ManBookering discussion

This is a discussion thread for Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. Please be courteous of spoilers; if you are going to discuss them, give fair warning of page/chapter number or use the spoiler tag. Thanks! Happy discussing.

Sadly, this one was not for me. I got a copy a couple of months ago and had such high hopes, mainly because I really enjoyed The Reluctant Fundamentalist, but I dnf-ed after about 100 pages...

This one has been one of my favorite reads of 2017. I had never read anything by the author before this, but I was so captivated by the writing and the story. And it was such a timely and powerful novel, I was completely engrossed. It's one of those books I read in one sitting and was so lost in that I sort of only have a hazy memory of what happens, but I clearly remember loving it. I might even try and squeeze in a re-read before the winner is announced because it isn't very long and I enjoyed it so much.

I've got mixed reactions. I thought the plot was great and Hamid's take on migrants was original but the writing style did not gel with me. Here's my GR review:

Exit West is a novel I admire more than actually like. Without a doubt it is clever. Although the story is about attitudes towards migrants, Hamid goes a step further and adds a magical realist element by allowing migrants to pass to other countries through magical doors which crop up. The book also is about a young couple trying to survive their war torn country and then when the couple find a doorway they try to survive adapting to their country's traditions.

As the couple are coping, their relationship develops as well. Hamid manages to integrate this love story without becoming overly melodramatic. In fact the whole book itself is tasteful yet manages to drive the point that, essentially, we are all migrants in some way or another. Definitely a prescient novel.

There's a lot to dwell on, but the thing that ruined the book is Hamid's writing style. I felt that Exist West read like a badly translated novel. Although there isn't cliched dialogue (thank goodness), the writing style is dull. Both the characters Saaed and Nadia had a ton of potential but the flat prose renders them into one dimensional characters. With such a rich plot, it is disappointing to see that the style doesn't really match. However I am thinking about Exit West and the strength of the themes and how they do reflect 21st century society so there is some merit I guess.

I'm with Maxwell on this one. I thought it was engrossing, and I couldn't put it down. I didn't have any issues with the writing style, and it was a while ago I read The Reluctant Fundamentalist, so I can't say that I can identify any distinct similarities or changes in style. I've recommended this book to everyone I know over the past couple months.

I actually really enjoyed the writing, and I thought the book had great momentum. The device he used really helped with moving the story along to focus on more core elements of migration. I imagine this book would be a lot lengthier without the magical realism, and without saying that would have been better or not, I truly think it worked here. What I truly embraced about this novel was the inclusion of both the positive and the negative faces of migration and those that go through it - and the hope that drives people. When thinking about this novel in our current climate and the plethora of stories on immigration and migration in the news cycle recently, it really strikes a chord. It is a book I would definitely reread at some point in the future.

Robert wrote: "I've got mixed reactions. I thought the plot was great and Hamid's take on migrants was original but the writing style did not gel with me. Here's my GR review:

Exit West is a novel I admire more ..."

I read Exit West this weekend and Robert's review is really close to my feelings about the novel. I loved the concept, but did not get into the writing style. I enjoyed the plot and there was so much to like about the book - in theory. But then I had to make myself pick up the book because it did not capture me in a way I had anticipated.

Some thoughts about the love story at heart:
(view spoiler)[I liked the way the love story was handled, especially the way the two drifted apart and finally broke up, but in this quite undramatic manner. I think that is quite a rare portrayal of romantic relationships. (hide spoiler)]

I had much the same reaction as Robert and Charlott, I liked the ideas, but not really the execution. I was interested in where the story led and there were plenty of things I enjoyed, but I never felt invested in the characters. I think my favourite parts were at the beginning when they met and when they were in London, the other two locations were more dull for me.

Well, that was a surprise. I fully expected to hate this one, but I've just given it 5 stars. So many levels to explore. So many issues raised. It's going quite near the top of my longlist ranking.

On the plus side, it squeezed a lot in for such a short tale, its refreshing to see a more real life picture of refugees than the normal stereotype and it had quite a new non-typical character engagements which I thought was refreshing.....but.....I found the whole door thing a bit out there, and from then on it all went a bit off piste for me. I could see it just making it onto the Booker shortlist though, but not in the same club as previous winners for me.

Neil wrote: "Well, that was a surprise. I fully expected to hate this one, but I've just given it 5 stars. So many levels to explore. So many issues raised. It's going quite near the top of my longlist ranking."

Why am I not surprised? LoL.

This must be our best/worst example yet. 5 stars from me and dnf from you!

Neil wrote: "This must be our best/worst example yet. 5 stars from me and dnf from you!"

I love the play between you and Britta. It always makes me laugh.

I love it, too! We definitely should team up on a judging panel somewhere - can you imagine the discussions?

Neil wrote: "I love it, too! We definitely should team up on a judging panel somewhere - can you imagine the discussions?"

