Chris B reports:
This book began quietly and grew in pitch and intensity. On re-reading the first chapter I enjoyed the subtlety of it more. I also liked the structure where instead of flitting between chronological times with different characters, the action progresses through time but from the different perspectives of the actors. However some of us also felt that this prevented a free flowing story and meant Shamsie was unable to explore the characters in depth or over time. Steve took to it at the beginning; drawn into gentle relationship with Isma, the difficulties in getting out of UK, establishing life outside the UK, and references to the rest of the family. Lovely description of Isma calming Aneeka. A great writer with good character development.
I liked the themes of love and betrayal in both individual relationships and in relation to country and religion. I liked the variety of attitudes to being a committed Muslim in the book from apostate to jihadi extremist and shades in between, especially between Isma and Aneeka. I liked too the portrayal of the challenge of integration. Do you leave your culture behind and spend effort on proving this to the Daily Mail? Do you maintain some aspects such as religious beliefs and practices and try to be an ordinary citizen of your country in the face of other people’s suspicion and prejudice (e.g. in the interrogation room). Do you take up the challenge of supporting your fellow faithful in different conflict zones? Do you take on the mantle of the jihadist to eradicate the western materialist and oppressive world? And despite my feeling that some of this was portrayed a little too obviously, in fact there were lots of shades of gray. Parvaiz is a reluctant jihadi more concerned with living up to his father and the father figure, Farooq than either political success or religious fanaticism, Eamon shifts from an establishment figure to one of siding with Aneeka against his father, albeit for love rather than for belief.
For Richard, there were lots of echoes of his own experience and hence a very personal read. He liked too the subtlety e.g. in Parvaiz’ grooming and the relationship between Eamon and Aneeka. And the issue of how far to assimilate and how far to remain the outsider e.g. Lone becoming Christian. He recognized Parvais’s feeling that “we are in the majority in the Caliphate” and an attitude of “we’ll do to you what you do to us” from his visits to Israel.
There is a lot of personal betrayal in the book too; Eamon by his father, Karamat by his son, Aneeka and Isma by Parvaiz, the Pasha children by their father. And the results are a personal tragedy for them all as it is in the Antigone story that Shamsie based some of this story on. A lot too about secrecy and its negative effects but also how hard it is for people in public life to be open about their attitudes and ambiguities. Isma’s professorial friend seems to sum up the risk of personal secrecy: ‘I’m driving at the fact that habits of secrecy are damaging things,’ Hira said in her most professorial voice. ‘And they underestimate other people’s willingness to accept the complicated truths of your life.’
Several of us admired the wonderful description of grief: rivals the one on love in Corinthians in the Bible I thought she brought out the inner life of the characters and the character descriptions (e.g. the contradictory nature of Aneeka) beautifully. I liked all the descriptions of the closeness of the siblings e.g. helping Aneeka go to sleep and the contradictory feelings Eamon and Karamat had for each other.
Good but not intrusive descriptions of places and houses, US, UK, Syria, Turkey. Gave a good context and sense of place for the human interactions.
What didn’t I like? Were the characters’ attitudes a little caricatured? The story a bit too obvious? British Muslims, jihadi groomers, British politician of Pakistani origin? Family broken apart by the very different reactions to prejudice and the harsh actions of a hard man proving himself? True love for family and the beloved? Were the coincidences a bit too contrived? Isma meeting Eamon in a cafe in a small town in America where she happened to be at college and his Mum’s family came from? Richard found the book two dimensional and felt it deteriorated e.g. in the conversation between Karamat and Eamon. He also thought it sloppy that despite her showing she knew the top British diplomat in Pakistan is a High Commissioner, she referred to them as ambassador.
Overall, I liked Shamsie’s telling of the story and the characters and thought she treated well the challenge of integration as a first, second or third generation after migration, of being in a minority religion around which there is plenty of prejudice and discrimination and of being a person of colour in a predominantly white society.
