We are all refugees from our childhoods. And so we turn, among other things, to stories. To write a story, to read a story, is to be a refugee from the state of refugees. Writers and readers seek a solution to the problem that time passes, that those who have gone are gone and those who will go, which is to say every one of us, will go. For there was a moment when anything was possible. And there will be a moment when nothing is possible. But in between we can create.How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is a thought-provoking work of metafiction. As the title might suggest, it's set up like a self-help book (with sections like “Get an Education” and “Learn from a Master”), and written in the second person, the self-help guru writing the book-within-a-book universalises the get-rich-struggle by narrating the story of “you” (“The whites of your eyes are yellow” or “You call her that night but she does not answer”). Although author Mohsin Hamid is Pakistani, nothing in this book points to where it's specifically set in “rising Asia”, and to further the anonymity, none of the characters have names (referring only to “your father” or “the pretty girl”). To further the meta-ness, the self-help guru often interjects himself into the narrative, and frequently muses on the interconnected nature of writing and reading. And I promise it's better than that sounds.
By describing the life of a poor village boy who, with a move to the city and a chance at education, is able to join (and then surpass) a burgeoning middle class, Hamid is able to demonstrate what is surely the greatest dream of a billion people in the subcontinent. He also describes the dark side of that dream: the incessant bribes to both petty bureaucrats and elected officials; the environmental degradation that attends unrestrained urban growth; the shallow personal relationships that result from perpetual money-grubbing; the violence that can result from the poor millions wanting what the few rich have – if you can afford a driver, you'll need a guard driving shotgun; and don't forget the shotgun. But while these changes aren't really ideal, they are inevitable: Hamid is not idealising the subsistence-farming village life that these strivers leave behind –
When he looks around him here, he does not see prickly leaves and hairy little berries for an effervescent salad, tan stalks of wheat for a heavenly balloon of stone-ground, stove-top-baked flatbread. He sees instead units of backbreaking toil. He sees hours and days and weeks and years. He sees the labor by which a farmer exchanges his allocation of time in this world for an allocation of time in this world.All of the narrative elements of How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia really worked for me, but I have to admit that the self-help format felt gimmicky over time. Each chapter begins with a meta-analysis of the format, and while I understand that they're rather the point, in the moment they could read as nearly nonsensical –
We must hurry. We are nearing our end, you and I, and this self-help book too, well, the self in it anyway, and likewise the help it offers, though its bookness, being bookness, may by definition yet persevere.And like I said, that's pretty much the point: people aren't immortal and the quest for riches isn't the most important thing (it would hardly be a spoiler to note that the “you” of the story only realises at the end of his life that his wealth – what he thought had been his reason for living – wasn't ultimately very important), but maybe art and literature are what will persevere. The following is the final sentence of the book – which I don't really think of as spoilery but another might; be forewarned – and not only does it sum up the book's philosophy, but I thought it was incredibly evocative –
She is here. And she comes to you, and she does not speak, and the others do not notice her, and she takes your hand, and you ready yourself to die, eyes open, aware that this is all an illusion, a last aroma cast up by the chemical stew that is your brain, which will soon cease to function, and there will be nothing, and you are ready, ready to die well, ready to die like a man, like a woman, like a human, for despite all else you have loved, you have loved your father and your mother and your brother and your sister and your son, and yes, your ex-wife, and you have loved the pretty girl, you have loved beyond yourself, and so you have courage, and you have dignity, and you have calmness in the face of terror, and awe, and the pretty girl holds your hand, and you contain her, and this book, and me writing it, and I too contain you, who may not yet even be born, you inside me inside you, though not in a creepy way, and so may you, may I, may we, so may all of us confront the end.Lovely. So while I really loved the narrative and what it had to say about the changes happening in India and Pakistan, and while I also appreciated what the metafictive elements had to say about the nature of art and literature, I can't get past the gimmicky in-the-moment reading experience and am docking a star for that.
