Exit West: A Novel

The first thing brought to mind as I read this phenomenal novel by Mohsin Hamid was Bob Dylan's song, 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall'. I especially remembered these lines though so much of Dylan's song is applicable to this novel: I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall The novel begins with Saaeed meeting Nadia. Theirs is love at first sight. They are living in a war-strewn nation and the only way to escape is through 'doors', doors that come and doors that go, doors of light and doors of dark, real doors and metaphorical ones. As time goes by, the doors are getting harder to find and more precious to access since everyone wants to leave. The identity of their first nation is never revealed but it could be any impoverished and chaotic place where the rule of law no longer exists and the mighty bow to the sword. Saaeed gives the impression, at first, that he is a liberated man, but it is Nadia, despite wearing a burka and dressing all in black, that is the real feminist. They find a door that leads them to Mykonos, a Greek Island. They stay for a while, even attaining their own room, but then decide to try a new door. Door after door - immigration from one vast and frightening locale to another, no door leading to peace and salvation, no door leading to safety and beauty. All doors have their risks and yet these two young people feel compelled to leave one place after another. Are they searching for something that is impossible to find or are they victims of a myth, a living allegory to Heraclitus's belief that one can never step into the same river twice. I found this book compelling, a vast and deliberate myth of migration, such as the travels of certain birds, fish, and mammals. Some travel to reproduce while other travel to end their lives. There is an innate desire to travel in order to begin or end one's life. I also viewed it as an allegory of our time, a novel of the cruelty and inhumane aspects of any place one might land on this earth. Despite hope, despite desperation, neither of the protagonists really knew what they wanted or what they were looking for. There is certainly the adventure of youth, the desire to escape cruelty and have one's basic needs met but there is more than that. And what that more consists of is the basis question of this novel. Is it love? Is it beauty? Is it peace? Is it freedom? For every reader, there will be a different answer. My initial thoughts are that the answer rests with knowledge, that through knowledge we gain experience, and from experience, we gain wisdom. As Mr. Dylan so articulately states at the end of his poem/song when he asks his son what he'll do no, he is answered by this refrain: I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest Where the people are many and their hands are all empty Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison Where the executioner's fact is always well hidden Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten Where black is the color, where none is the number And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breath it And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin' But I'll know my song well before I start singin' And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall

There is a lot to love about this novel - the two protagonists are richly drawn, the lovers in wartime premise is handled in a subtle and compelling manner, and the dystopic near-future setting affords some pointed insights. For all that, I would heartily recommend this book, which, among other virtues, is quite a quick read. Despite all that, the book is also curiously disappointing. Hamid’s undeniable skill as a writer, especially coupled with his incredibly assured, narratorial voice, sweeping around the globe and across many decades of action, always sharing just what we readers need to know, sometimes leaving out details we crave, all leaves you with the impression that that this novel has something to say, and that the trusting reader is in good hands. This was a fun read, but it didn’t say that much to me. There is an insight late in the book that “she too had migrated, that everyone migrates, even if we stay in the same houses our whole lives, because we can’t help it. We are all migrants through time.” That’s cool and all, kind of freshman year in the dorms level insight, but Hamid left me hungering for more and feeling like he had promised more. Kind of a shame. One last thing: a number of reviewers have commented one way or the other on the doors. I didn’t worry much about positioning this novel within or without the magical realist tradition, and I was happy to take the doors as a light touch of magical realism, or just as a metaphor. I was a little disappointed that with the world to travel, the only locations of note were pricey, touristy locales of Mykonos, London and Marin County (albeit in unsettling near-future skins), but that’s not really the fault of the doors, which presumably could have taken the protagonists anywhere.

