Maps for Lost Lovers

by Nadeem Aslam

If Gabriel García Márquez had chosen to write about Pakistani immigrants in England, he might have produced a novel as beautiful and devastating as Maps for Lost Lovers.

Jugnu and Chanda have disappeared. Like thousands of people all over England, they were lovers and living together out of wedlock. To Chanda’s family, however, the disgrace was unforgivable. Perhaps enough so as to warrant murder. As he explores the disappearance and its aftermath through the eyes of Jugnu’s worldly older brother, Shamas, and his devout wife, Kaukab, Nadeem Aslam creates a closely observed and affecting portrait of people whose traditions threaten to bury them alive. The result is a tour de force, intimate, affecting, tragic and suspenseful.

Genres: Fiction, Pakistan, Contemporary, India, Literary Fiction, British Literature, Novels

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Aslam was born in Pakistan in 1966 and moved to Britain at age 14. His family left Pakistan to escape President Zia's regime.

His novel Maps for Lost Lovers, winner of the Kuriyama Prize, took him more than a decade to complete. Aslam has stated that the first chapter alone took five years to complete, and that the following story in the book took seven months to complete before rejecting it. At the end, he kept only one sentence of the seventy pages written.

Aslam's latest novel, The Wasted Vigil, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in September, 2008. It is set in Afghanistan. He traveled to Afghanistan during the writing of the book; but had never visited the country before writing the first draft. On 11th February 2011, it was short-listed for the Warwick Prize For Writing.

His writings have been compared to those by Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Kiran Desai and received an Encore in 2005. He writes his drafts in longhand and prefers extreme isolation when working.

Aslam currently lives in north London.

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the kind of book that is best digested by biting off small bits and letting them melt in your mouth. The language is beautiful and the story is compelling. I would characterize it as something along the lines of Rohinton Mistry meets Zadie Smith meets Jane Austen. I can't wait to read more from this author.

[Naveed Qazi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wished I had time to write a review. This book made me speechless. Really, go ahead and buy it. It is a treasure.

[W · Rating 1 out of 5]

So much flowery prose,so much needless verbosity. The one good thing about this book
was that just a few chapters in,I could see that this is one author,I wasn't going to like.

I kept skimming,saw more and more words and nothing much happening. The writing style well and truly grated on my nerves.

Abandoned quickly,and good riddance. There are too many other,much more interesting books to read in my tbr pile.

[Paul Bryant · Rating 2 out of 5]

To be concise - something Nadeem Aslam has never tried in his life - this novel is too



FLOWERY!

Mr Aslam's prose is more flowery than two trips to Kew Gardens (which consist of 121 hectares of gardens and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England, and is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and an internationally important botanical research and education institution with 700 staff and an income of £56 million and has shedloads of FLOWERS); if Mr Aslam ever opened a shop it would be called FLOWERY PROSE STYLES R US.

So reading this is just an exhausting fight past all the metaphorical ingenuity, the fecund similes and the flashbacks and sudden bursts of sortofkindofslightly magical realism, and the who are these people again? is this woman a peacock or is the peacock a talking one who has married a human? Uh?

EJECT!!

[Nazia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story was good, but the author had a negative tone throughout the whole book about his cultural background and continuously blamed everything on being Pakistani. It was frustrating reading this book especially when I didn't agree with the author's point of view at times.

[BeeQuiet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel guilty for marking this book so low, so I do so with a disclaimer: I acknowledge that this is a wonderful book, but there were some things which hit my buttons and made me dislike it. I found every single character's deep level of self-pity irksome. This was something which only occurred to me towards the end, but there was something else which really did annoy me. The imagery was just ridiculous sometimes..I know what in writings by those from India, Pakistan, the sub-continent in general, there is rich imagery to be found and this is something which can show cultural ties at their best. However when describing something as looking like the freckles on a doll's fingers...I start to wonder exactly what the reasoning is for simply seeming to choose the most obscure similie possible in any particular situation. This is not to say that some metaphors were not masterful, carrying meaning linked through the book for example, but some were just ludicrous, over-the-top and tiresome.

