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Terrorist: A Novel

by John Updike

3.12 · rating details · 1,573 ratings · 297 reviews

John Updike has written a brilliant novel that ranks among the most provocative of his distinguished career. Terrorist is the story of Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy, an alienated American-born teenager who spurns the materialistic, hedonistic life he witnesses in the slumping New Jersey factory town he calls home. Turning to the words of the Holy Qur’an as expounded to him by the p...more

Paperback, 320 pages

Published May 29th 2007 by Ballantine Books (first published January 1st 2006)

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Mar 09, 2009

brian rated it

· review of another edition

i’ve been an atheist as long as i can remember and my life, in part, has been a feigned attempt toward belief. i will never believe and know this, so i scramble toward god as a tightrope walker over a net of godlessness. the point, i guess, is to get as close as possible to something i know i’ll never reach; a more sophisticated (or not) form of a kid throwing a fit after having learned that santa claus is just some miserable minimum wage worker with a fake white beard and boozy breath.
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Jun 03, 2007

Jack rated it

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Recommends it for: Updike fans and those curious about why radical Islamics hate America

Shelves: jackrecommends

John Updike has earned a mantel full of awards, including a Pulitzer and a National Book Award. He knows people and he knows how tough even the most mundane lives can be. And Updike knows how to write. At his best when writing of “normal” people living flawed, empathetic lives, Updike stretches himself in his latest novel, “Terrorist.”

He writes the story of eighteen-year-old Ahmad Mulloy, the American son of an Egyptian exchange student father who ran off when Ahmad was three wi...moreJohn Updike has earned a mantel full of awards, including a Pulitzer and a National Book Award. He knows people and he knows how tough even the most mundane lives can be. And Updike knows how to write. At his best when writing of “normal” people living flawed, empathetic lives, Updike stretches himself in his latest novel, “Terrorist.”

He writes the story of eighteen-year-old Ahmad Mulloy, the American son of an Egyptian exchange student father who ran off when Ahmad was three without so much as a postcard, and of an Irish-American mother who raised him. Ahmad, a good boy, a quiet boy, has come under the influence of a stern Imam in his hometown of New Prospect, New Jersey, a suburb of New York City. Ahmad flourishes in Islam, the religion of his absent father, and he finds he “loves prayer, the sensation of pouring the silent voice in his head into a silence waiting at his side,” the God of Mohammed.

Updike plays the strong influence of Ahmad’s Imam against those of Ahmad’s mother Teresa, Jack Levy, his Jewish high school guidance counselor and Joryleen Grant, an African-American classmate with whom he has developed a mutual attraction. The novel’s title proclaims the direction his story is headed, and somehow Updike manages to get the reader into the head of an America hating, radical Islamic, who is at least somewhat sympathetic. “Terrorist” both indicts America and offers it a dirty, smudged, figurative valentine. Most impressively, John Updike brings us inside a fringe element of Islam and shows vividly why we are hated and why they want us dead; it all makes a convoluted kind of sense, and that makes it scary.

P.S. It's been five days since I finished "Terrorist" and I can't put it out of my mind. What I see on the TV news, read in the newspaper and hear at church are colored by it. Radical Islamics are like some Christians, I think. Instead of searching their holy books (Bible/Koran) for meaning and truth and a way to please God, they choose for themselves their own truths and predjudices, and then search their books for justification. We Christians found plenty of justification, particularly the Old Testament, for the crusades, the inquisition, the death camps and witch burning, among others. And today the fringes of our religions can justify anti-semitism, homophobia, wars of freedom, car bombings and mass murder, pretty much whatever we choose, while God mourns our stupidity, loves us, and hopes we will figure it all out.
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Oct 31, 2008

Ruth rated it

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Oh John, oh John. You ignored the idea of "write what you know." What you know well, and write beautifully about, are WASP middle-aged men of a certain socio-economic group. What you don't know is African-Americans and Muslims. You never shoulda wandered from your own back yard.

This book is so full of breath-taking stereotypes that I cringed. Gack.

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Jan 02, 2011

Steven Salaita rated it

I'm teaching this one in the spring though I haven't yet read it. Should be fun, especially considering that I'm pretty sure I already think it's fucking terrible. (Trying to keep an open mind, trying to keep an open mind, trying to keep an open mind...)

But I'm trying my best to keep an open mind about it.

AND LATER...