After reading reviews of Exit West, it jumped to the top of my "to read" list. I was looking forward to the possibilities of where the story could go. For me, the hype and anticipation was better than the book. To be fair, the book made me think. There were several lines in the text that were beautifully written and thought-provoking. The descriptions of life in a war torn country before they discovered the doors were empathetic making me feel as if I was there. I enjoyed the budding relationship between Saeed and Nadia. For me, this first part of the story felt like an insider's peek at the people behind, suffering, and involved in the real life war stories we hear in the news. For this reason, I appreciate the author's tale. Then came the doors and the escape - gripping to read. But then, my expectations and the actual story diverged. I was expecting to find the characters building a new, happier life. With time/space transporting doors, the possibilities of roads to travel are endless. Unfortunately, the author went down a less optimistic path in the book. I understand he was sending a message that while change may be necessary, It isn't always better or without cost. There were deep questions raised: How should immigrants and refugees be treated? What toll do survival and migration have on a person and their relationships? What part does religion play in a person's outlook on life? While these things are important to contemplate and discuss, it wasn't what I was expecting. I would have given this book a higher rating because I appreciate books that make me think, but there were three things that really bothered me as a reader. First, there were many instances (especially toward the end) where the author had half page run-on sentences. These are hard to read and follow. Second, the author added in, from time to time, short tales of other people in other parts of the world experiencing things apart from the main characters. These vignettes were never tied back to the plot line or characters; they were superfluous. Finally, the last chapter jumps ahead 50 years and then just ends. There is no explanation of what happened during that half century. I found that disappointing and frustrating. The last few chapters and ending made me feel like the author didn't know where to take the story and just kind of gave up. I am glad I read the book, and I think my book club will have many good things to discuss, but I'm not sure it is a book I will recommend to others.

“It feels natural to have you here.” “For me too,” Nadia replied, resting her head on his shoulder. “The end of the world can be cozy at times.” ” There is a gentle closeness and intimacy born from catastrophe, in fact it sometimes buoys Nadia and Saeed’s, the two main characters', relationship in the way that they have to otherwise operate out of their survival instincts. In the world that this author creates, however, there is the potential prospect of fleeting reprieve as there are portholes to new places and times that refugees looking to flee their current circumstances can enter through under the right circumstances. They just have to find the most discreet door that isn’t yet known to authorities so they can get away relatively unheard of and unseen and then once they go through they can hopefully begin a new life, although that life, too, is not without its conflicts. The bond that Nadia and Saeed have is continually tested through these conflicts and the ability for their relationship to survive becomes increasingly uncertain as it seems that the power of their bond originates from their shared experiences of grief, trauma, and instability. Although Nadia seems more comfortable with the idea of change then Saeed who maintains a devout religious faith to keep him feeling safe and comforted through turmoil. This novel at its core then becomes an acute, aching portrayal of the larger-than-life emotions that can seize us and at some turns render us to a feeling of powerlessness. We crave connection in these instances, but also seek isolation, as Nadia and Saeed do, when connections feel too claustrophobic. “They felt closer on the nights when they were making these plans, as though major events distracted them from the more mundane realities of life.” The relationship between Nadia and Saeed has notes of a pervasive melancholy that stuns in the way that it is explored as they travel from door to door together, trying to find lasting fulfillment as opposed to fulfillment that fizzles when it is too greatly shaken up by external, in some cases, unanticipated, factors. Throughout, I could feel how raw, real, and conflicted Nadia and Saeed were to stay with or leave the other as they underwent their own processes of growth and regression. Ultimately, how Exit West was written felt true and anchored in what we’re sometimes in life afraid to bring up with someone who we once loved: that we may be falling out of love with them or don’t see them the way that we used to. We become more terrified of how it would be to live without them then to stay with them, even if we are desperately unhappy. I thought, too, that the idea of a magical portal to a new place to escape the war felt complicated because in one breath it would afford refugees immediate opportunity and escape, but is it too simple as what they are enduring takes time to overcome, live through, and process? Overall, though, this was an interesting, dynamic approach into portraying how challenging life and relationships can get when put under incalculable pressure that compresses time and emotions and their intensity!