Really, it is a great book, I'm sure you'll find high praise in many other reviews which I would not disagree with, but personally I found it hard to see through a veil of irritation.

[MI Abbas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Never in my life I have read a book for which I have felt a strong urge to unread as much as I can, as soon as possible, as I did for this book. But alas there isn't any way to unread a book.

This book is a waste of time, waste of money and over all a yucky piece of garbage which is full of hypocritical characters who have mountain high moral values and really low, gutter level selfesteems. For instance, I find it really ironic that the most gentlemanly and high moral valued character of the story is strongly against the idea of polygamy in Islam or even the idea of the divorce and on the other hand felt nothing wrong with having an extra marital relation with a divorced woman to help her bore a child (dont forget he wanted to do it just for the noble cause i.e. charity) and the woman wanted to marry him so that she can get divorced and re marry her first husband. What a complex and twisted state of mind.

The author, I believe has the capability to write really good but in case of this particular book I guess he has tried hard enough to write as much filth his mind has about Pakistan and Islam as he can, maybe due to his personal experiences being a part of such a narrow minded family, or may be because he wants to follow the strategy of sabotaging the image and writing malice about a specific community to get overnight fame/success, whatever the case is, this book comes under the group of negative propaganda books where author either for publicity stunt or for money want to corrupt an ignorant mind about a country, its people and religion.

The only thing I liked about this book are the flowery details, which too at times felt extremely exaggerating.

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've got to find some crappy books that I hated or even OK books that I struggled through. I'm giving everything five stars, but believe me, this beautiful and chilling book deserves it. I was listening to Hugh Hewitt interview Christopher Hitchens on the radio when he recommended this book in glowing terms. I went to Amazon and ordered.
The novel takes place in the Midlands of England among the Pakistani community of a small city. the novel is told from the point of view of Shamas, a middle-aged very Anglicized Pakistani immigrant. His brother Jugnu and his girlfriend Chanda have disappeared and Shamas suspects an honor killing by her family. The narrative wends its way through the lives of the Islamic community as it unfolds. The writing is amazing and beautiful. This is a very disturbing and powerful book. A must read.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one powerful Novel!

I would like to know the reaction of Muslims in Pakistan in regards to Nadeem's Aslam interpretation of Islam and tradition of Muhammad in "Maps for Lost Lovers."

There are many harsh accusations in this book. Each Character has his/her own story in this tight Islamic surrounding. I personally wanted to strangle Kaukab (the religious mother of the family) when she was breastfeeding her infant son, but she was also fasting because of Ramadan, and she decided that the infant should fast with her as well, so Allah makes her son a Holly Man! How outrages is that!

Nadeem couldn't explain any better as how a religion can block the power of the reasoning. Once a person becomes fanatically religious, he/ she can not reason correctly and is blind to the nature of LOGIC.

[Jericha · Rating 3 out of 5]

A difficult book. Simultaneously rather lovely and COMPLETELY MADDENING, and desperately in need of an editor - there are places where he repeats the same wildly flowery simile almost word for word within less than five pages, which would have been a mere single annoyance if not for the fact that this is hands down the most over-similed book I have ever read and most of them should have been pruned out ANYWAY. Characters can't walk down the street without three paragraphs of description about the plants and the weather and the feel of the air, so that by the time they actually get to where they're going I'd forgotten why they set out in the first place because I was so scenery-dazzled.

And yet many of the similes are incredibly beautiful. Aslam has a completely tin ear for dialogue - his characters speak in exactly the same ay as the narrator, brimming with helpful, simile-laden exposition - and yet the images themselves are often constructions of great loveliness. I was disconcerted by the heavy-handedness of his anti-religious sentiment, despite his attempts to write from the points of view of the devout; I got the sense that he couldn't quite squash his feeling that the characters who were believers were basically stupid for sticking with their faith, even though he was trying to make them sympathetic (which effort I did appreciate). As an atheist myself, it was odd to find myself coming to the defense of his devoutly religious characters, but the scorn he had for them - combined with the fact that they mostly all women - left a bad taste in my mouth.