Okay, I read it and I have to admit that my initial feeling was incorrect. The novel is even more terrible than I first imagined. I cring...more

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Nov 06, 2007

Christina Stind rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, 2007

I picked up this John Updike book while on vacation in Praque. The subject of the book was really interesting and this novel should be one of his easier accessible books. Also, I've been wanting to read Updike for a while since my favourite writer Joyce Carol Oates is always compared to him.
I must say, I really enjoyed it. The story kept me enthralled and I find myself thinking about it all the time. Wondering if the reality he describes, is true. Wondering what to do if he is right.
...more

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Sep 22, 2007

Bart rated it

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Recommends it for: Fans of mundanity

Not long ago, I read an introduction to a large collection of Updike's short stories, which was written by Updike himself. If I remember correctly, it ends with him describing his charge as "giv[ing] the mundane its beautiful due."

Updike's still working overtime with the mundane in Terrorist, but there's almost nothing beautiful or dutiful about this story. Instead, it's composed of mediocre persons trying to be larger than life - or at least only halfheartedly resisting ...more

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Jul 17, 2007

Casey rated it

Recommends it for: those with nothing else to read.

The main trouble with Terrorist is in the voicing of the characters. The anti-hero, Ahmad, is a half-Arab American teenager who is groomed to become a terrorist by the imam at a local mosque. In many ways, besides his faith, he is a typical teen, self-concerned, withdrawn, and amazed at the hypocricy of adults. Yet Updike, for whatever reason, inserts his stodgy authorial voice into Ahmad's body, making him sound like a geriatric middle-eastern diplomat. Despite having grown up in America, Ahmad...more

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Sep 07, 2007

Sangeeta rated it

I am becoming a serial abandoner of books. Can't even blame this promiscuousness on the fact that I belong to a library, as I find myself loving and leaving even books that I've bought on warm, fuzzy afternoons at Crossword.

Anyhow, Mr. Updike, if you're reading this, blame it on my shallowness, and get on with your surfing, because I don't think you'll like the fact that I started your book, liked your protagonist, really 'got' the voice of the book, and then, Boom! So long and thank...more

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Apr 01, 2008

Jaime rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2008, general_fiction, terrorism

Okay, I didn’t exactly finish this one, but I’m finished with it. I gave it 105 pages. Do you want to know what happened in 105 pages? Ahmad met with his guidance counselor, went to church, and went to a lesson with his Qur’an teacher. That’s it. I was so bored with this that I couldn’t even bring myself to care about the blatant anti-Americanism and misogynism. The red light started flashing when I hit the 18 page description of a church mass (or whatever it’s called when it’s not a Catholic ch...more

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Oct 27, 2011

Roberta rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2008

Nella mente di un terrorista

Updike con questo romanzo si propone di spiegare il terrorismo raccontaci la storia di Ahmad, giovane musulmano figlio di madre americana irlandese e padre egiziano che li ha abbandonati quando lui aveva tre anni.

A fronte di una società obnubilata dalla televisione e dal cibo e corrotta da comportamenti amorali, Ahmad si pone come obiettivo quello di essere puro nella sua fede, rincorrendo un padre scomparso e disprezzando una madre troppo occident...more

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Jul 13, 2011

Mike rated it

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In some ways Updike has written a perfect book. Expertly researched and thought-provoking, yet a perfectly paced, page-turner thriller in its own right. Just the right number of characters, all complex, imperfect, and beautifully drawn. Many times I had to remind myself that this book is fiction, and must be taken as such, which I consider a tribute to the research and writing. But, be warned, the book is consistently negative, cynical and depressing in tone. There is a cat in the book, and even...more

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Jun 06, 2011

Jamampoline rated it

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Upon kicking off my John Updike-reading career, I steeled myself for harsh criticism of America's burbs and women, and Updike did not disappoint! From his loathsome descriptions of sagging boobs to his prosaic musings on middle-aged fatness in women to the repeated dips into the Quran for tidbits about the unclean women the protagonist (well, the young muslim, but perhaps Updike actually sides with his teacher more) must avoid to stay pure in his faith, there is plenty to wonder what kernel of w...more

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Jan 02, 2011

Barry rated it

· review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This was probably not the place to start with Updike but I found the stereotyping of non-whites in this book pretty insulting.

Look, mild disaffection with the world around and being a lonely muslim teenager you does not automatically lead to you wanting to bomb people. Change the main character's religion from Islam to Christianity and the author's treatment of his main character's motivation is shown to be at least utterly ridiculous and at worst, pretty offensive. Ahmad apparentl...moreThis was probably not the place to start with Updike but I found the stereotyping of non-whites in this book pretty insulting.

Look, mild disaffection with the world around and being a lonely muslim teenager you does not automatically lead to you wanting to bomb people. Change the main character's religion from Islam to Christianity and the author's treatment of his main character's motivation is shown to be at least utterly ridiculous and at worst, pretty offensive. Ahmad apparently becomes a terrorist because he doesn't have a Dad, goes to Qur'an lessons once a week and his Imam gets him a job driving a furniture van with a terrorist.