#Fisticuffs LOL
I mean it–this is one of my favorite reading groups on Goodreads.

Neil wrote: "I love it, too! We definitely should team up on a judging panel somewhere - can you imagine the discussions?"

When I see the ratings of your books, I secretly hope that there is a clash.

Neil wrote: "I love it, too! We definitely should team up on a judging panel somewhere - can you imagine the discussions?"

Oh yes, I can, absolutely, it would be carnage... and loads of fun!

But that aside, maybe I should at least explain why I dnf-ed the book (which, with manbooker-books, means: I skim-read through it after about a third). One of the things that really bothered me was the use of magical realism. (Not a fan. At all). Especially the fact that refugees just 'stepped through a magical door' (like in Narnia) to enter 'the West' was a plot device that didnt serve any purpose. And I found it even a bit distasteful given the fact how real refugees come here (if they dont die on the way). Plus I felt it made the characters in the book and their experience as refugees less real because I think the perilous journey is an integral part of the refugee experience. In short, the book completely rubbed me the wrong way. :-)

Britta. I think you have misjudged the author as I felt the device was critical to what was a very positive exploration of migration.

The first part of Paul's very detailed review explains well why he made use of that device and also why the book ends up taking a utopian turn.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Although until I read/listened to some interviews with the author about what he was trying to do, I had the same initial reaction: that he had sanitised the process of migration.

I think I must have read something prior to reading the book about this. It didn't bother me because I understood what the author was doing. I can see that it might be disconcerting if you don't realise that.

Some interesting views on Exit West. Also one of the few times Marieke Hardy did not irritate me with her opinions.

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/firsttuesday...

I have to side with Britta on this one, and said much the same thing in my review: I felt Hamid trivialized the pain & suffering of forced emigration with the magical realism 'doors' element. And his having to 'explain' what he was attempting to do with that means, essentially, that he failed artistically to explicate it within the text itself... and just took the lazy way out.

I'd also heard before I started how Hamid dealt with the refugee's journey here. So I was aware this was being left out, in favour of focusing on the after effects and different aspects of their story. I think if I'd gone into this unknowing that, I'd probably have found the exit doors a flippant and frustrating device, as I would have been expecting more details about a difficult journey.

Disclaimer: the plight of migrants is horrendous and beyond what most of us could ever comprehend. I count myself more than fortunate that my family hasn't had to experience such an experience and am truly sorry for those who have.
Although I wasn't keen on the whole magical element, I actually did like the way that the novel chose not to attempt a somewhat stereotypical coverage of passages of hardship in favour of exploring the lifestyles of the characters in detail. For every extreme location in a country beset by forced migration, there are other parts where life goes on in various degrees of semi normality or non-extreme hardship, but these are rarely the subject of literature. It's almost like there should be some feeling of guilt on behalf of the author in that case(?).... I hope not. Just because the author chose this style didn't come across as trivialising migration at all to me, two very separate themes. Still, all in all, it was an ok read for me... possibly one to scrape in onto the shortlist, but unlikely to be my choice for winner.

First Hamid for me and we are not getting along - love the concept, hate the execution. The writing style is just bad --- "His eyes rolled terribly. Yes: terribly. Or perhaps not so terribly." Come on now. Are his other books written in the same way?

Kay wrote: "First Hamid for me and we are not getting along - love the concept, hate the execution. The writing style is just bad --- "His eyes rolled terribly. Yes: terribly. Or perhaps not so terribly." Come..."

I read Reluctant Fundamentalist and thought the writing was much better than in Exit West.

I agree with britta. I think Reluctant . .. is better style wise

I have just finished the book and can't wait to come here to discuss. I am with Britta on this book, although I didn't dnf it, I didn't like it either.
The writing style is dull, I feel Mohsin Hamid tried to do a lot with the writing, but somehow made it both complicated and plain. The concept is good, and it did show some of the difficulties and doubts refugees have, but there're many potentials in the plot or characters have been wasted.
And it's very hard for me to connect with the characters. The only twice I could feel ( a little bit ) for the characters happened within two pages. And I did raised my rating to 3.25 because of that. The rest of the pages feels emotionless to me :(
And for the discussion about we need to understand what the author was trying to do in order to fully understand the book, feels like he fail to delivery what he tried to say with his book so he has to explain it further.

Meonicorn (The Bookish Land) wrote: "I have just finished the book and can't wait to come here to discuss. I am with Britta on this book, although I didn't dnf it, I didn't like it either.
The writing style is dull, I feel Mohsin Ham..."

I agree - there was a missed opportunity here. I am fine with using the doors to jump to the topic that Hamid wanted to explore - what happens after you make it to the new country. But it wasn't enough for me. It felt way too short and unsatisfactory of an exploration.

