Book Reviews and Ignorance

Ten pages into John Updike’s novel Terrorist, I had to put the book down. Updike’s characterization of Ahmad is slanted through such an Orientalist perspective that, for a few minutes, I couldn’t continue reading the book. On the very first page of the novel, it was clear what Ahmad thought about American society. His hatred and repulsion for the corruptness of American society was clear through his hatred for those “weak and nonobservant Jews” (3)—his teachers—who try to Westernize Ahmad’s education. Despite Ahmad’s own religious background, he detests all other religions; the topic of Christianity is “abhorrent” (8) to him. Yet, as we’ve learned over the course of the semester the majority of Muslims idolize aspects of the West (like the prevalence of democracy) and respect Judeo-Christian denominations as being religions ‘of the book.’

So how did every review published at the front of Terrorist blatantly accept such a slanted viewpoint of a Muslim character?

The News & Observer, a North Carolina-based newspaper, said “A novelist, ultimately, is superfluous if he cannot tell us something about our current and changing world, and in Terrorist Updike does just that.” Updike gives us insight into “our current and changing world?” What about the millions of Muslims world-wide how are not terrorists? The Muslims who are not ultra-conservative fanatics who aspire to murder innocent human beings? The only representation of Islam we have in the novel is of the minority—only a small percentage of Muslims worldwide are radicalized.

 The Booklist lists Terrorist as a starred review and says the following regarding Updike’s novel:

“This marvelous novel can be accurately labeled as a 9/11 novel, but it deserves also the label of masterpiece for its carefully nuanced building up of the psychology of those who traffic in terrorism…it is a high mark in Updike’s career.”

Apparently, whoever wrote this Booklist review believes that Ahmad, as a character, represents the profile or background of all Muslim terrorists. Updike’s novel only reinforces stereotypes of the East, linking Islam with terrorism. The unfortunate part is that most Americans who read this book don’t have the knowledge we do about Orientalism, and will willingly accept Ahmad as a representation of Islam as a whole, rather than as one person (or character) whose actions have no bearing on the Islamic faith or the Middle East.