Exit West by Moshin Hamid 231 pages What’s it about? Nadia and Saeed meet at a night class and are instantly attracted to each other. Their relationship develops at the same time their city is slipping into a civil war. We watch as Nadia and Saeed’s lives change to accommodate the fighting, “War in Saeed and Nadia’s city revealed itself to be an intimate experience, combatants pressed close together, front lines defined at the level of the street one took to work, the school one’s sister attended, the house of one’s aunt’s best friend, the shop where one bought cigarettes.” As the fighting gets worse Nadia and Saeed take advantage of a magical door that leads out of the country. They walk through and emerge in London. In the second half of the book Hamid explores what it means to be a refugee looking for a home. What did it make me think about? So many thoughts about this one- mainly what a phenomenal writer Mohsin Hamid is! Also, how does he write such long, beautiful sentences? I appreciated “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”- but “How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia” is one of my favorite books in recent years. I was so eager to read this small novel and it did not let me down. “Exit West” is a tale of our time. It made me think of Syria and all those trapped amongst the fighting. No magic doors are available there, and yet many people find a way out. Moshin Hamid reminds us of the cost of leaving home, the cost of welcoming others in, and gives us hope that humanity will find a way. Should I read it? Yes- what a timely book. Shouldn’t we all take a little time to think about the plight of the migrants? Quote- “Perhaps they had decided they did not have it in them to do what would have needed to be done, to corral and bloody and where necessary slaughter the migrants, and had determined that some other way would have to be found. Perhaps they had grasped that the doors could not be closed, and new doors would continue to open, and they had understood that the denial of coexistence would have required one party to cease to exist, and the extinguishing party too would have been transformed in the process, and too many native parents would not after have been able to look their children in the eye, to speak with head held high of what their generation had done.” If you like this try- The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Moshin Hamid How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Moshin Hamid ​Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji Orhan’s Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian

The world needs novels like "Exit West", exceptionally well-written stories that tackle timely issues in a unique and compelling way. The story centers on Nadia and Saeed, two young individuals that fall in love despite religious and societal norms conspiring against them. The story is set in an unnamed country, but conjured up mental images of somewhere like Syria, Pakistan or even India. Their relationship begins to flourish just as civil unrest builds in their country, forcing them to flee as refugees. The brilliant bit of magical realism that Hamid creates are teleportation doors that transport individuals from one country to another. As potential migrants hear about these doors, they become more difficult to escape through, guarded by the power structures. The more desirous the location, the harder it becomes to escape. The story of the refugee experience is brilliantly captured as the two lovers wind up in an upscale mansion in London overtaken by other refugees, many from Africa, along with their sojourn to Northern CA in Marin County. We come to see the characters undergo the pain and struggle of dislocation from friends, family and familiar surroundings while struggling to survive in foreign places where they are generally unwelcome. Each of them copes with the situation in different ways, creating tension in their relationship with each other. This is an absolutely astonishing book of love and loss, hope and failure, hate and acceptance. It is rightly hailed as one of the best books of 2017 and should be on everyone's must read list. It will undoubtedly become one of the best books of the decade.

“We are all migrants through time.” Exit West is Mohsin Hamid’s 4th novel and like much of his work, is a reflection and refraction of our troubled times. The book follows two young lovers, Nadia and Saeed, from an unnamed country that is being torn apart by civil war. Their love affair is one of the highlights of the book, tender, particular, and fraught with all the usual wonders and challenges of the human condition. “…he was unprepared for the feeling of awe that came over him, the wonder with which he then regarded his own skin…” Hamid has a way of quickly and artfully outlining characters, which reminds me of Margaret Atwood’s talent in this regard. Like in his last novel, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, the female protagonist in Exit West is iconic and powerful and I loved reading about her. The sentences are long and elegant, sometimes spanning a page or more: it felt like chanting or rocking back and forth, a sense of oral storytelling. And the story, of refugees and migrants and natives, of lovers and families, of borders and war and all the ways we make and lose homes - it read like a fable, only terribly present and prescient. “…when we migrate, we murder from our lives those we leave behind…” I found the conceit of the magical doors that lead in and out of conflict zones a bit forced, or an easy novelistic way out. Of course, it would have been a much longer book if Hamid had taken as much time to describe the passage between geographies as he spends on the geographies themselves. Perhaps that wasn’t what he wanted to write about, but it struck me. I did love the bits about love (naturally) and relationships, all sharp and sweet and yearning: “…a mouth that did little but did it so very well…” I also appreciated how un-judgmental the narrative was. It’s easy to point fingers at brutally idealistic militants, at fear mongering natives, at East versus West, and so on. But Hamid tells the stories of Exit West with an even handed tone, focusing on the individual and the personal. Given this style and its sweeping global reach, the novel could feel fatalistic, hopeless even, but it doesn’t because it has so much heart. PS here are some other lines I loved from the book: -light from other centuries, only now reaching Earth. -how best to deal with aggressive men and with the police, and with aggressive men who were the police -he suspected it was possible he might never think of normal in the same way again -the impulse of nostalgia was stronger -the foundation of a human life… when we are compelled to pause and not act but be -courage is demanded not to attack when afraid

