...the closest relative to Heller’s classic satire of the second world war ... Hanif’s observations of the camp are precise and hair-raising, and one forgives the accidental Britishisms that pepper Major Ellie’s speech ... Hanif is at his most entertaining when he is deep in the farce, and some characters are no more than that ... The true brutalities of war are shown in quick, moving strokes ... Red Birds is full of dark comedy and witty eviscerations of war and the singular way it draws out human ugliness. However, satire relies on a veneer of sincerity: the reader alone observes absurdities that the characters believe in and live by ... Hanif is dexterous and ambitious with the literary tools of both east and west ... Red Birds is an incisive, unsparing critique of war and of America’s role in the destruction of the Middle East. It combines modern and ancient farcical traditions in thrilling ways.
Hanif knows about the absurdity of war in a way that a civilian never could ... The wit generally comes in sharp riffs ... There are also the more overt, hyperbolic markers of satire and the comic novel form ... These achieve the laughs and winces they are played for, but can distract from moments of realist pathos when they come. They also compete with the more considered, otherworldly metamorphosis that the book undergoes towards its end ... Hanif’s riffs acquire weight even as they keep their catchiness.
... a cautionary tale of how a novelistic intelligence can sputter out in the grip of a many-tentacled conflict ... The trouble is that Hanif wants to have it both ways: to be an earnest elegist as well as a fiery caricaturist. Ultimately he succeeds at neither. The novel’s emotional world is as flat and parched as the desert in which Ellie crashes; the monologues inefficiently repeat information and action. Mostly, this is a failure of language and tone: Hanif never convincingly distinguishes his characters’ voices ... I was disappointed to see Hanif reaching for the easiest jokes ... He has found, in this novel, an ingenious way to bring an American and his so-called enemies face to face. But having effected this confrontation in the desert, he loses his nerve. Red Birds becomes another casualty of the forever wars.
... a piercingly laugh-out-loud novel in a genre that doesn’t often abide comedy. But Hanif pushes his narrative beyond mere irony, expanding his critique of America’s military interventions to include satire, ghost stories and absurdist touches — up to and including a canine narrator that’s usually smarter than any human in the room ... There’s no question that the central target of Hanif’s satire is the American military and its various missteps in the Middle East. But because the location of “Red Birds” is unnamed, his satire is more powerfully universal, pulling in a whole complex of refugees, aid workers and more who’ve been forced to live with the absurd consequences of war cultur. In time, Momo gets a little smarter about what’s going to make him money. His enlightenment, like the novel as a whole, is at once witty and crushing.
The ghastliness of war and its consequent unsavory realities are subtly captured ... Hanif demonstrates his finesse by dovetailing the tenebrous story of war with comic yet insightful scenes that bring tragicomic effects to the novel. Often satirical in tone, the book derides the absurdity of war in a highly provocative and intriguing fashion ... Hanif is a skilled master of drawing vivid characters that may appear funny but represent disquieting realities of their own ... The most essential and noticeable feature of Hanif’s writing is the description of the brutal aftermath of war ... The novel is a scathing yet wry critique of American war policies and coercive US involvement in the Middle East.
...a universe populated exclusively by the dupes, villains and victims of America’s forever war, along with a few charlatans, people driven mad by grief and, to my great unhappiness, one talking dog ... It is the bleakest, most mournful book by an author celebrated for his barbed tongue and high silliness ... Hanif’s writing has always been anchored in Pakistan, and in a very Punjabi sense of humor. Here it floats free, leached of color and all local detail. For the first time he plays with parable — and what an exciting departure it might have been ... Instead, we get an alarmingly sloppy and choppy ghost story ... the pacing is all wrong ... Criminally — for such a savagely funny writer — the jokes don’t land ... Wrestling with the novel, I began to feel I was reading less a document about trauma than a document of trauma. The story is weirdly repetitive ... The book behaves like a grieving person ... what happens to a writer when he recognizes the limitations of his favorite form? This novel isn’t riddled with mere flaws but heartbreak.
...a blistering, savage, tragicomic satire about the cruelty of war and the impossibility of peace ... In this world everything is absurd; Hanif writes of violence and bitterness with flashes of hilarity that underline his anger and his humanity.
Hanif’s book is undoubtedly a high-wire act. Red Birds constantly threatens to fall apart, its characters and locations both achingly realistic and elusively metaphysical. But that’s part of its charm ... Red Birds is full of sharp lines ... Hanif employing a tone of gentle exasperation at the absurdities of endless faraway wars ... for all these acutely observed insights, Red Birds’ narrative is marginally less effective than in Hanif’s previous books ... Red Birds doesn’t always soar, but it’s an effective satire.
Hanif’s superb novel, with its elements of magic realism, is told from multiple points of view, principally those of Momo, Ellie, and—in a whimsical touch—Momo’s dog ... Hanif has written a splendidly satirical novel that beautifully captures the absurdity and folly of war and its ineluctable impact on its survivors. At turns funny and heartbreaking, it is a memorable contribution to the literature of conflict.
A colossus of a writer who makes you laugh your way to tears; whose words burn and lacerate till you can’t hold it in anymore and you have to stop just to start again. Red Birds, his third novel, does not disappoint ... Look inside Red Birds for that catharsis that can be the only deliverance to us from ourselves ... Hanif takes you on an emotional roller-coaster without really telling you that you are on it. You expect the laugh. You don’t see what sits under it, peeling the flesh off your face ... a book that is rich in the dark mirror it holds up.
A satire of American military power that skirts didacticism while skewering our nation's misadventures in the Middle East ... Hanif's novel maneuvers between compelling, hilarious voices with the fast pace of a slapstick comedy, albeit a comedy with teeth ... Funny, fresh, and not afraid to draw blood, this is an unusual gem of a book.
Hanif’s portrait of the surrealism and commonplaceness of America’s wars in Muslim countries is nearly impossible to put down. The camp in particular crackles with humanity ... The novel manages to remain delightful and unpredictable even in its darkest moments, highlighting the hypocrisies and constant confusions of American intervention abroad.