But though I was constantly annoyed and can't conclude that the book is a good one, those similes...! Not all of them work, and the book woul have been better with massively fewer of them, and yet...some of them are as improbably lovely as the butterflies fluttering (also somewhat pointlessly, it seemed to me) throughout the book. In fact, they are almost worth reading it for all on their own, if you don't bother to try to understand how someone with such poetic power can be such a poor writer in every other respect.

[Sumiya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the story is interesting and it is beautifully written, there are several mistakes about Islam. As in the Wasted Vigil, Aslam seems to make the statement that the practices (in the name of Islam) by uneducated Indians, Pakistanis and Afghans epitomize what Islam teaches, rather than inaccurate and cultural interpretations of misguided and self-serving 'clerics'. This is unfortunate, as I found the storyline and characters in this novel and the Wasted Vigil to be soulful and nuanced. I am assuming that the Islam that Aslam portrays is what he has be exposed to in England and the subcontinent, and though I don't deny that it exists, it is unfair to generalize to the 2 billion Muslims in the world, or ignore how Islam has been practiced for the past 1400 years.

[Hugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite books - a dark story of honour killing told in beautifully poetic language.

[Anila · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are so many long, detailed reviews on here - glad to see this book has impacted others enough to comment at length, as well as me. Equally gripping and sad. It is densely descriptive and difficult to get into at first. Once the story unfolds it becomes difficult to put down. Another reviewer has said they felt they were living in the book and this is exactly how you feel. I felt every emotion for each character. I am surprised at myself for feeling pity for the townspeople for their ignorance, harsh beliefs. thier constant fear of what other people may think - loved what was said about the elitist Pakistani woman shunning the community for being "backwards", for as Aslam posits they are how/where they are because of the huge inequalities in their own land (due to the elitists). As well as the great storyline, the characters, and the social/political issues it has, as a bonus loved the beautiful urdu poetry which has made me want to read more of the greats.

I loved the many metaphors, Sohni Darti - beautiful land, Dashte-Tanhai - land of the lonely. Jugni (jugnu) - in the east used to described ones spirit, also a firefly.

I did find the ending rushed, compared to the initial pace. What happens to the all the characters, after the truth is out is told almost like a news report. Without saying too much I wondered why the house didn't give away more clues as to what happened to Jugnu and Chanda. So much of the book resonates with me, especially after moving from a big city and liberal Pakistani family to such a community 13 years ago, the idiosyncrasies of a close knit traditional culture of when I first moved here only just making sense to me now. I recommend this, whether you're Pakistani/Indian or not.

[Ghina Mehr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything in this novel is at its extreme: beauty at its intense, love at its fiercest, grief at its peak. The book is really consuming,it will leave behind a void.I'm amazed at the way Aslam penned down some of the most disturbing things with such lyricism and ease, if the same weight would have been placed on a mountain it would have crumbled.

[Manish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nadeem Aslam gets into the psyche of a Pakistani immigrant family living in London and graphically creates the conflicts and tensions of the members that arise when traditional Islam comes face to face with Western norms of modernity,. Jugnu and Chanda are lovers who have been missing and presumed to be murdered by Chanda's brothers as retribution for living in sin. Jugnu's brother Shamas is a liberal community leader married to Kaukub - a woman torn between the literal words of the Quran and her family's rage towards her for putting them through such a torturous lens. Kaukab is the central character and it is through her life that Aslam explores the angst, fear and sheer helplessness of the 'believers' when faced with apparently conflicting views of their faith.

The voluminous piece of work explores in minute detail the passions and tribulations of the community - be it a divorced immigrant searching for a temporary husband before being able to get back to her grieving husband who accidentally mentioned talaq-talaq-talaq in a fit of rage or a son coming to terms with the act of circumcision through art and much much more.

If only Aslam had chopped off a half of the metaphorical descriptions, cut down on a bit of the writing bordering on magic realism, this would have been ond memorable classic.

