar is built up as a sympathetic protagonist all the way through; after this revelation, he disappears from the narrator’s life again basically without judgment. It’s clear from what Zafar says that he regrets his actions (though he also seems to think he loves his victim, so my heart’s not exactly breaking for him), but from the narrator’s point of view, the incident is reported pretty much neutrally. I was utterly enraged by it. In fairness, at least part of my rage was because, after however many weeks of slog, THIS was my reward. A rapist quietly exiting the scene. It also didn’t help that the victim was presented throughout the novel utterly without sympathy, as a cold bitch undeserving of Zafar’s “love” (which may be an accurate representation of her character, but which only contributed to my impotent fury). There’s more I could say about this issue, but I’d rather go live my life.
Look, I’m sure all the (many, many) points being made are good ones, but when, as I was, you’re reading this mess in 20-minute intervals on the train, it’s basically impossible to hold all the threads together. Put that together with the nature of the climax, and the whole thing is provoking to say the least. Critics seem to have loved it; to them I say, well, you were paid to read it in one or two long sittings, maybe you managed to achieve an overarching narrative flow that was denied to those of us who have to go do other stuff for 8 hours at a time. To the author I say: this is your debut effort; maybe you don’t have to try to tackle EVERY Important Issue of Our Time. Get out the red pen and leave something on the table for the follow-up. Also, fuck you.