Exit West by Mohsin Hamid is my first book as part of #MigrationMarch reading challenge, and follows a young couple on their quest of finding a better life in the West.
The story starts in an unnamed Islamic country that is being ravaged by a civil war. The young people discover secret passages leading out of their city and join throngs of refugees from all over the world in a dystopic future.
First of all, I’m very uncomfortable with the vague exposition of the novel. I understand that the story could happen anywhere in the East, but not being able to see the characters’ roots (and the author makes a big deal of the roots), makes me feel lost. The story begins to sound like an allegory and moves away from the particular into the realm of generic, which makes me less empathetic with the plight of the refugees.
Exit West looks like a mongrel novel and not in a good sense - being a rather slim book, it tries to be a novel of three genres - realism, magical realism and dystopia. It is a promising concoction but since the book is short and there are many topics to cover, the novel becomes superficial.
I loved the beginning of it, especially the dialogue and descriptions of a burgeoning relationship amidst suffering and ruin. Then the attention of the omniscient narrator zooms out and we lose the intimacy of the story. For me this point of view doesn’t work - I feel too far from the characters or war realities, and I can’t connect with them and become bored and indifferent. In the end, the novel becomes preoccupied with itself, and I’ve barely managed to finish it.
Despite being a Booker Prize contender, it is 3.5 stars for me, unfortunately.