Mohsin Hamid opens his story in a fictitious nation resembling an amalgam of Syria, Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen where distant revolts in the countryside soon engulf an entire nation and where every citizen has to find a way out. Saeed and Nadia are two such people who are able to work around the growing chaos and death until Saeed’s mother is brutally murdered. They hear of a black door nearby, one so dark that even light can’t penetrate it, which can somehow transport them immediately to another location on the globe. But as this door and others like it begin to appear so also do governmental soldiers who try to restrict or forbid access to those deemed undesirable by destination lands. Payment becomes a necessity to enter through newly created ones and nobody leaving knows just exactly where they’ll end up and in what condition. In a way we are all migrants, refugees, always seeking better conditions, hoping for better futures, looking for an ideal just beyond the horizon. The author not only knows this but takes it a step further into a potentially promising future as everyone, refugee and native, becomes impacted. Hamid’s book is a compelling story, not one to be tied up in political semantics but in the very humanity of living in constant change. His views of human nature are likewise very revealing. In describing Saeed’s parents in their earlier married years a very human and humorously vivid scene occurs. “He smoked and she said she didn’t, but often, when the ash of his seemingly forgotten cigarette grew impossibly extended, she took it from his fingers, trimmed it softly against an ashtray, and pulled a long and rather rakish drag before returning it, daintily.” It’s scenes like these with which Hamid seasons his story that elicits the poetry and the humanity of a happily married couple, allowing us to see them, identify with them and recall people from our past who resemble them. He is a keen yet sensitive observer of the human spirit with its contradictions as well as its dreams. I am able to open the book to any page and find examples. After a very long day of hard physical work in construction, each at different sites, Nadia and Saeed arrive home. As they practically collapse near each other they realize that they are physically touching one another. “Her leg and arm touched Saeed’s leg and arm, and he was warm through his clothing, and he sat in a way that suggested exhaustion. But he also managed a tired smile, which was encouraging, and when she opened her fist to reveal what was inside, as she had once before done on her rooftop a brief lifetime ago, and he saw the weed, he started to laugh, almost soundlessly, a gentle rumble, and he said, his voice uncoiling like a slow, languid exhaustion of marijuana-scented smoke, ‘Fantastic.” This is a story not to be missed by the very gifted author of Moth Smoke, The Reluctant Fundamentalist and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia.

An author born in the East, now having lived in the West, pens a story of migration - from war to a new life, from east to west and in the process unearths what unites humanity across the world - hope, compassion and love. I have been a big fan of Mohsin Hamid ever since I read The Reluctant Fundamentalist. His lyrical, often magical style of writing which never gets ponderous or difficult to read and his empathetic and often deeply insightful reading of East-West culture differences and the state of the world today is unmatched. He applies the same insight into writing a deeply effecting and topical look into what drives people to become immigrants and leave their own land and people and what it means to be human, to love and be loved in times of such crisis and change. In times such as ours, where the world is actually getting smaller, Exit West acts to remind us that, as history has shown us, in the end humanity always prevails over war, suffering and segregation. The book of the year

One of the most original novelas I have read lately. It is the mix between a fantasy and a social plot (refugees)

Great book. Quick read. Really well developed characters. Interesting story. I got all the feels reading this. Very insightful and thought provoking as well

tolles buch, kann man lesen

Although the reader find many similarities with our present and troubled worlds, the allegories take you on a very human journey. The writing is as light as a feather but always hits the mark. I liked all of it, from the hard hitting beginning to the hopeful but nostalgic end.