Oh, and of course because he's a muslim. The fact he doesn't particularly trust or like the Imam doesn't seem to matter - they're both muslim you see so it must be 'One For All, All For One and DEATH TO THE INFIDELS'. Fortunately, the dastardly terrorist plot is foiled when the educated, reasonable, religiously apathetic jewish white liberal steps in to Save The Day by talking down the rabid fundamentalist. Honestly, I'm not making this up.

Incidentally, it's not just muslims who get offensively caricatured, a black girl at school who Ahmad likes starts out singing in the church choir until they leave school when she immediately becomes a prostitute being pimped out by her boyfriend - who is named Tylenol because of an advert his mother saw. Again, I'm not making this up.

And don't even get me started on the speech of the non-white characters. The black kids talk like old white men think black kids talk and Ahmad, although American-born and raised single-handedly by his white Irish mother in New Jersey, talks like English is his third language and he has just stepped off a plane from the Middle East.

It is very clear that Mr Updike can write prose but it is also clear he spent much more time and attention on that prose than the research, plot and characterisation of this novel. There is a great novel to be written about the way a disaffected young man could have a sense of loneliness and isolation twisted and manipulated into an involvement with extremism and terrorism, but this isn't even close to being it. Oh dear.
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Oct 12, 2010

Cameron rated it

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Cameron Buckles

Professor Roney

T6:00

Religious Warfare

Terrorist
By John Updike
310 pp. Alfred A. Knopf

“These devils seek to take away my God.”
John Updike’s 22nd novel, “Terrorist,” takes us into the mind of Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy, an 18 year old radical Islamist living in New Jersey who is struggling with his religion in a society full of American “infidels.”
“Terrorist” is a physcological novel that shows how people...moreCameron Buckles

Professor Roney

T6:00

Religious Warfare

Terrorist
By John Updike
310 pp. Alfred A. Knopf

“These devils seek to take away my God.”
John Updike’s 22nd novel, “Terrorist,” takes us into the mind of Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy, an 18 year old radical Islamist living in New Jersey who is struggling with his religion in a society full of American “infidels.”
“Terrorist” is a physcological novel that shows how people of many different races and religions view the way this country appears and how it really is. The novel begins with a short monologue from within the mind of Ahmad and really lets the reader know how he feels about American youth. This gives a lot of insight on how Islamic fundamentalists think. The setting is very important in the fact that everything is taking place in New Jersey, which is not far from New York where the 9-11 attacks happened. The setting alone gives you the sense that people have a lot of hostility towards Ahmad because of how he looks and his religious beliefs. From the beginning it is apparent that Ahmad is outcast by his fellow peers.
Updike uses a lot of different characters throughout the story to show the many contrasts in how people act and what they believe in. Everyone from Ahmad’s liberal and free-spirited mother, Teresa, to Joryleen, the ignorant yet kindhearted African American classmate of Ahmad’s, all play important roles in the story. Updike lets you get to know all of the characters in a very in-depth way whilst keeping the main attention of the story on Ahmad.
The way Updike portrays America in this story is very controversial, but very real. He uses intricate metaphors and unique imagery to fully present to the reader what he is trying to say. He shows a lot of different prejudices that travel through the minds of Americans and Muslims without revealing his personal opinions or favoritism towards one or the other. Although Ahmad is very dedicated to his religion and sure about his beliefs, he still seems very confused on what path he wants to take. Every character in this story has a huge impact on Ahmad’s life; all of which have different sets of beliefs which leads to Ahmad being so distraught.
This novel isn’t an easy read and becomes rather stale at some points, but every time you go to put it down somehow Updike waves his artistic wand and sucks you right back in. The positives of this book are the in-depth characterizations and accurate portrayals of the different belief systems in America. The negatives aforementioned before are the sometimes dry moments of the story and difficult reading throughout. “Terrorist” is a rollercoaster ride through the mind of a teenager dedicated to the Islamic faith who is forced to make a decision that could not only cost him his life, but also the lives of many others. Updike doesn’t hold back in this novel and takes on a very sensitive topic in America. He delivers a compelling story filled with twists and turns while maintaining a high level of honesty and allows you to see the way people of the 21st century really think.
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Sep 01, 2010

Parksy rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: political-social

Sad... didn't notice that I read it around the Sept 11th anniversary...

