Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

Very engaging book. Difficult to put down. One of a few such that I finish in one long afternoon.

War torn countries, lives, refugees. It is emotional but what perhaps breaks the heart more is the people drifting apart. There is life and reality which is involuntary, one finds oneself in, and one deals the best possible way with. But then there’s the voluntary bits, which we all face and given our egos, our perception of life – I don’t know, there’s no good or bad, right or wrong between people, but there are moments of grace, of courage, of generosity, which ideally, need to be reacted to gracefully, courageously and generously, by meeting them like that, fully, if we are lucky perhaps. Sometimes one can’t see beyond the intensity of the emotional moment. Sometimes, one is too small for the moment. But the wish and prayer is that may we all find our best selves for moments which need the best selves.

The book makes you want to read it again immediately almost...I get affected more by the people, their story than their common lot.

*


I don't know how great literature treats this.

Only the depth of time, the distance allows us to meet the greatness in any writing. Layers removed from that world and age, accepting everything from the author, more fully participating in the writer's world, perhaps less judgemental, with less contemporary baggage of our own, we come to the time honoured in a different way. My gripe is less with the book, but with all contemporary literature, where people and relationships reflect reality, which is less than ideal. Perhaps in contemporary fiction, however great they may be, the current times cannot appreicate it well enough, it is a privilege of later, removed ages.

What literature allows is instances or characters that somehow transcend the shallow bounds of their moment or their selves. Somehow they become larger than life while very much remaining of life. That perhaps speaks of my personal preference in literature that inspires me, elevates me, enriches my spirit. Perhaps that is what I crave from any good book. A spirit made whole. Choices made generously.


*

Personally, the drift in the novel got me emotionally high strung...anyhow. It is what it is. Overall, a strange push and pull with the book.

*

The book doesn't  name the country of our protagonists. It is a war-torn country, poor, itself a shelter to refugees. But when life becomes unliveable under militant rule, they escape. They escape through a door, into a better world. A world where they try to make their home, moving from Mykonos, to London to Miren. But as refugees they face the wrath,  befuddlement, at times kindness and understanding of natives, who do not really understand how to deal with them. In one sentence somewhere he says, nativity is relative. Especially in America. It is just a matter of time, and sometimes generations born anew in a new country forget the past movement across continents, the migration. 

*

On a factual note, if one carefully looks at the demographics of the world, where the population has grown, where it is declining, there'll be a discernible shape of poor to rich countries. A country being poor is perhaps never the only problem, the problem is mismanaged poor countries, with religious strife and people's basic freedom on line. In such a world, Mohsin Hamid's book is very topical. What perhaps European countries feel in terms of refugee crisis, until development comes to poor nations, a search for better life will keep leading people to migrate to better destinies.

*

It is a very vivid book. Keep thinking of the characters even later in your day too. Almost as if people you know from somewhere. A little bit of magic realism or perhaps euphemism in describing the doors, and peppered with unrelated stories of refugees around the world... it is a beautiful book. The emotional tug makes you want to put it aside, but the very tug makes you want to keep reading it. It is written well, with high economy.

I haven't read any other of his books but the topic is not something I would often pick up...I am generally wary of modern contemporary books, but sometimes I do pick them up. And perhaps they are the best way to understand the modern world, to complement the facts with stories of lives lived, characters known... I am not a big consumer of news, but books like this bring the world alive in front of your eyes in all its good, bad and ugly.