There’s something almost disorienting about Gurnah’s narrative as he moves from one person to the next, willfully thwarting our desire to settle on a protagonist ... Delicate ... Karim develops into a dashing, volcanic, morally compromised character who catches the eye. But Gurnah’s heart — and ours — lies elsewhere in this novel. Writing a story around a young man as subtle and apparently insignificant as Badar is a kind of argument about the value of true character.
Gurnah’s stoic prose isn’t always well suited to the tragic, even operatic events that unfold ... Yet for all the narrator’s reticence, a satisfying melodrama breaks through. The story builds to an engrossing climax ... In Gurnah’s hands, however, theatrics are never an end in themselves
Gurnah’s penchant for generous scene-setting results in many of Theft’s lovelier passages, but its limitations are noticeable ... Injected with some clunky historical context ... We’re left with Badar, Fauzia, and something rare in contemporary literature: a happy ending.
Gurnah nimbly covers vast acres of storyline ... It all keeps us on our toes, as does Gurnah’s habit of revealing pivotal events almost as if inadvertently letting them slip; an appealing narrative delivery mechanism, as though he’s casually sprinkling the action with dozens of little plot twists ... Gurnah flirts with crushingly gloomy determinism as well as the sunnier possibilities of hope, and it’s not the least of this wonderful title’s achievements that it leaves you wondering to the very last which way he’s going to go.
This is a quiet novel of unquiet lives ... A subtle writer through and through, Gurnah does not rush to explain to you his purpose. As the layers of circumstance and meaning culminate, the wider picture slowly becomes clear, and is all the more impactful for how carefully he brings the reader to see it for themselves.
Takes many forms intimate and cultural, subtle and obvious in the newest web of interconnected lives masterfully spun by Nobel laureate Gurnah ... Profoundly nuanced and revealing.
