How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is a 2013 satirical novel written by Mohsin Hamid. It tells the story of an unnamed narrator in an unconventional format: written from the second person point of view, it is ostensibly a self-help manual that unfolds in novelistic prose. At the beginning of each chapter, the narrator offers a brief discourse on topics as diverse as self-help, memoir, debt, or the reading and writing of literature. Then he puts the reader in his position and refers to them as “you” during the narrative portions of the novel.

Each of its twelve chapters are titled with a self-help precept such as “Focus On The Fundamentals.” When followed, the twelve rules will ostensibly teach someone what is needed to become filthy rich in rising Asia. However, the narrator, who both writes and follows the rules, becomes wealthy without becoming fulfilled for much of the novel. In the book’s final irony, he realizes that while eleven of the rules helped him gain wealth, only one of them made him happy.

The story takes place in an unnamed city and country, and is told by an unnamed narrator. Throughout the story, the author intends for readers to imagine themselves as the narrator, whom he refers to as “you.” The city in which the narrator—or “you”—live is a mixture of poverty and wealth. There are fundamentalist attitudes and class discrepancies that are similar to those found in India’s caste system, although a location other than the titular rising Asia is never given.

One of three siblings, the narrator is the only child in his family to attend college and become successful financially. In the first chapter, he is infatuated with a character who is only ever known as “the pretty girl,” even when they reconnect decades later, and even in their 80s. The pretty girl is an aspiring model, and she and the narrator find each other repeatedly at pivotal stages of their lives.

The narrator attends university at his father’s insistence. His father works hard but has never been educated. However, he has always noticed that his bosses have had formal schooling. At university, he becomes involved in a fundamentalist organization that he never names, but which performs public moral enforcement similar to the Taliban’s morality code squads. He does not last long in the group and soon shaves his beard.

Next, he begins working as a salesman for a merchant running a scam on local vendors. The man buys expired food at low cost, then repackages it with new dates and resells it at a profit. Years later, the narrator uses the contacts gained on those routes to start a water bottling business. This business will eventually lead him to become a water magnate and a wealthy man. He will go on to marry the sister of his accountant and father one son.

His wife falls out of love with him because he is distant, always preoccupied with the pretty girl, despite how rarely they see each other over the years. By the time he is in his 80s, his siblings have died, his wife has left him, and he is bankrupt after learning that his former brother-in-law has embezzled all of his money and disappeared. No longer wealthy, he lives in a hotel.

At the end of the novel, he has undergone a successful heart surgery after having two heart attacks. He reconnects with the pretty girl and they are together for a few years: the happiest of his life. This violates the third rule of the book: “Don’t Fall In Love.” When she dies of cancer, he is alone once more, but meets her in Heaven after passing away.

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is a skillful meditation on class, wealth, friendship, self-improvement, and education. It is highly recommended for literature students, anyone interested in middle Eastern authors, fans of history and entrepreneurship, and those who enjoy satire.