I see this as one of the strongest of the longlist. On some of the general points above:

The book deliberately takes an relatively benign view of things - as Hamid has put it in interviews:

Part of the great political crisis we face in the world today is a failure to imagine plausible desirable futures. We are surrounded by nostalgic visions, violently nostalgic visions

And as for why he used the device of the doors, his topic isn't the relatively low levels of migration we have today, largely people fleeing from wars, but the mass population movements that are to come. Again in his words

The doors felt quite real to me when I was writing them. I could imagine them existing. And they allowed me to compress the next century or two of human migration on our planet into the space of a single year, and to explore what might happen after.

People are going to move in vast numbers in the coming decades and centuries. Sea levels will rise, weather patterns will change, and billions will move. We need to figure out how to build a vision for this coming reality that isn't a disaster, that is humane and even inspiring.

I also thought he used the relationship of the characters well to explore their different attitudes to migration and the effect on their relationship.

Personalities are not a single immutable colour, like white or blue, but rather illuminated screens, and the shades we reflect depend much on what is around us. So it was with Saaed and Nadia, who found themselves changed in each other's eyes in this new place.

And as for the prose - to me again it is forensic in its simplicity, just as it the Reluctant Fundamentalist.

(interviews with New Yorker & Lit Hub)

It is definitely short list material for me. I expected to hate it, but it won me over, partly because of the writing style which I settled into and which added to the book for me. But also the bit I was expecting would annoy me (the doors) actually worked really well - perhaps because I was forewarned what the author was hoping to achieve with them.

I thought the doors were an excellent literary device also and hope to see this in the shortlist.

I see this as one of the strongest of the longlist and a likely winner. On some of the points above:

The book deliberately takes a relatively positive view of migration because he sees mass migration as inevitable, indeed in many respects something we all experience.

The device of the doors allow him to focus on the effects of migration, particularly on the migrants, rather than the mechanics of travel, which otherwise command so much attention.

And his concern isn't just the current relatively small number of refugees but the mass population movements inevitable in the coming 100-200 years.

Some quotes from interviews in his own words explain this better than I can:

Part of the great political crisis we face in the world today is a failure to imagine plausible desirable futures. We are surrounded by nostalgic visions, violently nostalgic visions.

and:

The doors felt quite real to me when I was writing them. I could imagine them existing. And they allowed me to compress the next century or two of human migration on our planet into the space of a single year, and to explore what might happen after.

People are going to move in vast numbers in the coming decades and centuries. Sea levels will rise, weather patterns will change, and billions will move. We need to figure out how to build a vision for this coming reality that isn't a disaster, that is humane and even inspiring

and

I wanted to explore the question of, what made you want to leave, and what happened when you arrived? I was less interested in the journey of how you went from place to place. And the doors were a way to avoid that.

The simple fact of being a human being is you migrate. Many of us move from one place to the other. But even those who don't move and you stay in the same city, if you were born in Manhattan 70 years ago, you're born in Des Moines 70 years ago, you've lived in the same place for 70 years, the city you live in today is unrecognizable. Almost everything has changed. So even people who stay in the same place undergo a kind of migration through time. And in the novel, what I'm trying to explore is how everyone is a migrant.

As for the prose, I thought it was forensic in its simplicity just as in The Reluctant Fundamentalist. And that the relationship between the two characters was used very effectively to explore the different effects of migration on them individually and hence on their relationship: From the novel:

Personalities are not a single immutable colour, like white or blue, but rather illuminated screens, and the shades we reflect depend much on what is around us. So it was with Saaed and Nadia, who found themselves changed in each other's eyes in this new place.

I've got 40 more pages to go, and I am really liking this. I think it is striking how Hamid uses very clear, highly accessible language and relies fully on the nuanced discussion of his complex topic. Before that, I read Solar Bones, which is also great, but interestingly because it does almost the exact opposite!

Re the doors: Although clearly a fantastical/fantasy device, I would maybe not refer to it as magical realism, because it is lacking a metaphorical or even mystical dimension...it's simply a plot device to set the story's focus, which I think is perfectly fine.

As mentioned in the general thread, here is a brief comment from the podcast interview with Lila Azam Zanganeh (LAZ) and Colin Thubron (CT) on the longlist selections.

Exit West
CT: It is short, and it is beautifully written. It’s a dystopian novel, set in the nearish future, probably 2030…something like that. It follows the course of, in particular, a couple, who move from something like an Aleppo-style horror of a city towards London. It’s remarkable for, amongst others, a very simple way of people being able to immigrate. Just a door, he describes. And you take this as symbolic, and it’s beautifully done, rather slight in the sort of numbers of words in focus, but big in terms of its resonance. It’s one of those novels that stays with you.

I am 'team doors' - I thought they allowed Hamid to focus on particular issues rather than completely different ones should he have to delve into the description of the journey.

