Moth Smoke

There's no doubt about it: "Moth Smoke," by Mohsin Hamid, is an unforgettable reading experience. No matter what background you bring to this book, you'll come away entertained and enlightened...and don't be surprised if you feel a bit jet-lagged, as well. This novel immerses you in a fascinating cultural experience. For the duration of the book, you feel like you are living in modern Lahore, Pakistan. The story is part love story, part satire, and wholly symbolic about the political state of modern Pakistan. The book is both a morality tale and a political parable. At the start of the novel the protagonist, Daru, stands accused of murder. The structure of the novel forms a stylized trial. Daru tells us the story of the summer that lead up to his arrest. The summer begins when his bank executive boss fires him for a minor error of social class when dealing with a wealthy customer. Unable to get another job, Daru descends into drugs and crime. Along the way he falls in love with his best friend's wife and carries on a steamy affair with her. Alternating chapter-by-chapter with Daru's story, "witnesses" each take a chapter to talk directly to the reader to condemn or defend the accused, or to provide other relevant information. The book is filled with irony, parable, satire, humor, politics, morality, lust and longing. In the end, the reader is left to make up his mind concerning the guilt or innocence of the accused. I was dumbfounded to learn that because the book centers on a trial, the author was successfully able to submit it as his J.D. thesis at Harvard Law School. Subsequently, it was picked up by a publisher and won widespread international literary acclaim as his debut novel. I must say I've rarely heard of another book with a stranger beginning! What is most fascinating about this book for the Western reader, is its intricate and detailed portrayal of four levels of Pakistani culture: the ultra rich elite, the white-collar middle class, the blue-collar middle class, and the poor. The novel provides a culturally eye-opening literary adventure that makes you feel like your taking a journey through the seedy side of Lahore. The novel focuses on the decadent lifestyle of the ultra-rich--in particular, the Generation X children of the corrupt civil servants, politicians, government bureaucrats, and industrialists that form Pakistan's elite upper half-a-percentile. The author knows this territory well. His father is a member of Pakistan's American-educated upper class. The author spent his early childhood living near Stanford University where his father was attending graduate school. Thus he learned to read and write English before he ever learned Urdu. After his father graduated, the family returned to Pakistan where Hamid spent his later childhood and adolescence. He returned to American for an undergraduate degree at Princeton and a law degree from Harvard. He worked for a few years as a management consultant in New York, and later

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

I'd never heard of this book or this writer when I picked up Moth Smoke. Being from Pakistan myself, I was somewhat apprehensive...the gushing praise on the back jacket seemed a little TOO gushing, the context of this book seemed too easily marketable in a decade which has seen a feeding frenzy upon asian and asian american writers by critics and publishing houses alike. Imagine my surprise. I couldn't have had less to worry about. This is a truly compelling novel. In a time when words like "post-colonial" are tossed around like garbage, let me say that this work stands up and holds its own. As a document testifying to the various minutiae of Pakistani society and as a study in some very economical prose, with a crew of characters as remarkable as any you've ever read about, and as a novel that manages to engage the reader with disturbing yet very real questions, Moth Smoke is a success. Don't bother to compare this work in any way to other novels based around the same geographical region of the world -- your comparisons are pointless. This work offers a stimulating mix of fast, heady, prose that manages to linger -- somewhat like smoke itself. Mohsin Hamid has Arrived and I for one salute him.

Moth Smoke is a spectacular combination of diverse elements- it is at once a gripping story (I couldn't put it down); lyrically written (images and descriptions have stuck with me for the last three weeks since I read it); and a compelling description of both privileged and underprivileged Pakistani life. Hamid manages to speak in a compelling voice, whether he is telling the story from the point of view of a frustrated young mother or a career criminal. I thoroughly recommend this book!

This is one of the best books I've read in a long, long time....the prose are amazing, the characters addictive and deplorable all at once, the plot gripping...the imagery of Hamid's words is vivid..(the lust scenes don't hurt either). Knowing nothing about Pakistan before opening the book, I was shocked by how quickly I became captured by the story. Hamid's words are so descriptive that you can literally see the characters and the places in the book. This is one of those books that keeps you so hooked you've got to carry it with you everywhere so you can keep sneaking a page at every spare moment you get until it's finished....then after you're done with it, you keep thinking about the characters and wishing there were already a sequal to it!