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From Publishers Weekly
Ripped from the headlines doesn't begin to describe Updike's latest, a by-the-numbers novelization of the last five years' news reports on the dangers of home-grown terror that packs a gut punch. Ahmad Mulloy Ashmawy is 18 and attends Central High School in the New York metro area working class city of New Prospect, N.J. He is the son of an Egyptian exchange student...more

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Aug 07, 2010

Jeanne rated it

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I admired some of Updike's prose: "To Ahmad's eyes, the bulbous letters of the graffiti, their bloated boasts of gang affiliation, assert an importance to which the perpetrators have pathetically little other claim." This felt like a real and insightful description of the world of the inner city. However, at other times I was cringing at how many ways Updike told you the people were black. "Darker than caramel but paler than chocolate...", "...mass of dark citizens in f...more

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Jul 20, 2009

htanzil rated it

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Ahmad Ashamy Mulloy, seorang pemuda berusia delapan belas tahun adalah seorang remaja cerdas yang taat pada ajaran agamanya. Ia tinggal di New Prospect (New Jersey) yang materialistis dan hedonis bersama ibunya, Teresa Malloy yang berdarah Irlandia-Amerika. Ayahnya yang berkebangsaan Mesir, meningalkannya sejak Ahmad berusia tiga tahun. Ketika berusia sebelas tahun Ahmad memeluk agama Islam dan semenjak itu pula dua kali dalam seminggu ia mempelajari Kitab Suci Al-Quran dibawah bimbingan Syaikh ...more

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Jun 29, 2009

Adam rated it

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Terrorist is John Updike's last novel. The novel opens and closes with Ahmad Allowy's inner thought, "These Devils seek to take away my God," and, at the end, "These Devils have taken away my God."
Ahmad is a devout Muslim youth living in New Prospect, NJ, about to graduate from high school. He's living with his white mother, an artist, whose life is not quite as structured as Ahmad's. Ahmad is an outsider at school - his religious devotion is at odds with the loo...moreTerrorist is John Updike's last novel. The novel opens and closes with Ahmad Allowy's inner thought, "These Devils seek to take away my God," and, at the end, "These Devils have taken away my God."
Ahmad is a devout Muslim youth living in New Prospect, NJ, about to graduate from high school. He's living with his white mother, an artist, whose life is not quite as structured as Ahmad's. Ahmad is an outsider at school - his religious devotion is at odds with the loose, irreverent culture he sees all around him. While he scorns this culture, he is peaceful and respectful of it, even accompanying his friend to her Christian church one Sunday to see her sing.

One of the most radical leaps the novel takes is when Ahmad consents to become the martyr in a plot to blow up the Lincoln Tunnel. It seemed from the outset the Charlie Chehab, a fellow-muslim who befriended Ahmad at Excellency Home Furnishings (and whose father was the owner of Excellency) had lured Ahmad into the plot to blow up the Lincoln Tunnel. Charlie is one of the novel's most interesting characters - a Muslim who seems, most of the time, not-so-Muslim. His interests are in fornication, television, commercials, and he is unusually well-seasoned in U.S. history, particularly the history of the American Revolution against the British. Charlie's most important speech in the book compares the militias of the American Revolution, spearheaded by General Washington, to the jihad of radical Muslims against America. The seeds of Charlie's true U.S. alliance are embedded in this speech, and, after all, this is the speech that convinced Ahmad of the validity of jihad. It was also with Charlie, overlooking the New York City skyline, that Ahmad made his vow to join jihad, to die fo God if need be, and to wage war gainst America. Once Amhad realizes that Charlie is a CIA operative he still does not waver from his intentions to activiate the ammonium nitrate in the back of his truck and blow the Lincoln Tunnel sky-high. The turning point, when Ahmad lets go of his determination to destroy, is an apparently accidental recollection of the 56th Sura, where the Prophet speaks of "the moment when the soul of a dying man shall come up into his throat. That moment is here. The journey, the mirai. Buraq is ready, his shining white wings rustling, unfolding." Yet in the same sura, The Event, God asks, "We created you: will you not credit us? Behold the semen you discharge: did you create it, or We? God does not destroy: it was He who made the world" (p.306)
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Jan 16, 2012

manyhighways rated it

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The "Terrorist" that the title of John Updike's latest offering refers to is 18-year-old Ahmad, a young man in New Jersey who despises the Western culture around him and embraces Islam, the religion of his absent father but the book is really a story of two adults trying to influence Ahmad onto what they each consider a proper path. Mr. Levy, Ahmad's Jewish high school guidance counselor, attempts to sway Ahmad towards college while Ahmad's religious mentor is steering him (pun intend...more

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Feb 16, 2011

Jessica Farrell added it · review of another edition

Terrorist by John Updike. Published by Random House 2006.

Terrorist Minds in a Terrorist World

Terrorist by John Updike is a story about Ahmad Mulloy (Ashmawy), an 18 year old high school student on the verge of graduating but there is something peculiar about Ahmad. He was raised by his Irish mother since he was three (his father went M.I.A.) and at the age of 12 Ahmad wished to study the Qur’an and was devoted to Allah since. The focus is a social commentary primar...moreTerrorist by John Updike. Published by Random House 2006.

Terrorist Minds in a Terrorist World

Terrorist by John Updike is a story about Ahmad Mulloy (Ashmawy), an 18 year old high school student on the verge of graduating but there is something peculiar about Ahmad. He was raised by his Irish mother since he was three (his father went M.I.A.) and at the age of 12 Ahmad wished to study the Qur’an and was devoted to Allah since. The focus is a social commentary primarily on how the population treated Arabic people after 9/11 but through the perspective of the “enemy” (Ahmad) which provides insight into the thought process of a Muslim man. There are also threaded themes of the institution of the family and how single mothers raise their children; the institution of marriage and how relationships deteriorate; the institutions of education and obviously the institution of religion.
From the beginning the point of view, in the third person, jumps right into Ahmad’s inner thoughts of America: that this country is immoral, trashy and deserves to be punished. The point of view sets a disturbing tone in Ahmad’s narrative but he not the only perspective shown. Many characters are developed through their most inner desires such as lust, God, drugs, war…and Ahmad is trapped in the middle of all of it. It was easy to care about what Ahmad chose to do with his life and be tragically let down. There was one significant character that provoked the questioning of his religious beliefs within himself. Her name was Joryleen Grant, an African American teenager who Ahmad views as sinful temptation but as the characters develop Ahmad cannot help himself but to think immoral and lustful thoughts. She is a character who breaks through Ahmad’s barrier yet she is constantly seen as “Little Miss Popular” scornfully through the eyes of Ahmad because she is flirtatious, speaks well, and attracts men by revealing a little too much skin.
“He pictures her smooth body, darker than caramel but paler than chocolate, roasting in that vault of flames and being scorched into blisters; he experiences a shiver of pity, since she is trying to be nice to him…” (9).
Ahmad clearly does not approve of the American way of life just by how he judges Joryleen. He is guided strictly by “God” in his mind through the prose which read like a stream of consciousness passing smoothly through each character’s thoughts. Updike used Arabic excerpts from the Qur’an which can be dauntingly long and easy to overlook. Although it was an interesting concept, the words tended to be skipped over as the prose pushed forward. There is such a gigantic buildup that sizzles out though, as the development of the characters can no longer be exciting and fresh but rather become expected. Ahmad attempts to become a celebrated Muslim which is honored in the eyes of his people but terrorism in the eyes of Americans. This is a great story that deals with a touchy subject and many complicated yet driving emotions.

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Feb 05, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine added it · review of another edition

Not only does John Updike write tales of suburban angst; he also has a long history of ruminating on faith. Critics compare his latest novel to In the Beauty of the Lilies and The Coup except that Terrorist has an intensely contemporary flare. It's almost scandalous to see one of America's literary lions toying with such an inflammatory topic__and in the guise of a thriller, no less. The litmus test of his success with Terrorist is whether he answers the central question: What drives someone to

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Jul 09, 2010

Snotchocheez rated it

When John Updike (one of the premiere American novelists of our generation) decided at the twilight of his career to write a novel called "Terrorist" released post-9/11, I balked at the idea of reading it. I just had this feeling it was going to be a meandering, doddering treatise on the psychological/political/religious manifestations of the mindset of a terrorist. Everyone was affected in some way by 9/11 (either directly or indirectly), and for me the wounds were too raw for me to...more

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Nov 15, 2010

Patrick rated it

A very good book that lacks depth in character, in Ahmad, but rich characters overall. No doubt, Updike leaves Ahmad lacking in depth on purpose because he thinks all absolutist do not have complexity to them.

Essentially, I think the book is about the search for meaning in our daily life filled with consumeristic impulses that seems to be a bottomless pit. Ahmed also wants to do something that is greater than himself a self-sacrifice that is significant in the world instead of suc...moreA very good book that lacks depth in character, in Ahmad, but rich characters overall. No doubt, Updike leaves Ahmad lacking in depth on purpose because he thinks all absolutist do not have complexity to them.

Essentially, I think the book is about the search for meaning in our daily life filled with consumeristic impulses that seems to be a bottomless pit. Ahmed also wants to do something that is greater than himself a self-sacrifice that is significant in the world instead of succumbing to the drudgery of middle class life that seems to encompass his mother, Jack and Beth Levy. It seems to me that Ahmad's antidote to a life that is boring and middle class (ie: Jack Beth and mom) is to do something for the God that he feels is so near to him. Again, the undercurrent of search for meaning comes in. I understand this innate desire to rise above normal life and do something significant with it especially for the glory of God. But, unfortunately for Ahmed this innate yearning takes him down a dangerous road.

I see Ahmed the fundamentalist Muslim looking for a way out of the daily grind of the lower middle class into something more meaningful. And for him that meaning takes the shape of the absolutist faith of fundamental Islam. I can understand the feeling of certainty that Ahmed feels when he practices fundamental Islam because to be literal in ones understanding of your holy book means clarity at the price of being normal. Like Ahmed, fundamentalist see the world as clear cut good or evil and if it is not good then the Devil is behind it. This can be bad, in the case of the girl that is being friendly to him, he sees the friendliness of the girl as Satan trying to tempt him. Also, as seen in the book, fundamentalist can easily be manipulated into whatever their preachers want them to think because fundamentalist in general seek clear cut right and wrong answers and thus can manipulated into violence if they see the other side is clearly wrong. So, Updike paints a beautiful picture in choosing a devout religious person (who is good and decent in his daily life as can be seen with his treatment of Jocelyn)and making him the vehicle for evil destruction. The paradox itself seems indicative of the 60's relativistic view in which good and evil interchanges.

What I find troubling about Ahmed is the fact that he is too 1 dimensional as a character that is you would think growing up in America he would have an internal conflict within him between his belief in fundamentalist Islam and American society with all its glory and warts but up to chapter 2, he seems to be a fundamentalist through and through. Also, it seems the book is somewhat formulaic in that Ahmed comes from a working-class neighborhood with violence so of course one would expect him to be messed up somehow. Despite the fact that Ahmad is boring in his complete faith in Islam, I do like how the book ended with his faith intact and simply the understanding of his faith was changed.

As a juxtaposition, Updike showcases guidance councilor, Levy who despite having had a good middle class life seems generally unfulfilled with his secular non-religious life. Just as Jack Levy seems to have achieved the external success of middle class life, his wife Beth seems to have achieved it but is equally bored with her life. Unlike her youthful days, Beth becomes obese and thinks about eating all the time, even though her sister states there is a terrorist threat in her area, and prefers to live her life vicariously through watching soap operas on TV. The general sense one gets while reading about both Jack and Beth life is though they seem to have achieved external m.c. success, there is an internal failure of potential not being met. For Jack throughout the years, that failure comes from seeing his students fail in school both promising and otherwise. The m.c. part of the success equation is that he has a job and he raised a son who is successful but his job does not give him the satisfaction that he thought he would have. Ironically, in the end, it is the secular godless Jew who creates enough doubt in Ahmad to prevent him from suicide bombing that he wanted to execute. So, it was the godless Jew who changes Ahmad's understanding of the Koran from one of death to one of life. But, it is interesting to not that Updike translates Ahmad's aquiescenes to logic as defeat of faith not as a profound shift in understanding of the Koran.

I also like the idea of Jocelyn the gospel singer becoming a hooker especially after Ahmed ask her to sing the gospel music after she made him cum as a hooker. I think what Updike is trying to get at here is the superficiality of America in which words do not mean anything and people belief system and principles can be compromised by materialism and consumerism.

I also think Updike is commenting on the danger of both absolutist faith in all its form as well as having a meaningless life of the consumeristic American bereft of deep meaning. As a significant writer of the sixties, I think one can still see the influence of counter-cultural sixties in his writing in questioning affluence as the key to happiness.

Updike does comment on the travesty of one parent household without a father. Through Levy, he explains that all Ahmed is trying to do by reaching out to Islam and its hard reality is to reach out to some kind of father figure. Since Ahmed's household has no discipline because the mother acts not like a mother but as Ahmed friend then he reacts by looking for some external enforcer of laws and rules and he finds it in fundamentalist Islam. This view of broken household actually enforces the social conservatives view of having a two parent household; because a lack of a parental figure such as a father and the fact that a mother cannot discipline a child and at the same time provide a living for the family leads to the decay of the child.

It is an interesting twist in the story in which the immigrant Chehab the father seems to be defending American freedoms versus Lebanon. For me, this strengthens the whole notion of America welcoming immigrants who want to come to America because from personal experience they are hard workers especially the first and second generation immigrants. They are hard workers because they know that their is opportunity in the US and they instinctually want to partake in that opportunity for a better life. It is the immigrants grandchildren and perhaps children that seem to be the trouble makers in inner city lives.

I do enjoy the parallel that Charlie Chehab draws between the American Revolutionary fighters and the Islamist fight for justice against what they see as the "American colonializers". But it seems to me that Chehab is less interested in Islamic jihad then issue of politics of revolution. To me, Chehabs motivation for the destruction of America is more political than religious that is he could be a communist freedom fighter though due to his heritage he chooses Islam as the vehicle for his ideological destruction. In the end, we learn that Charlie is an undercover CIA agent who tries to tempt Ahmad from his "Islamic duties" to preserves life.

I think in the end of the day, Updike is wise to choose Islam for the questioning of absolute faith and the potential disasterous consequences that occur because of that absolutism. Because Islamic fundamentalism currently is feared by all, it does not seem controversial to question faith through Islam. But as we see at the end of the book, he favors the secular logical man via the Levy, since he is the hero in the end who saves the lives of million, to a person of faith. (less)

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Jul 27, 2011

Sarah added it

I tried very very hard to like this book - especially as it had been recommended by a friend whose reading likes and dislikes is closely aligned to my own.

Picking up the book was a struggle. While this has been on my bedside table, I have started and finished probably about 10 other titles. I think I started in July, and now it's the end of January.

A predictable book with a predictable storyline and predictable ending. I didn't care enough about any of the characters to keep me interested, an...more

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Jun 05, 2011

Perry Whitford rated it

· review of another edition

What do you get when arguably America's pre-eminent author writes about arguably the pre-eminent concern of the times? Can't go wrong, surely?
Well, you can. Very wrong in fact.

I think I should confess before I go on to trash this utterly unconvincing novel that I have yet to understand how Updike has warranted the epithet I gave him above? I read Rabbit Run years ago and was massively underwhelmed by it. I then tried Rabbit Redux a few years ago and gave up on it. I hadn't felt th...moreWhat do you get when arguably America's pre-eminent author writes about arguably the pre-eminent concern of the times? Can't go wrong, surely?
Well, you can. Very wrong in fact.

I think I should confess before I go on to trash this utterly unconvincing novel that I have yet to understand how Updike has warranted the epithet I gave him above? I read Rabbit Run years ago and was massively underwhelmed by it. I then tried Rabbit Redux a few years ago and gave up on it. I hadn't felt the urge to try any more until I picked this one up, the subject matter (and month) was certainly the hook I needed, as another dull novel about feckless, empty, middle-class American men wasn't going to bring me back to him thats for sure.

There was still one of those in this book however, the aging school guidance counsellor Jack Levy. He is tired of his wife and tired of life. I found him pretty tiring too.
The title character though is young, a pupil at Jack's school, a half-Egyptian, half-Irish American born Muslim called Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy, who longs for his departed father and feels contempt for his brittle and promiscuous mother, finding comfort and direction in the local make-shift Mosque and imam Shaikh Rashid.

Ahamd, disgusted by the society he finds around him, becomes attracted to the life of the jihadi, which means to become a terrorist.
For the book to work Updike needed to get inside the head of his would be suicide bomber- perhaps more importantly a teenage one at that -and it just didn't happen for me. In fact, I found the scenes between Ahmad and the black girl who shows an interest in him, Joryleen, gauche and embarrassing, their dialogue cringingly so. Ahmad's thoughts and repressions were not credible to me either, both throughout and at the resolution.

Updike has passed away now, this was one of his last of many novels. This book was a clear case of why most writers should stick to what they know best, even the great ones. I have struggled to enjoy Updike in the past, even when writing within his usual milieu, but the welter of praise he has had from so many can't all be wrong, he must be very good.

Certainly not here though.
One star for the story and one star for the bravery of taking it on.
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Sep 10, 2010

Stacey rated it

· review of another edition

Tomorrow is the ninth anniversary of September 11th, and if you really want to scare the daylights out of yourself in memoriam, then John Updike’s Terrorist can help you out with that. It is a creepy, timely, get-under-your-skin-and-make-you-itch kind of novel. But before I get to all that, I must digress a little.

John Updike is also the author of one of my favorite short stories to teach to high school students, titled “A&P.” Notice how I said it’s one of my favorites, not the...more

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Apr 16, 2009

Cameron rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction

Deciding whether Updike succeeded in portraying a complicated development of a terrorist, or if he merely expressed a cliché and gave it stereotypical life, the weight of my feeling hedges toward the later. My uncertainty arises due to his well developed tone of sarcasm and irony with which he populates the novel, perhaps overpopulates. Though an intriguing representation of hysteria and fear pervasive after 9/11, I wonder if his intention does not become muddled in the disdain he evinces towa...more

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Dec 18, 2008

Johnsergeant rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: audiblecom, audiobook

Narrated by Christopher Lane
Unabridged: LENGTH 9 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's Summary
The ever-surprising John Updike's 22nd novel is a brilliant contemporary fiction that will surely be counted as one of his most powerful. It tells of 18-year-old Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy and his devotion to Allah and the words of the Holy Qur'an, as expounded to him by a local mosque's imam.

The son of a bohemian Irish-American mother and an Egyptian father who disappeared when he wa...more

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Jan 27, 2010

Caroline Alicia rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: jan2010, coming-of-age, race-relations, middleeast-india

I have never been a John Updike fan. That said, I was shocked to see the low star ratings this book received. I'm pretty sure this will be my "The Book" for 2010.

