Moth Smoke: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)As those of us in the West grope towards some understanding of the turbulence in the Islamic world, it
is only natural that, along with the histories and the political analyses, we turn to literature. Mohsin
Hamid's Moth Smoke, set in Lahore, Pakistan in the summer of 1998, as India and Pakistan rattled
their nuclear sabers, offers a very readable entree to some of the issues surrounding the awkward
process of modernizing one Moslem nation. In particular, it captures the frustration and anger of the
less fortunate in a country whose ruling class is thoroughly corrupt and where the economic divide is
so vast that the wealthy can insulate themselves from the rules that bind the rest of society, and can
nearly avoid physical contact with the lower classes. But it also conveys some sense of the visceral
pride felt at every level of society when the government demonstrated that--just as the Christians, Jews,
Orthodox, Buddhists, and Hindus--Moslems have the bomb too. This tension, of income inequalities
dividing the nation, while ethno-religious pride unites it, is currently a defining characteristic of the
region.
Set against this exotic backdrop of nuclear confrontation and a miasma of corruption, cronyism, and
kickbacks, Hamid unfolds an oddly familiar tale that's equal parts hard-boiled fiction and
yuppie-descent-into-drugs-and-alcohol : the debts to Jay McInerney and James M. Cain are equally
heavy. Darashikoh "Daru" Shezad is a young banker who grew up on the fringes of high society, but
whose lack of connections has ultimately brought him up against a glass ceiling. Of course, his
increasing predilection for booze and dope hasn't helped matters any; and when he tells off an
important client, the bank fires him. Meanwhile, his more fortunate, because better connected,
childhood friend, Aurangzeb "Ozi" Shah, has just returned to Pakistan from the States, with his lovely
wife, Mumtaz, and toddler son, Muazzam. At first joyfully reunited, the old friends are soon pushed
apart again, first by Daru's declining social circumstances, then by a horrific instance of Ozi's
immunity from justice, and finally by the attraction that develops between Daru and Mumtaz.
The title of the book refers to what remains when the moth is seduced by the candle flame, but it's also
a metaphor for Daru spiraling towards his own destruction, drawn by the allure of sex and drugs and
easy money. What makes the novel particularly appealing is that we feel right at home within this
comforting structure of genre, but are simultaneously dazzled by glimpses into an utterly alien culture.
Thus, a story we've heard a hundred times before comes across as somehow fresh and surprising.
First time novelist Mohsin Hamid actually grew up in Lahore, then attended Princeton and Harvard
Law, and now works in Manhattan. His familiarity with the very different cultures of America and
Pakistan makes him an excellent guide for Western readers. It's hard to imagine a more accessible and
enjoyable, though fatalistic, novel if you are looking to literature as a way to start exploring the issues
confronting the nation states of the Islamic world.
GRADE : A

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The Reluctant Fundamentalist: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)In a recent article in The Washington Post" (7.22.07) titled "ROOTS OF RAGE: "Why Do They Hate Us?", Mohsin Hamid writes about an encounter at a book signing in Texas for "The Reluctant Fundamentalist." He was stopped cold when a man asked the subtitle question in a politely pleasant manner that put both author and reader in the "us" category. Hamid notes that he had spent almost half his life in the United States: emigrating from Lahore, Pakistan at the age of three with his father (who was accepted to a PhD program at Stanford), learning to sing "The Star Spangled Banner" before the Pakistan national anthem, playing baseball before cricket, writing English before Urdu, and other activities of a typical American kid. The question cut to the quick because in many ways he is, or it seems should be, one of us.
The Post piece goes on to lay out an autobiography which in considerable part became the plot of "The Reluctant Fundamentalist." Hamid returned to Lahore at the age of nine, growing up there pleasurably before the city was adversely impacted economically and culturally (strict morality codes, intimidation of politicians, academics, and journalists) by American backing of Pakistan's dictator Mohammed Zia ul-Haq in exchange for Zia's support of the mujaheddin, the Afghan guerrilla group fighting the Russian occupation which later became an American holy war adversary. Like the character Changez in the novel, he returned to the United States to attend Princeton University.
How much of the remainder of the book (Changez's outstanding performance in a business evaluation firm prior to being fired in debilitating disenchantment when he recognized the havoc his work was causing in the global workplace, the American girlfriend who ultimately fails him, et cetera) is unknown. But there is enough to support the notion that fiction, well written, can often articulate more basic truth than nonfiction. And "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" is brilliantly and beautifully written. There is no action (no bombs, no bullets, no noisy chaos) but there is suspense, gripping suspense (the feeling that something rather awful may happen at any moment), as Changez spends an evening over dinner telling his story to an American at a restaurant at a disquieting Lahore market. We never know the American's name or anything about him (whether businessman, tourist,, government agent)) except for his excruciating fear in the exotic foreign setting in which he finds himself. All this is conveyed through the narrative voice of Changez interpreting the American's reaction as the story unfolds.
The unnamed American is a stand-in, the nervous visitor in a strange foreign land, for all of us as we ponder the ghosts and goblins of the war on terror. Uneasy and watchful in that eerie marketplace, he could be any one of us anywhere. The girl with whom Changez falls in love is also, in a sense, a prototype for an America that cannot give up the memory of a dead lover (our nostalgia for the innocent security of a time that is past) and accept Changez for what he is: a smart, well-educated, if culturally different, Muslim foreigner who longs for acceptance.
In the Post article, Hamid answers the question of why they hate us as part envy and part reaction to American foreign policy. But his answer is less convincing that the one he offers to a reverse question, Why Do They Love Us?: "People abroad admire Americans not because they back foreign dictators but because they believe that all men and all women are created equal. That concept does not stop at the borders of the United States. . . .
"The challenge that the United States faces today boils down to a choice. It can insist on its primacy as a superpower, or it can accept the primacy of its values. If it chooses the former, it will heighten the resentment of foreigners and increase the likelihood of visiting disasters upon distant populations -- and vice versa. If it chooses the latter, it will discover something it appears to have forgotten: that the world is full of potential allies."
Readers of "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" will experience, at least for a few hours, some of the feelings of others across the world who are observing our fears and anxieties as we weigh the crucial choices which lie ahead. It could be time well spent.


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