I was looking around for something to read. I’d just finished reading a new thriller by Robert Dugoni, an author whose writing I knew from earlier books. Before that, I read The Wife by Meg Wolitzer. I knew her writing too.
Maybe, I thought, it was time to mix it up. Time to find something different.
Then one day as I was browsing through my daughter’s bookshelves, I happened upon a novel called The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid. It looked interesting, and seeing that it had won several awards, I decided to give it a try.
Even on the first page, I could see that the author’s approach was going to be unusual. The protagonist, a Pakistani man educated at Princeton, was sitting at a cafe table in Lahore having a conversation with an American man. The unusual thing was, although the American must also have spoken, we never hear him.
Could this technique work, a one-sided conversation that lasted from the first page all the way to the last?
Yes. It did.
And was it good? Was the book enjoyable?
Yes, it was. Sometimes what you don’t know and don’t hear makes all the difference.
Now I’m reading Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman, another author whose books I’ve read before. It’s very good so far. But at some point I’ll feel the need to mix it up again and find something new and unique.
Or take another trip.
I love observing different writing techniques by reading new books. A very fun way to learn!
I don’t know that I’d ever write a book using the technique in The Reluctant Fundamentalist. But reading it gives me the courage to try something that may not follow the more ordinary pattern.
I was scrolling through Facebook and recognized the Kauai “waterfall” in your photo, so was drawn into the post to see what you wrote. I find I write so well in the mornings in Kauai (a blatantly transparent excuse begging for more time there, I know) but I’m also scouting around for something interesting to read in bed at the end of the day. I’m intrigued by your description of The Reluctant Fundamentalist and how it works as a book without traditional dialog. Thanks for the suggestion, and I look forward to more of your writing!
My family was with my in Kauai, so they kept me too busy to do any writing. If I’d been alone, I can see that it would have been a nice place to write … for at least part of the day. Another beautiful place: your studio and yard.
It’s always fun to mix up our reading, isn’t it? That fig tree is incredible, Nicki. It reminds me of my visit to Thomas Edison’s research lab in Fort Meyers, Florida. That was the first time I saw one.
I do like to mix up my reading. I’m reading a book of philosophy now: Cosmopolitanism. It’s interesting but a slower read.
They have a 55-foot-tall fig tree in the Amazon spheres, but it’s a different variety.