4. All That Man Is & The Reluctant Fundamentalist

03/01/23 • 42 min

For Episode 4 of Book Chat, we travel back just a decade or so, to Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist and David Szalay's short stories in a novel, All That Man Is.

We discuss Mohsin Hamid's ability to condense big ideas - what makes a fundamentalist? What biases are you bringing to the story? - into readable prose (and his other magical novels like Exit West) and David Szalay's attempt to condense modern masculinity from teen to OAP, as it roves Europe - in one book.

You can get in touch [email protected]

Sound by Joel Grove and production by Pandora Sykes

Books/articles mentioned:

All That Man Is and London and the South-East by David Szalay

The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Exit West and The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid

Games and Rituals and Single, Carefree, Mellow by Katherine Heiny

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis

If on a winter’s night a traveller by Italo Calvino

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

The Runaways by Fatima Bhutto

‘All That Man Is’, by David Szalay, review by Christopher Tayler for the Financial Times – https://www.ft.com/content/fe2db1c4-f797-11e5-803c-d27c7117d132

'All That Man Is,' and a Lot He Is Not, in David Szalay's View, by Dwight Garner for The New York Times – https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/07/books/review-all-that-man-is-and-a-lot-he-is-not-in-david-szalays-view.html

I Pledge Allegiance, by Karen Olsson for The New York Times – https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/books/review/Olsson.t.html

Clip attributions:

David Szalay on Radio 4 Bookclub, 2019

Mohsin Hamid on Radio 4 Bookclub, 2011

Subscribe to Books + Bits: https://pandorasykes.substack.com/

Our books for Ep 5:

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Memorial by Bryan Washington

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For Episode 4 of Book Chat, we travel back just a decade or so, to Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist and David Szalay's short stories in a novel, All That Man Is.

You can get in touch [email protected]

Sound by Joel Grove and production by Pandora Sykes

Books/articles mentioned:

All That Man Is and London and the South-East by David Szalay

The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Exit West and The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid

Games and Rituals and Single, Carefree, Mellow by Katherine Heiny

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis

If on a winter’s night a traveller by Italo Calvino

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

The Runaways by Fatima Bhutto

‘All That Man Is’, by David Szalay, review by Christopher Tayler for the Financial Times – https://www.ft.com/content/fe2db1c4-f797-11e5-803c-d27c7117d132

I Pledge Allegiance, by Karen Olsson for The New York Times – https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/books/review/Olsson.t.html

Clip attributions:

David Szalay on Radio 4 Bookclub, 2019

Mohsin Hamid on Radio 4 Bookclub, 2011

Subscribe to Books + Bits: https://pandorasykes.substack.com/

Our books for Ep 5:

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Memorial by Bryan Washington

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

3. Wuthering Heights & Orlando

It's episode 3 of Book Chat! And this month we are travelling hundreds of years back, to a book Pandora's always wanted to read (Orlando, by Virginia Woolf) and one of Bobby's all-time favourites (Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte.) Last episode, Pandora groaned at the prospect of Wuthering Heights, which she read - and loathed - for GCSE. So has she changed her mind? We discuss the two books and also the culture around the two authors: the upper-class, sexually liberal art collective, the Bloomsbury group, which Virginia Woolf was part of, and 'the Bronte myth' which has become part of the Wuthering Heights lore. How were the books received at the time - and do they stand up as modern reads?

Other books/ articles mentioned:

You Be Mother, by Meg Mason

Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte

Mrs Dalloway, Jacob's Room, A Room of One's Own, The Waves and To The Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf

Terrible literary wigs that I have known and loved, by Maddie Rodriquez for Book Riot https://bookriot.com/terrible-literary-wigs-i-have-known-and-loved/

Who's Virginia Woolf afraid of? by Stephen Unwin for Byline Times https://bylinetimes.com/2022/12/22/whos-virginia-woolf-afraid-of/

Emily, 2022 film https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.985aca68-2553-4b7e-83de-1b6465a3a8e4?autoplay=0&ref_=atv_cf_strg_wb

Orlando, a play directed by Michael Grandage, on now at The Garrick

Our books for Episode 4 are:

The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Mohsin Hamid

All That Man Is, by David Szalay

You can get in touch [email protected]

Sound by Joel Grove and production by Pandora Sykes.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

5. Memorial & The Virgin Suicides

Welcome to episode 5! On the menu today is Memorial by Byran Washington, which just slips over our '2 years old' threshold - the hype is arguably still hyping - and The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides, which was written 30 years ago and yet still, the hype hypes (StudioCanal just released a sparkly new version of the film.)

We discuss Memorial's literary take on the 'meet the parents' romcom, the 'traumedy' genre, and why Mitsuko is one of the best characters ever written; and why The Virgin Suicides' big themes - adolescent mental health, the male gaze, the American Dream - still feel as prescient today.

You can get in touch [email protected]

Sound by Joel Grove and production by Pandora Sykes

Books/articles mentioned:

Memorial by Bryan Washington

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Bewilderment by Richard Powers

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid

White Noise by Don DeLillo

Memorial review by Maria Marchinkoski for The Harvard Review

Memorial review by Tash Aw for The TLS

Memorial review by Ron Charles for The Washington Post