Part of the sermon in the Black Christian Church (amazing job there Updike, I felt like I was really in church. he got everything, call and response, responsive reading, the fact mostly no one willing sits in the very front pew lol) in regard to Moses being barred from the Promised Land: "'No way,' the Lord s...more

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Feb 21, 2011

Corey rated it

· review of another edition

I think the kindest thing that I can say into going into why I didn't care for the book is saying that Updike seems to make a lot of assumptions on behalf of the reader: assumptions that the reader is somewhere deep in the mind of the characters, assumptions that the reader has the same viewpoints as him (Updike, that is,) and that they’re willing to consider “seemingly spur-of-the-moment revelation” as an acceptable reason to make life-altering choices.

Terrorist follows the dual sto...moreI think the kindest thing that I can say into going into why I didn't care for the book is saying that Updike seems to make a lot of assumptions on behalf of the reader: assumptions that the reader is somewhere deep in the mind of the characters, assumptions that the reader has the same viewpoints as him (Updike, that is,) and that they’re willing to consider “seemingly spur-of-the-moment revelation” as an acceptable reason to make life-altering choices.

Terrorist follows the dual stories of Ahmad Mulloy, a young boy on the cusp on manhood finding his identity in the Muslim faith. We follow Ahmad as he sleepwalks his way through the end of his high school life. Occasionally, the point of view switches, and we follow Ahmad’s counselor as he also sleepwalks through his life. Without going into spoilers, these are our primary plot arcs. Where Ahmad’s sleepwalking is characterized through extended monologues on how evil, pathetic, or heathen the people and culture around him are, Jack’s are languid odes to a life lived poorly with a wife he wants to leave (but doesn’t actually, he’s a good person – and therefore a loser in life – at heart) and a job that depresses him anew day after day.

I had a hard time making it past the first fifty or so pages of the book, really, because they are so adamantly negative and cynical without being especially convincing or evocative. There are only so many different situations in which you can hear Ahmad , “the dun-skinned youth”, meditate on how American culture is inherently evil – how it makes a God only of commercialism and self-interest – before it loses its directness and strength. Over the course, we’re shown quite a few of these situations, too.

The parts I enjoyed most from the novel were the philosophically-minded conversations between different characters – the actual opportunities for growth and character change, as it were (though this hope was met only sporadically throughout these interactions.) The subject matter that the book tackles – interlacing of race, of culture, of faith – is inherently interesting, and some musings on these matters yield thought-provoking reading. Many, though, are stunted by the pointed attitudes that the author seems to inject into the book. Conversations about the Muslim faith go back to the same couple of talking points that were referenced earlier in this review, for the most part.

Without much real character change, the pivotal actions seem mostly un-earned, especially those taken by Ahmad, our primary “protagonist”. At few points did I feel like I could have traced backward to understand the thought process that brought Jack, Ahmad, or Joryleen (Ahmad’s not-really-girlfriend) to change in the ways they do. The plot structure seems suited to a serialization, in many places – if this were established as a TV show, with all the backstory and social assumptions founded straightaway, the reader might have a more straightforward ability to digest and accept, if not understand, the characters and their actions. As such, a novel which tackles an interesting story matter in a way that can tend to be entertaining sometimes just leaves me (as I suspect it leaves many readers) wondering how it filled so many pages and said so little of substance.
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About John Updike

John Hoyer Updike (born March 18, 1932 in Shillington, Pennsylvania) was an American writer. Updike's most famous work is his Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest; and Rabbit Remembered). Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest both won Pulitzer Prizes for Updike. Describing his subject as "the American small town, Protestant middle class," Updike is well kn...more

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“Die christliche Sitte, träge aufrecht dazusitzen wie bei einer Unterhaltungsveranstaltung, deutet darauf hin, dass Gott als Unterhaltungskünstler gilt, der von der Bühne entfernt und durch eine andere Nummer ersetzt werden kann, wenn er nicht mehr unterhält.” — 1 person liked it

“Vorsichtshalber haben sie das Etikett 'Kapitalismus' ersetzt durch solche, auf denen 'freie Marktwirtschaft' und 'Konsumkultur' steht, nur roch das immer noch zu sehr nach Hund-frisst-Hund, nach allzu vielen Verlierern und maßlos abrahmenden Gewinnern. Wenn man die Hunde aber isch nicht miteinander balgen lässt, dann liegen sie den ganzen Tag im Zwinger und pennen. Im Grund besteht das Problem darin, dass die Gesellschaft anständig zu sein versucht, und mit Anstand ist gegen die menschliche Natur nichts auszurichten. Nicht das Geringste. Wir sollten alle wieder Jäger und Sammler werden, dann hätten wir eine hundertprozentige Beschäftigungsquote und ein gesundes Magenknurren.” — 1 person liked it

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