Mohsin Hamid

Clever but troubled, Daru loses his job as a banker in Lahore and spirals down into drug addiction and dealing, where he encounters Mumtaz, the wife of a rival and a journalist who also haunts the means streets. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

A Novel

Moth Smoke

Prashanth Srivatsa

The metaphor is beautiful, that of the moth teasing the flame of a candle, until it hovers a little too close and we are left staring at the ashes that stain the tabletop. Set against the backdrop of competitive nuclear testing between India and Pakistan, Moth Smoke traces the smoky life of Daru Shezad, his decadence wrought by drugs, friends and women, and above all, by his own insatiable wings that long for a touch of that mortal flame. Hamid's thoughts are clear in the way he alienates Daru from the contemporary "air-conditioned" milieu, his dissection of the social classes, of his desire to portray his only female character as someone who thrives in her inability to live up to what is expected of her, and of his sparkling display of the hypocrisy of all his characters, each of them contributing in a Rashomon-style delivery of the truth, defending their own flaws, and justifying their lives as a representative of the direction in which their country is headed. A more sympathetic protagonist would have perhaps given us a better closure, but it is not Hamid's intention to evoke sympathy. Instead, his harsh reality, fed by the power of drugs and adultery, makes this story a shocking documentary that nobody would have a problem in believing to be true.

Angbeen Abbas

kind of lackluster. i feel like the characters lacked depth (even though mohsin hamid seemed to have tried to give them more dimension) and something about this book felt missing. it pulls you in well enough but it isn't a book that stays with you. also like... the symbolism was cool but i think it became a bit too much at times. you can tell this book was a first novel at times and i'm glad to see that mohsin hamid's style has gotten better.
also, listen, i know the use of the n-word by Ozi (or was it Daru who said that?) was done to show how ~gritty~ and ~edgy~ he is but it is bad writing to throw around slurs like they don't mean anything. pakistani authors should know that it's not their place to do that and i'm appalled that the editor gave it an ok and didn't think this was problematic.

Moth Smoke A Novel

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