[Mientras Leo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Toda una sorpresa, un libro llegado sin ser pedido, ni siquiera lo conocía y ha resultado una estupendísima lectura. Con poso

[Qube · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maps for Lost Lovers is deeply sad tale of Pakistani immigrants in England. Of people who come from a culture with deep rooted beliefs that are diametrically opposite to what the west holds. Of immigrants coming to an alien land with hope, only to lose everything they ever held dear, including things they would not have lost even in the poverty-stricken homeland they had left behind.

It is a book that has been carefully crafted in exquisite detail, and written in highly metaphorical prose that pauses ever so often to take the reader deep into a frozen moment in time. One has but to read the first few pages to realise why the author took eleven years to write the book. One can almost imagine him writing and re-writing repeatedly till he was happy with every single word. The book must be read slowly, one chapter at a time, lest you lose the detail of the complex canvas.

The prime features of the writing are the remarkably vivid imagery and the extensive use of metaphors to paint a multi-layered picture. The full extent of the portrayal will appreciated by those who have an understanding of both cultures – western and Islamic. Readers with only one may not fully relate to some of the situations Aslam creates.

For instance, there is a scene where wine is surreptitiously served in the darkness caused by a power outage. The mere intellectual knowledge that wine is considered haraam (a sin) in Islam is not sufficient to feel the depth of outrage a character feels when she realises that alcohol is defiling her – a devout Muslim's – dining table. One must have lived in a culture where wine is haraam to relate to her. That she had thanked her God for the unexpected darkness in just the previous page makes the betrayal – both by the hand that pours the wine, as well as by her God – all the more profound.

The clash of cultures and beliefs is deafening in the still, silent immigrant community in Britain that remains nameless. A community of immigrants that lives in mute fear of what the host country will do to them, and of how their God will judge them. But the tale, moving as it is, was still incidental to me and subordinate to the prose. There is so much imagery in the pages that it challenges the reader’s ability to absorb – and appreciate – the finely crafted mosaic the author creates.

Not only does the book capture the suffering of first generation immigrants in an alien land with incompatible beliefs, it also brings out the insensitivity of the next generation. My take away from the book was that one must be prepared to reconsider all beliefs and values when one moves to an alien land. At least to the extent of developing some tolerance.

The book’s theme is hugely topical in India, where “honour killings” seem to have become a routine thing. But unfortunately, the message of the book will not reach those who practice it, as they are very unlikely to ever read such a book. Yet I hope that Maps for Lost Lovers does not remain another intellectual’s lament destined to grace chic bookshelves.

And finally, a word of caution. If you don't like metaphorical prose, or are unwilling to pause and savour imagery, or are simply impatient for the story to move on, do not pick up this book. You will be disappointed. The story moves slowly.

But if you do like this kind of writing, you will find it a delight.

[Afifah Luqman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't a bad book. It was very well written. Too well. It's flowery and (over) descriptive. With (over) romanticism of Pakistan/Sub Continent and not enough mention of how the characters have improved their lives.

The main theme; to qoute from the book itself is:

Nothing is an accident: it’s always someone’s fault; perhaps—but no one teaches us how to live with our mistakes. Everyone is isolated, alone with his or her anguish and guilt, and too penetrating a question can mean people are not able to face one another the next day

Each character, in their own way is drowning in a sea of self pity and shame/regret. One of the lessons I took away from this is that damaged, unhappy people, damage other people around them.

Would I recommend this? Maybe. If you want to read a bool filled with nostalgia for a 'Sohni Dharti' back home with rich descriptions and a complex (confusing for simple minds like me, but still) story line, then yes.
Or just read a couple of chapters to see if it is worth the while(and energy).
Or, like, don't.

[Neha Gupta · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poetic ode to love, to lovers and to the lost lovers...

Very rarely a book is written to be a beautiful poem. If one has ever loved and lost, this book will make you feel it again, both the joy and sadness of it. The book leaves a deep impression on you, and you start to believe the permanence of love, the sad twinge in your heart which stays no matter what, the love so pure which can never be understood in the dark reality of this world.

To read more go to my blog: https://storywala.blogspot.com/2020/0...

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set among a Pakistani community in the Midlands ;), this is a tragic, poignant story of a culture clashing violently with itself. A young couple elope and are murdered, supposedly by members of their own close-knit community, possibly by their own families. The story reveals the inner thoughts, the alienation and struggles of Pakistani characters who are either trying to merge traditions with Western influences or prevent the acculturation of their community altogether. Beautifully written.

[Natsomji · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book took me ages to read. While it is beautifully written and some bits really feel like you're reading poetry, it also moves incredibly slowly and I found my eyes glossing over several times. Also there is an incredible amount of Islam-bashing that happens throughout and it's infuriating to have to see this mainstream view of Islam reinforced in literature.

[Neerja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nadeem Aslam paints an amazing poetic landscape with his words....while telling the grim and horrifying reality of the lives of the Pakistani immigrants...who live upholding their faith---yet the tragedy of their lives is that it is this faith which lets them down. A moving tale of lost lives...

[Amina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book slump 🤝 my mh deteriorating
Reminding myself reading + doing other solo activities whilst also maintaining an active social life is good for my mind (shame I’m shocking at doing both simultaneously)!!
Anyways, lengthy review incoming (TW: r*pe + violence)

I decided to read this book because after reading a thousand splendid suns a few years ago, I discovered I’m a big fan of books on culture in certain societies - more specifically the role women play across different cultures and their journeys throughout life. I found this book in a charity shop and thought okay similar vibes let’s go for it

This book really didn’t meet my expectations. I liked the poetry at the start and although poetry in classic literature can add so much to a book, I felt as if this book really over did it. The poetry goes incredibly deep to a point where it almost becomes “overly poetic” every tiny detail became over emphasised which for me kinda lost the unique element of the book. It also at times felt pretentiously written.

The mention of characters almost feels “listy” people are constantly swaying in and out and going back and fourth excessively and honestly, my concentration span couldn’t keep up. I genuinely thought the book would focus more on the tragic love story but the love story it proposed was material focused, no one in this book was truly in love - every action was done with a purpose of receiving something in return - this book in a general sense talks about hatred towards women but in a “he only used her for this, this is what happened, she used him for this”. The topics go in extreme details and it’s extremely discomforting to read some topics. Topics of rape and violence were used very casually only making it harder to continue with the book and very specific parts of the book such as details of rape towards children could have been written in a more idk professional / mindful way??

The author could have also tried to make the topics of violence against women to teach the way women were treated in the society it discusses, but instead the information was just descriptive and there’s kinda nothing the reader can take away from this
- weeeee bit annoying because I wanted to like this book a lot

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nadeem Aslam is either very brave or very naive. If he hadn't spent more than a decade writing this devastating anti-Islamic novel, it would look like a reckless act. Presumably he knows what he's doing -- and doesn't mind generating a wave of ill-will from Muslims. "Maps for Lost Lovers" is every faith-culture's worst nightmare. After all, the frontal attack by a prejudiced outsider is relatively easy to repel; even blows from a bitter apostate often inspire only a sense of sanctified victimization. But Aslam, a Pakistani-born writer who lives in England, speaks in the quiet, sympathetic voice of an insider as he portrays the physical and psychological violence committed in the name of God.

"Maps for Lost Lovers" takes place in a town outside London where Pakistani immigrants (some legal, some not) live in a state of moral panic amid a culture they abhor but in an economy they need. Parents believe that government authorities stand ready to expel them simply for protecting their children from depraved ideas about sexual expression, women's liberation and personal freedom. They practice the kind of anxious orthodoxy that Western societies try to temper, but in a community that's obsessed with traditional honor, any moves toward assimilation only drive these devout Muslims into deeper, more destructive radicalism. "What mattered was not what you yourself knew to have actually happened," Aslam writes, "but what other people thought had happened."

At the center of this community stands Shamas, a 64-year-old poet who works for the Community Relations Council. As a liaison between the local government and the Pakistani community, he moves gingerly between two worlds that can't touch each other without a shudder. Both sides scream their cases, which the author portrays as a battle between the liberal West and a fearful, misogynist religion. What peace can develop, the novel asks, between a theology obsessed with spiritual and bodily purity and an ideology just as devoted to consumer and bodily freedom?

Shamas investigates acts of racial violence and intimidation, he shepherds immigrants through the labyrinth of legal paperwork, and, when possible, he helps Muslims understand that they may not always pursue the practices of their homeland in this foreign place. Though a closet atheist, Shamas knows the intricacies of Islam well, and he fully appreciates the inexorable power that religion can exercise.

That knowledge has left him in a shadow of grief for the five months since the disappearance of his younger brother, Jugnu, a well-traveled lepidopterist. He and his twice-divorced girlfriend, Chanda, had lived happily next door, their open cohabitation scandalizing the neighborhood. Nevertheless, friends and family found it impossible to resist Jugnu's delight in the natural world. It was Jugnu who awakened Shamas to the bursting fecundity of nature, recalled throughout the novel in passages of gorgeous sensuality.

"Maps for Lost Lovers" is ostensibly a murder mystery, but that suggests more action and intrigue than ever develops. There's really no mystery about the crime. After all, Chanda was living in sin, degrading herself and humiliating her family; what else could her pious brothers do but kill her and her lover? The British police investigate this "honor killing," but all that activity seems incidental, off on the edges of the story, which is primarily a series of searching descriptions about the way various characters negotiate the competing demands of faith, honor and sexuality.

But Aslam also punctuates these deliberations with an encyclopedia of horrors that he suggests stem directly from the religious culture of this community: unruly girls beaten to death by respected imams, young boys raped by honored clerics, defiant women ruined by vicious gossip, frustrated men demoralized by their lapses, helpless wives divorced on a whim by drunken husbands, and all of them reduced to a state of moral idiocy in which every abuse must be ignored or excused to protect Islam from outside criticism. Even Shamas, who rejects traditional Islamic mores as restrictive, finds himself caught in a web of sexual guilt that threatens to destroy him and those he cares about.

The most affecting character is Shamas's devout wife, Kaukab, who gradually becomes the focus of the novel. She seems at first like the mother from a Muslim version of "The Glass Menagerie," both comic and monstrous as she drives her beloved children away with grating attention to their marital and spiritual prospects. What makes this character work -- keeping it from falling into the kind of brutal satire that Jonathan Franzen exposed his mother to in "The Corrections" -- is Aslam's deep sympathy for Kaukab's devotion. "Her children were all she had," he writes, "but she herself was only a part of their lives, a very small part, it has become increasingly clear to her over the past few years." She loves Islam sincerely; her prayers are an anchor in a dispiriting world. Her faith gives her life meaning and dimension, but it also makes her complicit in ghastly abuses such as the murders of her brother-in-law and his girlfriend. Her frustrated children try to make her see this in one of the novel's most wrenching scenes, which lapses, unfortunately, into a kind of shrill lecture on the evils of Islam.

Is this a fair and balanced portrayal? Of course not, but it does powerfully dramatize the perversions that can arise from an obsession with female purity. Whether that obsession is as universal or destructive in Muslim communities as Aslam implies is debatable. This isn't a work of sociology or cultural studies, but inevitably Aslam's beautifully written novel will inflame the impressions of an interested but largely uninformed Western audience. That's a shame because "Maps for Lost Lovers" makes more broadly applicable claims about the injuries inflicted by the devout on themselves and those they love. The real calamity in this story doesn't arise from the Koran but from a sense of religious certainty -- and that theme respects no ecclesiastical boundaries.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...

