How to Read the Air, Dinaw Mengestu

 

How to Read the Air by Dinaw Mangestu

Started: 7/31/2022
Completed: 8/2/2022
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

To begin with, this is a study of deeply flawed characters.  I find none of them compelling.  It is a look at enormous narcissism and reframes everything into personal benefit for all of the characters.  The characters lie, hit, and even try to kill one another.  It looks like each character perceives the world from self-interest and denies almost anything that threatens to intrude on that self-interest.  The narrator seems to twist and invent the story he is telling as he tells it, so one wonders if this isn't some amount of projection from the narrator, but regardless it is a deeply unhappy tale.