Ambition can come at great cost as well as deliver great rewards, as three classmates discover in Run and Hide, a challenging novel by Pankaj Mishra (From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals who Remade Asia). The three Indian men, all from lower-class backgrounds, meet as students at the Indian Institute of Technology. All seem destined for greatness. Aseem, whose hero is V.S. Naipaul and whose favorite word is "career," becomes a novelist and celebrated intellectual. Virendra becomes "a freshly anointed billionaire" in the U.S. But Arun, the book's narrator, moves to a Himalayan village to care for his aging mother and works as a translator. In later years, a woman named Alia, whom Aseem describes as "rich, but with some brain cells," visits Arun's village to interview him about a book she's writing, "an 'intimate account' of the New India" with a focus on "the minute particulars" of the more egregious activities of Arun's former classmates.
Portions of the book's latter half feel as if Mishra has elbowed his way into the narrative to comment on the world. Fortunately, those points are thoughtfully argued, including concerns such as global capitalism and multiculturalism, social media's role in their furtherance and the price of upward mobility. The result is a searing indictment of unchecked materialism and its consequences. As the book suggests, likes, clicks and retweets might get people the attention they seek, but if they land them in trouble, there's nowhere to hide. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer