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Moth Smoke: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Mohsin Hamid
Publisher: Picador
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy Used: $4.00
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Rating:  69 reviews
Sales Rank: 51938
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.5 x 0.6
ISBN: 0312273231
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780312273231
ASIN: 0312273231
Publication Date: February 3, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: PB in good condition has no writing/highlight thru out pages.
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Amazon.com
Since the late 1970s, India in all her infinite variety has been brought to life as a posse of Indian authors writing in English have exploded onto the scene: Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Anita Desai, Rohinton Mistry, Vikram Seth, Bharati Mukherjee--the list is legion. But what of Pakistan--that Siamese twin, painfully separated in the partition of 1947? Though neither as numerous nor as well known as their Indian counterparts, Pakistani writers are beginning to make an impression on Western readers. Novelists from Rushdie to the Pakistani Bapsi Sidwha have written about the partition and the bloody civil war that followed; even stories set in modern-day Bombay or Lahore cannot escape the aftershocks of the division. On the surface, Mohsin Hamid's first novel, Moth Smoke, seems more domestic than political drama: narrated from several different perspectives, it tells the story of Daru Shezad's ill-fated affair with his best friend's wife, Mumtaz. But in a country like Pakistan, the personal and the political are difficult to separate, and as the story moves along, the divisions between gender, class, and opportunity provide a not-so-subtle commentary on the fissures that run through contemporary Pakistani society. The novel begins, tellingly, with a historical fragment about the internecine wars of succession that followed the rule of Emperor Shah Jahan (builder of the Taj Mahal): Imprisoned in his fort at Agra, staring at the Taj he had built, an aged Shah Jahan received as a gift from his youngest son the head of his eldest. Perhaps he doubted, then, the memory that his boys had once played together, far from his supervision and years ago, in Lahore. Jump ahead several hundred years to Lahore in the summer of 1998. Childhood playmates Daru and Ozi have just reunited again after Ozi's three-year stay in America. Glad as he is to see his old friend, Daru can't keep his eyes off of Ozi's wife, Mumtaz. "You know you're in trouble when you can't meet a woman's eye," he says. But woman trouble isn't his only problem; he's also addicted to hash, which leads to his dismissal from an upscale job as a banker. Soon Daru spirals out of control into a degraded existence on the fringes of society. Then a young boy is killed in a hit-and-run accident, and he is accused and jailed. Shah Jehan would probably recognize this age-old story of love and revenge playing out once more--this time against the backdrop of the Indian-Pakistani arms race. Hamid artfully weaves the subcontinent's tragic history into his characters' no-less-tragic present, rendering Moth Smoke a novel that resonates on many levels. --Sheila Bright
Product Description
When Daru Shezad is fired from his banking job in Lahore, he begins a decline that plummets the length of this sharply drawn, subversive tale. Before long, he can't pay his bills, and he loses his toehold among Pakistan's cell-phone-toting elite. Daru descends into drugs and dissolution, and, for good measure, he falls in love with the wife of his childhood friend and rival, Ozi—the beautiful, restless Mumtaz.Desperate to reverse his fortunes, Daru embarks on a career in crime, taking as his partner Murad Badshah, the notorious rickshaw driver, populist, and pirate. When a long-planned heist goes awry, Daru finds himself on trial for a murder he may or may not have committed. The uncertainty of his fate mirrors that of Pakistan itself, hyped on the prospect of becoming a nuclear player even as corruption drains its political will.Fast-paced and unexpected, Moth Smoke portrays a contemporary Pakistan as far more vivid and disturbing than the exoticized images of South Asia familiar to most of the West. This debut novel establishes Mohsin Hamid as a writer of substance and imagination.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 64 more reviews...
 Let the book stand up on it's own. March 19, 2000
28 out of 31 found this review helpful
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.
alien, yet familiar October 4, 2001
Orrin C. Judd (Hanover, NH USA)
27 out of 28 found this review helpful
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
Fabulous! September 5, 2000
M. Desoer (Florida)
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
"Moth Smoke" is, by far, one of the best novels that I have read in a while -- and I read a lot. The descriptions of Lahore and the societal strata in modern Pakistan are captivating. The author has crafted captivating, multi-dimensional characters, none of which is perfect, but each of which I felt drawn to, in a different way. The story focusses on our "hero," who loses his job, and then makes a series of bad decisions which compound on one another. This book is marvelously written. Every other chapter is told in a different style, from another character's point of view (the alternating chapters are told from the protagonist's point of view). The changes in tone are extremely realistic, and showcase the author's obivious talent. I found the first couple of chapters a little confusing, at the outset, but they became clear as the book continued -- in fact, when I finished the book, I immediately turned to and reread the beginning. I have never done this before. I very highly recommend this book, which is, in reality, a colorful fable.
 it is fake May 5, 2000
Feroz Abbas (reading the book !)
14 out of 24 found this review helpful
Mohsin Ahmed has been lauded by the Western Press, but all for the wrong reasons. After reading this book I as a South Asian was depressd at the wrong and false depiction of the Pakistani Society. If such a story soes exist in Pakistan, it could probably happen in very very selected decadent sections of the society. Not in the Pakistan I know; The Pakistan of Bapsi SIdhwa and Faiz and of Islamic Values. It neverthless remains the sort of story which can sell in the west where heroin/sex/decadence is always a matter of interest and considered the ultimate pleasures. Mohsin, being entrencehed in the USA perhaps understands this market well and so has played a neat game. However for me it all was superficial. Even his so called concern for Pakistan is clearly very very soap operaish. Where is the mention of the Pakistan which has for 85% of its life been a military state. #Even now. Where for women and minorities basic rights do not exist. And Mohsin clearly has no tears for the dead democracy of Pakistan. Nor for its longsuffering innocent people. No comments on the corrupt leadership. And Mohsin just has his eyes on a good review in the west.......
Oprah's gotta read this one! February 17, 2000
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
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!
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