A novel cannot critique capitalism while its circulation depends on it.

Evidence

Yet although the ultimate result of this demystification is Changez’s effective withdrawal from employment at Underwood Samson, given the text’s inevitable position within circuits of global economic power, it seems too much to claim, as does Ahmed Gamal, that “The Reluctant Fundamentalist conceptualizes the necessary break from the world capitalist system and the refusal to submit to the imperatives of globalisation.” How could it do so when its very existence and circulation depends on these things? — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 466

Categorization

• XREF: Provides a nuanced, self-aware caution for the reader’s hinge work—the very act of using Hamid as evidence participates in the circuits the novel critiques.
• QUESTION: If a novel’s existence depends on global capital, does that preclude any genuine critique—or only a ‘necessary break’ reading? Worth testing against Naqvi’s novel.