I have a long standing desire to wallop Deborah Soloman. Her latest conversation with writer Mohsin Hamid:
Like your novel, this interview is a conversation between an American listener and a Pakistani man with a beard. Are we also doomed to misunderstanding? Do you think I’m a C.I.A. agent? If you had short hair and a bulge in your jacket, I might assume you were.
Do you think I am mistaking you for a fundamentalist? I don’t know. But you are doing me the honor of trying to understand me.
I don’t know if I trust you. Put that into the piece!
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Wallop, is the way to do it. And if you need any help, just make her stand underneath my window. Now I realize why destiny has put Gray’s Anatomy in my possession.
May be a tiny bit crude…but *wank wank wank*
I second the motion to wallop.
I hope there is a special CM review of The Reluctant Fundamentalist? If a book is to be judged by its cover, then…
I just read the excerpt of the book and now this interview but I am glad he is saying his(and a lot of other people’s) mind.
That was frustrating. Solomon takes a rather antagonistic tone, as if she wants to debate Hamid on something, but in the end she didn’t seem to have any point except for a generalized suspicion of his motives.
But I LOVED his responses! If I can pull off that kind of coolness in my next pointless argument, I will be happy.
Heard Hamid at his launch last night in DC – at Prose and Politics. Speaks very well, answers impressively. House full – not an empty chair. Bought the authgraphed book – far too expensive at $22, but what the heck. Dalrymple will have to wait till next month…
Funnily enough, I kind of want to whack both of them senseless with a teaspoon. Maybe even a soup-ladle. The urge sometimes ebbs, but interviews like that escalate it again.
Here is a reader’s review of Hamid’s new novel..
http://razarumi.wordpress.com/2007/05/23/the-reluctant-fundamentalist-book-review/
OK, so I finished the book last week, and I’m so annoyed at having wasted an hour of my life that it almost hurts. I wonder if I can sue Hamid for negligent infliction of emotional distress.