I really like the thematic focus. Hamid manages to portray the resistance to immigration from the West but also the futility of that resistance.

I didn't love the writing - it wasn't awful but it could have been better - I thought the imagery was a bit clumsy at times.

I enjoyed it and in many ways it was brilliant but to paraphrase Atwood, I could see some of the papering over of the cracks in the novel.

PS I am also Team Doors lol

I just finished this book and am blown away! I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars. I loved the world and the relationship between Saeed and Nadia. I just wish that I would have connected to the characters a little more because they felt distant to me. This is by far my favorite of the books I have read off the longlist.

I also found the use of doors a bit forced. But I enjoyed the the coverage of a relationship in the refugee context. A shortlist pick for me.

I'm a little late in commenting on Exit West because I suppose I wanted to chew on some of the nuggets for awhile. I finished it a couple weeks ago and it is a four star book for me. I really enjoyed it. The relationship between Saeed and Nadia was my favorite part. There was 'absolute realism' in the writing about two people struggling for their lives and to maintain their relationship. I, for one, could relate to so much of the conversations, attitudes, and reactions of the two main characters.

As for the use of the doors, this was a device which didn't bother me at all. They weren't mentioned that much and when they were, it was in a simple way, as if the characters accepted them without question. Saeed and Nadia only used the doors a few times, and I think the doors helped me to see the couple as doing something normal. That is, something we all do in our relationships: go through changes.

Maybe I'm simplifying the plot and characters too much and need to have a more critical sense about all this. But I enjoyed the story and sometimes I don't want to pick a book apart. I just want to read it and get lost in the storytelling.

I liked this one and felt it so very important, a book everyone should read. That said, it wasn't one of my favorites. I had heard about why he used the door to focus on the before and after of migration, why you do it and what happens then. And this made sense to me and I think it worked.
But even though it made sense to me and even though it's a logical outcome, the having doors everywhere and having people go back and forth to visit their old mother etc, kind of ruined it for me. It was too much.

(Sidenote: why those strange small glimpses into people's lives - from all over the world?)

Christina wrote: "Sidenote: why those strange small glimpses into people's lives - from all over the world?..."

Christina, I felt it was to do with giving us a view of the world carrying on wherever people were.

Early on in the book Saeed shows Nadia a website where a photographer has taken pictures of major cities but removed the artificial light and replaced the sky with a view of the actual stars above the city. His technique for this is fascinating. In order to get the right sky over the city, where clearly light pollution prevents him taking the picture there, he find a spot on the right latitude but in a different time zone and where there is no light pollution and points his camera at the same part of the sky. He photographs the sky there and overlays this onto his digitally manipulated cityscape from which he has removed the artificial light.

So, the photographs show what one part of the world could look like by combining pictures of that part with a picture of another part but organised to be the right view for the time the first picture was taken.

I think the glimpses into other lives are supposed to be like those photographs.

Ah, I am still remain in the minority here, but I really thought this book was poorly written, important message notwithstanding. There were some good moments in it - like refugees still living their lives in the chaos around them, some tender moments between Nadia and Saeed, the locals' resistance... But it was still full of cliches and bad language. I understand why it made it to the short list, but I will be truly shocked if it wins. I don't think I have ever been in disagreement over a book in this group to such an extent :)

Kay @43 - you are not alone. I found this one very disappointing too, and I enjoyed the Reluctant Fundamentalist.

@Kay and @Hugh: I am with you on this 100%, (and I really enjoyed the Reluctant Fundementalist as well).

Ha! I'm in the total opposite corner. It isn't just my favorite book on the list...I think it is the best one, too. Easily my pick for the Booker this year. I have many distant seconds...but this one tops the list for sure.

Ernie wrote: "Ha! I'm in the total opposite corner. It isn't just my favorite book on the list...I think it is the best one, too. Easily my pick for the Booker this year. I have many distant seconds...but this o..."

Agreed! My favorite to win right now too, since Solar Bones & Days Without End weren't shortlisted.

I love the fact that we can all disagree but still have really good conversations about books :)

Maxwell wrote: "Ernie wrote: "Ha! I'm in the total opposite corner. It isn't just my favorite book on the list...I think it is the best one, too. Easily my pick for the Booker this year. I have many distant second..."

Indeed! And I also love that fact that if Exit West wins, I am very much comforted by the thought that you will be happy. :-)

ManBookering should form its own panel of judges to cut the longlist down to the shortlist every year just for kicks. :) That would be quite interesting. It seems everyone was pretty scattered this year (more so than most if I am remembering correctly), and I think it would have been very difficult for a select group of anyone who was commenting in the discussion feeds this year to narrow it down. Guaranteed to have been a fascinating chat discussion, which would have gone on for days. Where would Neil and Britta end up? :)

Ernie wrote: "Where would Neil and Britta end up?" That is the question!