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thebernie's review against another edition
4.0
This book is an intelligent read. And not merely in the sense that it requires some knowledge of math, finance and politics but also in the deeply introspective sense. This book will undoubtedly touch a readers soul and call out to them at least once if not with every page turn. A deeply passionate read that left me in a place that most books can't even touch.
sarahheidt's review against another edition
5.0
This book is a big, serious challenge: if you're looking for easy beach reading or something that will make you feel good about your place in the world, then this novel is almost certain to frustrate you. Rahman doesn't shy away from making us think about difficult mathematics, the banking crisis, the economics of global philanthropy, the trickiness of memory, or the impossibility of knowing other people completely. It's written in a narrative style designed to throw you off--to make you think about the ways that other people's stories and words get into our heads, and the ways we retell those stories ourselves. If you read this one--and I recommend it, as a serious and open-eyed representation of our world in the last 20 years--pay it full attention and it will repay you.
melvinwevers's review against another edition
3.0
First half was amazing, then the story lost focus. I guess I hoped it would develop in a different direction.
nonie's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
andrew_russell's review against another edition
2.0
If I was to describe In the Light of What We Know in one word, the one I would choose would have to be....(drumroll)....tedious. But more on that later.
Rahman clearly has authorial chops - the most effective section of this novel was the first 100-150 pages, which included lurid and sensual descriptions of Bangladesh, as well as captivating character sketches that definitely drew my interest.
But from there on in, it's mainly downhill and Rahman's work becomes a disjointed, uninteresting mishmash of cod philosophy and exactly the type of character relationships that offer nothing of literary value other than the relationships themselves, however complex those relationships may be. Oh, and it's bloated...God, is Rahman's work bloated. Not since Ducks, Newburyport have I encountered such an inverted relationship between a novel's length and it's value as a work of literature.
I mentioned 'cod philosophy', and it's worth expounding in detail what exactly I was referring to when I stated this. This novel pinballs from one high-fallutin' thought to another. Undoubtedly, these are clever but ultimately the effect is that the authorial voice roars above those of the characters themselves, for it is never less than blindingly obvious that these nuggets of intelligent thought come directly from the authors mind, without passing through the filter of the characters who are said to be generating the thoughts. It also means that what you end up with is a whole load of heterogenous ideas and concepts, with nothing overarching them. To put it concisely, Rahman's novel says a lot, while saying little that is worth the reader taking away.
So in short, not to be recommended. Early flashes of promise, quickly fizzling out into protracted dullness.
Rahman clearly has authorial chops - the most effective section of this novel was the first 100-150 pages, which included lurid and sensual descriptions of Bangladesh, as well as captivating character sketches that definitely drew my interest.
But from there on in, it's mainly downhill and Rahman's work becomes a disjointed, uninteresting mishmash of cod philosophy and exactly the type of character relationships that offer nothing of literary value other than the relationships themselves, however complex those relationships may be. Oh, and it's bloated...God, is Rahman's work bloated. Not since Ducks, Newburyport have I encountered such an inverted relationship between a novel's length and it's value as a work of literature.
I mentioned 'cod philosophy', and it's worth expounding in detail what exactly I was referring to when I stated this. This novel pinballs from one high-fallutin' thought to another. Undoubtedly, these are clever but ultimately the effect is that the authorial voice roars above those of the characters themselves, for it is never less than blindingly obvious that these nuggets of intelligent thought come directly from the authors mind, without passing through the filter of the characters who are said to be generating the thoughts. It also means that what you end up with is a whole load of heterogenous ideas and concepts, with nothing overarching them. To put it concisely, Rahman's novel says a lot, while saying little that is worth the reader taking away.
So in short, not to be recommended. Early flashes of promise, quickly fizzling out into protracted dullness.
peapod_boston's review against another edition
3.0
My plan for 2015 is to read more mainstream fiction--although I doubt I'll completely avoid science fiction and fantasy. "In the Light of What We Know" was a foray into that world. It is a kind of book I don't normally read, and I grappled early on with my own expectations regarding pace, tone, and plot.
It is a slow, meandering, self-indulgent narrative. The author is occasionally guilty of being "to clever"--not using quotation marks, the constant bouncing around in time, and the excursions into side topics, can sometimes be confusing, off-putting, and self-indulgent. However, Zia Haider Rahman paints a portrait of two interesting men in long, slow, oblique strokes, and the book is littered with gems that allowed me to forgive the off-putting moments:
"To say that an unexamined life is not worth living is, in my mind, putting things a tad too strongly. What I know now, however, is that an untested life can lead some people into a kind of moribund discontent that cannot easily be shaken off."
