Brief biography of mohsin hamid was born in Pakistan, but he spent much of his
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| because she hasn’t remained loyal to their country’s way of life. Of course, he feels this way because he himself has become so much more invested in living like he’s still in the city of his birth. Furthermore, he feels “unmoored” when he thinks about his waning love for Nadia because she has essentially become his only extant family member, the only person who can connect him to his past. As such, thinking of life without her means considering an existence outside the framework of everything he’s ever known. Given the nature of their shifting relationship, Nadia suggests one day under the drone-crossed sky that she and Saeed leave behind the worker camp. She tells him she’s heard of a door that takes people to Marin, California, a place settled in the hills outside San Francisco. To her surprise, he instantly agrees, hoping that in this new place they’ll be able to rekindle their relationship, to reconnect with their relationship, […] and to elude, through a distance spanning a third of the globe, what it seems in danger of becoming.” Saeed’s immediate agreement to travel to Marin reveals his belief that migration will help him salvage his relationship to Nadia. This is a strange belief, considering that their relationship only started faltering once they left home (though it’s worth noting that migration only brought out and highlighted opposing qualities in each of them that already existed. Still, both he and Nadia clearly hope that by going to Marin they’ll be able to escape the deterioration of their love—an obviously unlikely scenario. CHAPTER 10 Saeed and Nadia settle high in the hills of Marin, above the encampments of other refugees who came to California before them. With a view of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco, they fashion a shanty out of corrugated metal and packing crates. Nadia finds work by hiking down the hills—through the ever-present fog—to a food cooperative nearby. And although there are many poor refugees living in Marin, the settlement is markedly less violent than the places most of these refugees fled in the first place. Still, Saeed becomes even more melancholic than he was before, a temperament that leads him into an even more intense state of quiet devotion and prayer. Once again, readers see that Saeed seeks to soothe his migration- related troubles by throwing himself into the practice of religion and prayer. Already, then, it becomes clear that this move to Marin will not save his and Nadia’s relationship, which suffers partly due to their inability to connect over Saeed’s spiritual practice and devotion. Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com ©2018 LitCharts LLC www.LitCharts.com Page 49 One night, Nadia obtains weed from a coworker. Hiking home, she realizes she doesn’t know how Saeed will react—of course, they’ve smoked joints before, but so much has changed since then, and Saeed has become incredibly devout. She sometimes felt that his praying was not neutral towards her Hamid writes, “in fact she suspected it carried a hint of reproach, though why she felt this she could not say When she’s about to show Saeed the marijuana, then, she recognizes that how he responds is a matter of portentous significance to her Sitting on a car seat they use as a couch, she touches his leg he offers her a small, fatigued smile. This, she thinks, is encouraging She then opens her hand to reveal the weed and waits for his reaction. After a brief pause, he begins laughing almost soundlessly saying, “Fantastic.” Nadia’s suspicion that Saeed’s prayer is not neutral towards her” once more illustrates the extent to which his religious devotion has come between them. Of course, this is possibly a projection of Download 0.56 Mb. Share with your friends:
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