This aspect of the story gradually makes it apparent that Hamid has invested the lowly form of the self-help book with considerable ambition. His thoughts dwell less on success than on a woman he has known since childhood, in contact but elusive throughout his life. He does get rich, for a time anyway, even if he must grow accustomed to violence. Yet the main character speaks powerfully through his ambition and his longing. By and large you do not seem like a man who can articulate his feelings. On the occasions when 'you' are described speaking - correcting a teacher in school, for example - you suffer for it. The main character is 'you.' Hamid is telling 'you' how your life will unfold. The main character rarely speaks in the course of the narrative.

This makes the final form in How to Get Filthy Rich all the more striking. 'When we hear people speak,' Hamid said, 'so much of what we get is the way they speak, and so, you know, finding the right form for a story, the right voice for a story, is at the heart of it for me.' I was reminded of a Washington production of Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona that set the play in Verona, New Jersey, with all the accents that would imply. The chapters have titles such as 'Move to the City,' 'Avoid Idealists' and 'Be Prepared to Use Violence.'īook Reviews Hamid's How-To For Success, 'Filthy Rich' In Irony That voice tells 'you' how to get filthy rich in rising Asia, and in doing so, Hamid tells the story of a rural youth who moves to the city and begins making the brutal compromises that a poor boy must make to get ahead.

His crisp voice could have suited an old-style newsreel narrator, and when you read the sentences of his slender novels, it is easy to hear that voice speaking them. The author of this particular self-help book is in his early 40s, a Pakistani with an American education and a past as a business consultant in both countries. You read a self-help book so someone who isn't yourself can help you.' It is only the author who is helping himself. He begins with a disclaimer: 'A self-help book is an oxymoron. Hamid returns to the second person in How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, but this time it's in the form of a self-help book - a particularly sly one. The bearded narrator of that book sits at a tea stall in Lahore, talking about his drift toward extremism while directly addressing 'you,' the reader, who is taken to be an increasingly jumpy and terrified American across the table. His The Reluctant Fundamentalist was written entirely in the second person. This is not the first time Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid has taken a risky approach to a novel. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title How To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia Author Mohsin Hamid

Mohsin hamid how to get filthy rich