But Mark T found it hard going, clunky and hard to read (perhaps due to his long days in the saddle and his first ewxpereine of the Kindle). But he liked the relationship with Aneeka and the surprise of her sexuality. Also, the intriguing history of Islam and that the family thought P’s change of attitude was due to a love affair not grooming. And it rang true that he would want to come back. The life of the Home Secretary and coping with the media were good.
Chris W enjoyed reading a book with contemporary issues; the Home Secretary in real life is doing what the character does. Some scenes in particular made him think e.g. the interrogation scene and grooming. Yet the characters were not quite right; e.g. the home secretary in his relationship with his son.
Steve felt that despite a good start, he didn’t quite connect with the characters, though he enjoyed it and was gripped by the perilous situation of Parvais, as a young man. Was she trying too hard to follow the Antigone story? Apparently she took up a challenge to write a novel based on Antigone. Literary elitism? Did this constrain her too much? Overall, he was disappointed.
Mark W too was disappointed. He enjoyed first chapter; full of mysteries; second chapter still held; but it felt contrived to keep changing character. He became more irritated and felt the book ended suddenly. He found Isma the most interesting character but most irritated him. Whereas the men were either well meaning but dim or bastards. Food for thought: moral dilemma of response to people who leave to fight your country.
Andrew (from afar) enjoyed this story of faith and family, identity, rights and belief, acceptance and extremism, religious vs. national law, with its clever reworking of Antigone. He liked the story and its structure with the succession of voices although He thought it lost its way in the third quarter. Its focus on the politics of terrorism (and otherism) rather than the mechanics of terror made it more interesting for me and more difficult for Shamsie who deserves credit for the plot. The tension increased once Parvaiz got to Raqqa but for me it wasn’t a real page-turner. The section on Raqqa gave a good feeling of what it was like it was like to live and work there. And he liked the description of how it feels to be a Muslim in contemporary Britain. And, although the beginning and the end were excellent, there were few other stand-out sentences, and quite a few were clunky. This novel took me to places and lives which were new to me and made me think, but overall felt a bit thin and didn’t have the impact it might have had.
John (also afar) found it an interesting and provocative novel that kept you reading – with a real echo of Antigone running through the story. Not only did it have all the elements of a torrid family tragedy, but also offered an insightful description of a community and context that don’t you often read about in novels (Muslim North London, Islam and ISIS, the family dynamics of senior politicians, etc.). He liked the different perspectives format and this novel seems to have all the elements of one he would normally relish, yet he felt strangely disengaged from the story and the characters. He felt oddly unmoved by it. He had the feeling of being just a distant observer rather than an engaged reader.
He struggled to explain why this? Maybe it was because it was about a context and issues he have so little exposure to; maybe because the story was too much of an artifice – too engineered, too much trying to echo Antigone: maybe because he have become inured to some of the issues, particularly around ISIS and British jihadis, through too much media coverage or journalistic commentary. There are clearly many possible explanations. In hindsight he think it was because he never warmed to the twins as characters and felt little empathy for them or interest in them as individuals – they came over as merely a device to carry the story. In contrast he warmed to the older sister, Isma, and felt her character was better developed and he felt more for the struggles she faced. He was glad he read this novel and will remember it for the conundrums it threw up.
In the Antigone story as told by Sophocles, Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, defies her uncle Creon, King of Thebes and is sentenced to death but takes her won life before she can be executed. Her fiancée and Creon’s son, Haemon, kills himself over Antigone’s body. Some people found Shamsie’s ending too abrupt. But we can be in no doubt about what happened.
Discussion: We all face the dilemmas of the personal, religious vs. national, legal which the book explores. But the author was constrained by the Antigone story, which is why it doesn’t fully work.
SCORES Willm: 7, Mark W: 6 Steve: 5.5 Richard: 7 Mark T: 5.5 Chris W: 6 Chris B: 7, Andrew: 6 John 6.5
Kitty held by CB: £3.10
