This is how Tahmima Anam describes two refugees in Calcutta:
And everywhere they went their memories argued for space, so that they forgot to cross the road when the lights were red, or over-milked their tea, or whispered into their newspapers as they scanned hungrily for news of home. Rehana found she could not bear to look at them; she was afraid she would see herself; she was afraid she wouldn't see herself; she wanted to be different and the same as them all at once.The conflict in Bangladesh is second to the perpetual conflict in Rehana.
Some passages are exquisite. It's utterly convincing. But still I feel uninvolved in A Golden Age. The story unfolds relentlessly, it feels as though it might keep going even if I put the book down and I'm wondering, as the novel's quality becomes apparent, whether the fault lies in the writing, or in me. Perhaps I don't want to be plugged so directly into the mind of someone experiencing misery.