The portrait of Sebastian Khan that emerges in Rashid’s debut is a humorous, edgy early-twentysomething coming-of-age, a character who will recall, for some readers, Charles Highway of Martin Amis’s The Rachel Papers. Told in an accessible third person and, at times, cutting nearly to the point of drawing blood, this is a book you can’t help but like from its first page.
Rashid gives us the chance to look at millennials in a different light ... Though it is easy to get lost in the details of the paintings and beautiful youth engrained into the pages, Rashid uses Khan’s experiences to weave in life lessons. There are many parenthetical asides that offer background information without interrupting from the action, creating an atmosphere where the reader is included ... Rashid effortlessly weaves in comedic interludes, breaking up the denser descriptions fluidly.
One of the most striking qualities of Aatif Rashid’s debut novel, Portrait of Sebastian Khan, is its ability to lay bare misunderstanding, in the moment it appears. This is not just about confusion, although many characters experience bewilderment throughout the narrative, but about willful misunderstanding or misinterpretation... [a] startling coming of age story ... Sebastian is a delicious protagonist (something I’m sure he would love to hear). Often a jerk, often pretentious or smug, always quick-thinking and very intelligent — if persuaded of his own beliefs — it is easy to enjoy judging him. It is also easy to feel for him.
...witty and dissolute... Sebastian is a flawed but compelling character, and his romances are detailed with rushes of color and sensation. This sensuality alternates with undertones of humor and even subtle splendor ... In the end, Sebastian’s Berkeley days may be the last strokes on a canvas of pageantry and excess, but despite the somber palette of post-graduate life, his newer, self-determined portrait seems to be more complex and changing for the better.
It is easy to read his exploits as satire of an uninhibited college life. It would also be easy to read them as a critique of toxic male objectification of the female body, amplified through Sebastian’s art history viewing of the girls he meets. And it is those things, at least somewhat. Yet it is also a coming of age tale where the main character is suave, flawed, and utterly unlikable throughout his character arc. That said, the writing is compulsively readable and well-paced though perhaps predictable in the way Sebastian’s relationships eventually fall apart through his duplicity ... I leave the book...confused about what, if any, stance the book desires I take regarding its protagonist ... Rashid is a talented writer, there’s no doubt. Yet for all that Sebastian’s story might fascinate, it is a cold tale, one whose rosy ending should not make us forget the road that led there.
