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Thursday, 19 March 2015

Discontent and Its Civilizations - Mohsin Hamid

A collection of wide-ranging essays, from personal to political.

For me, the most interesting are the essays focusing on presenting a deeper, more nuanced picture of Pakistan, and by extension, Islam.

Underlying a lot of his thought is the idea that civilizations are an illusion.  They are stories that are told, often for a political end, or from a position of weakness.  He explores the idea of the complexity and multi-layerd nature of identities,  (This is a theme I read about recently in another book.)  This idea also links into the idea I have been mulling over lately of the possibility of living without stories, without a personal mythology - is it possible?  Or can you simply change your relation to stories and mythology, seeing them less as a definition of self and the world, and more as something to play with, to take on and off, like glasses or costumes?

To Find:
Antonio Tabucchi - Sostiene Pereira (and other works)

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