PositiveIrish Times (IRE)Thought-provoking, America-centric collection of interconnected essays considers progressive activists striking the balance between robust criticism while also not alienating the potentially persuadable ... Borderline hagiographical ... Probably out of a sense of duty to his subjects, some essays are a little overlong, but they’re insightful, witty and surefooted. The same points keep coming up, but rather than being repetitive they bolster Giridharadas’s thesis.
Mohsin Hamid
PositiveThe Irish Times (IRE)At first, it’s hard to know what to make of this novel. Despite an intriguing premise, Kafka’s gleeful absurdism gets cast aside in favour of a self-serious earnestness, as though these weighty matters must be treated with the utmost respect. Aside from a sort of chilly irony, the book is strenuously sombre despite the outlandish scenario. At best, it’s intense, at worst, dour ... Though impressive, the writing can be irksome in how fussed-over it appears. Hamid has opted for a jarringly meandering style. The sentences abounding with subclauses are so interminable they would make Henry James balk. I found myself physically craving full stops. Reading this aloud, you’d collapse from lack of oxygen ... But getting into the novel, a conceptual purpose behind the style announces itself. The sentences reflect the spiralling tributaries of our thoughts, how one thought escalates to another, often contradicting the last. Fiction can be a refuge for such doubt in a time when many are flagrantly proclaiming their certitude. Each clause keeps burrowing deeper into the characters’ contradictions ... This unique style also plays into Hamid’s greatest strength: his empathy revealing the tangled complexity that prompts our behaviour ... He’s also insightful on questions of identity ... While some late scenes of reconciliation are borderline treacly, the moving ending is earned.
