Well, I'm grieving the end of 2022 for some reason. Winter has been mild but rough for me emotionally. Anxiety, discontent, work stress, changing routines. . . damn Judy Woodruff' leaving the PBS news broadcast, and soon Jim Broude will no longer host Greater Boston. My weeknights from 6-7:30 pm (bedtime) will be forever changed!
I've learned a lot from Braude, even though he makes me cringe at times. I was intrigued when he interviewed Mohsin Hamid, the author of The Last White Man, so I picked up a copy of the book when I saw it at Target. It's been sitting in my to-be-read pile for months. I'm glad I finally made time for it.
Here is Maureen Corrigan's description of the book in an npr book review from August 2022. "A deft, if narrow, Twilight Zone-type fantasy about identity, The Last White Man only seriously strains credulity at its very end. No doubt, it says something about our own anxious times that the happy ending here seems too far-fetched."
This short book has an unusual writing style, bordering on long, run-on sentences. The dystopian theme was inspired by Kafka's Metamorphosis. With references to society's "addictive quest for celebrity" and recognition of "the local paper having shut down long ago," Hamid's future world reflects some troubling aspects of our current world of miscommunication and fake news. His rambling prose brings a sense of urgency to his message.
"In a world that did not care and was getting worse all the time, worse and worse and more and more dangerous, a danger you could see all around you, all you had to do was to look at the crime and the potholes in the streets and the weird people who now came when you called for anything, for a plumber, an electrician, for help with your garden, for help with anything at all."
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