text: Updike failed to hold my attention throughout the story both because of its utter lack of suspense in any dimension and the inconsistencies in his character development.
  
  As other have stated, you know from page one that the final page will involve an Arab, a truck and a bomb.  The lack of anticpation must therefore be compensated for by something else - perhaps excellent writing, interesting character development or original insights.  Updike fails to deliver on all three counts.
  
  One particularly slipshod literary technique Updike uses is the phrasing he gives the title character Ahmad.  When Ahmad speaks, it is in the voice of an intelligent, thoughtful foreigner.  His phrasing captures very well the cadence, vocabulary and grammar of a well spoken non-native speaker of English.  Curiously, Ahmad IS an American, raised in New Jersey by a thoroughly American mother.  So, what influences created this stilted phrasing?  Updike is trying to somehow comvince us that a Jersey teenager speaks like a Pakistani or Egyptian immigrant.  There is no need for the technique and its inconsistency with the character's life is grating.
  
  Updike also relies heavily on ethnic/religious stereotypes.  Sterotypes often have some basis in fact but generally make for uninteresting literature.  However, in Updike's case, the stereotypes make little sense at all.  For instance, a high school counselor's entire personality is attributed to his "Jewishness" both by himself and by others who opine on his personality.  This is particularly curious given that the man was not raised as a Jew and, in fact, his family had rather adamently turned away from the religion two generations earlier.  So where does all the Jewsih influence come from?  Likewise, Ahmad's mother's personality is often linked to her Irish heritage.  Yet there is no evidence whatsoever that her Irish background (which could have been many generations ago) has influenced her one bit.  The reader is left once again to wonder what motivates the stereotype - other than simply poor writing and careless character development.
  
  Another out of place literay technique involves the inclusion of fairly lengthy passages from the Korna in Arabic.  Obviously, few Western readers will understand Arabic and it seems meerely pretensious for Updike to include the original language rather than paraphrasing or translating the passages.  What comes across is an attempt by the autohr to show he has done his research.  If that is truly the point then the reader must wonder why the passages are reproduced in Western script rather than Arabic script.  After all, the Koran is not written with Western phonetics in mind.
  Ultimately, the book leaves one wondering why such a lightweight, poorly constructed piece was released by such a skilled author
  