Or the story that cut right to this (relatively) new father's heart of a man watching his son make a choice that moves him from childhood to adulthood that ends with the line: "But that Saturday morning, as he walked into the children's library, what I believe I felt was his heart breaking. Watching a door close that can never be opened again is, I am sure, enough to break a heart."
"Everyone, he continued, wants his life to stand for something other than what it would, which is about eighty years--in the West, at any rate--eighty years of working, eating, sleeping, shitting, breeding, and dying. Lives of buttoning an unbuttoning..."
Or this grim excursion: "I've read that in fishing communities throughout the world, the same story is apparently told about dolphins, the benign dolphin is how it's described, about a fisherman thrown overboard but saved by a playful dolphin that nudges him all the way back to the land. But you have to ask: What if the dolphin is just playing, nudging away for fun but with no regard for the direction it's moving this bobbing creature, the stricken seaman? Who knows? There may be lost fishermen whom the incoming tide would have returned to safety but for the dolphin who playfully takes them off to the setting sun. The only fishermen we ever hear from are the ones brought back to shore. The rest perish at sea. Which is another way of saying we live in the world we notice and remember. Scientists call it the availability bias."
And "Our choices are made, our will flexed, in the teeth of events that overwhelm and devour us."
So it may not be for everyone, but I certainly don't regret reading it.
It is a slow, meandering, self-indulgent narrative. The author is occasionally guilty of being "to clever"--not using quotation marks, the constant bouncing around in time, and the excursions into side topics, can sometimes be confusing, off-putting, and self-indulgent. However, Zia Haider Rahman paints a portrait of two interesting men in long, slow, oblique strokes, and the book is littered with gems that allowed me to forgive the off-putting moments:
"To say that an unexamined life is not worth living is, in my mind, putting things a tad too strongly. What I know now, however, is that an untested life can lead some people into a kind of moribund discontent that cannot easily be shaken off."
Or the story that cut right to this (relatively) new father's heart of a man watching his son make a choice that moves him from childhood to adulthood that ends with the line: "But that Saturday morning, as he walked into the children's library, what I believe I felt was his heart breaking. Watching a door close that can never be opened again is, I am sure, enough to break a heart."
"Everyone, he continued, wants his life to stand for something other than what it would, which is about eighty years--in the West, at any rate--eighty years of working, eating, sleeping, shitting, breeding, and dying. Lives of buttoning an unbuttoning..."
Or this grim excursion: "I've read that in fishing communities throughout the world, the same story is apparently told about dolphins, the benign dolphin is how it's described, about a fisherman thrown overboard but saved by a playful dolphin that nudges him all the way back to the land. But you have to ask: What if the dolphin is just playing, nudging away for fun but with no regard for the direction it's moving this bobbing creature, the stricken seaman? Who knows? There may be lost fishermen whom the incoming tide would have returned to safety but for the dolphin who playfully takes them off to the setting sun. The only fishermen we ever hear from are the ones brought back to shore. The rest perish at sea. Which is another way of saying we live in the world we notice and remember. Scientists call it the availability bias."
And "Our choices are made, our will flexed, in the teeth of events that overwhelm and devour us."
So it may not be for everyone, but I certainly don't regret reading it.
tessaays's review against another edition
1.0
I generally save one-star reviews for books I can’t finish. I did finish this one but wish I hadn’t wasted my time, so it seems fair to apply the same metric. What a pretentious, plotless, boring waste. The glowing reviews really threw me off - I was expecting to be dazzled and instead I got a rambling, incoherent, completely self-absorbed mess with a protagonist who had his head so far up his own ass that he became irredeemably irritating only a few pages into the book. Zafar was interesting and explosive at times, but never became quite believable. Ultimately he felt more like a way for the author to show off his pretentious, vacuous, pseudo-intellectual internal monologues, rather than a fully-formed character. I wish I had stopped reading earlier.
rodhunt's review against another edition
3.0
What does it say about a book when you are very glad to finish it?
zilfworks's review against another edition
2.0
Well, I finished it. But only because I determined that the dry, plotless (until about the 90% mark, when a few threads did actually coalesce into some sort of story), meandering, utterly dense and impenetrable narrative wasn't going to get the best of me. I made it a personal challenge to get through it, and I did...but man, what a slog.