Updike misses goal in 'Terrorist'

By GREGORY FLANDERS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
John Updike has taken an unlikely step in his latest novel, "Terrorist" (Knopf). The 75-year old writer, whose fiction is known mostly for its depiction of the vicissitudes of white, middle-class, suburban life, has written a novel about a marginalized, multiracial, 18-year old Muslim named Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy.
It shouldn't surprise that extremes abound in this novel. Considering its subject matter and its no-nonsense title, "Terrorist" consciously walks straight into a host of preconceived notions and stereotypes. Indeed, Ahmad's story is full of categorical distinctions of all types: His world is divided into Muslims, Jews and Christians, blacks, whites and Hispanics.
The son of an Irish mother and an Egyptian father who abandons the family early on, Ahmad grows up in a rough neighborhood in New Jersey, attending a school marred by gang violence and racial tension. At age 11, he stumbles upon an inner-city mosque where he is taught to read Arabic and the Quran by an imam from Yemen.
As the story progresses, the imam begins to take control, switching Ahmad from the college track in high school to the vocational track so he can become a truck driver. After high school, Ahmad begins driving for a furniture company, where he is brought into a conspiracy to bomb the Lincoln Tunnel.
Personal
At the same time, Ahmad's high school guidance counselor, an aging Jewish man who is tired of seeing his students slide into a life of drugs and crime, takes a personal interest in Ahmad and begins visiting him at home.
Thus begins the struggle for Ahmad's mind and future between an angry Muslim cleric and a bitter, nonobservant Jew.
What these two surrogate father figures have in common is an overarching sentiment of anger and disappointment at the state of the world. What is striking is the way in which the main characters begin to sound monotonously alike in their disgust with American culture.
Ahmad is the most disgusted. His anger at the world and the views that he holds are often schematic, if not racist Of course, Ahmad's distorted worldview is, to a certain extent, the point of the novel. Ahmad is young and angry. He has not yet learned to see nuances, so his reality is still painted in thick stripes of black and white. The real tragedy is the failure of his father figures to show him a positive way out of his hatred.
However, the novel ultimately does little more than repeat the stereotypes to which Ahmad has fallen victim. Like most of the characters in the book, Ahmad is superficial and one-dimensional. He never manages to step out of the role he assigns himself, and the reader never sees glimpses of a personality.
Updike may have bitten off more than he can chew with "Terrorist." The novel, while attempting to be an explosive account of a man's descent into terrorism, turns out to be a disappointing dud.
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