[Inita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grāmata ir par imigrantu kopienu Lielbritānijā. Ģimene, par kuru pamatā ir šis stāsts, ir no Pakistānas. Stāsta pamatā lielākoties ir šis konflikts - vecākajai paaudzei Pakistāna un islāms ir vienīgās vērtības, taču jaunākā paaudze vēlas dzīvot saskaņā ar rietumnieku vērtībām. Ne vienmēr tas tiek atļauts, bieži tas beidzas traģiski un asiņaini.
Sākumā bija jāpierod pie autora poētiskās valodas un izteiksmes līdzekļiem. Man sākumā tas traucēja uztvert domu, bet pierod. Nebija tā, ka ļoti aizrāvos, bet lasīt var.

[Anum Shaharyar · Rating 2 out of 5]

MY GOD what a depressing book. Review to come.

[Annika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Die Komplexität der Charakterkonstellation macht es dem/der Leser*in beim ersten Lesen einerseits schwierig, alles zu durchschauen, andererseits macht es das Buch sehr einzigartig und spannend.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bereft of their homeland, its customs and beauty, Pakistani immigrants in England navigate their new situation while trying desperately to hold on to what was once theirs. Kaukab and Shamas are polar opposites, she very devout and literally ignorant of the modern world. Her traditions and prejudices cause her to be hurt and to hurt her children and her husband, and unwittingly her brother-in-law. Shamas, her husband is so constrained by his poetic vision of the world that he cannot save himself or his children from from being devastated as they try to make a place for themselves in British society. His brother Jugnu and Chanda, his female lover, have disappeared. No one can find them and Shamas and Kaukab and Chandra's family struggle as they ponder how the lovers have disappeared. Both families appeared to me to be passive, accepting the possibility that there is a murderer(s) among their midst that have taken matters to the extreme. Sometimes the metaphors and poetic observations are tiresome, nonetheless, the story entices the reader to keep at it. The portraits of the main and minor characters give a close view of marginalized immigrants quite unlike the usual stories of newcomers. The writing is accessible and the scenes are unique and beautiful but ultimately tragic.

[Sabba Akhtar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ambivalent between 3 or 4.

I'm in two minds on everything! The writing, the plot, the social commentary...

The writing is mixed, there are sentences that are poetic and I want to keep re-reading:

"She had turned off the cassette player... but now she turns it back on... the volume is turned low, like the faint whiff from a long-empty scent bottle."

And then there is confusing crap like this that I HAD to keep re-reading:

"Kaukab stands facing the back garden, the green grass that only a month ago was the orangey-gold of the foil that orange-flavoured chocolate bars come wrapped in, listening to the stream's mother tongue that is constant in the house like the babble of blood in a human ear."

The plot itself is slow to start - I started this book 3 times - but the second half of the book unfolds well and once the writing isn't as laborious, I began to enjoy it.

My feelings towards the book are complex though. There is an undercurrent - or even overcurrent - of judgment throughout the book of Islam / the Pakistani community in Britain. Having said that, do I recognise these ideas / values/ observations on which this book is based? Yes, I do. Is it representative of all Muslims / Pakistanis in Britain? No, of course not. Would I recommend it: unsure!

[Georgekapa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Πακιστανική κοινότητα του Λονδίνου. Δυο "παράνομοι" εραστές έρχονται με το αυστηρό ισλαμικό κατεστημένο. Μέσω των τεσσάρων εποχών του χρόνου (πέντε με την εποχή των μουσώνων) παρακολουθούμε τις ζωές των μελών των δύο οικογενειών.
Κάποια στιγμή οι δυο εραστές εξαφανίζονται και δεν θα μάθουμε ποτέ τι απέγιναν.
Προκαταλήψεις αιώνων, βία, άγνοια, εντάσεις, έρωτες, αδικίες, μισαλλοδοξίες αποκαλύπτονται με εναν τρόπο, κουραστικό μεν, αλλά ποιητικό και με μια πολύ διεισδυτική γραφή. Μελαγχολικές εικόνες αλλά πανέμορφες σαν σε παραμύθι γεμίζουν ολο το βιβλίο. Και πεταλούδες , πολλές πεταλούδες !!!!
Εντεκά χρόνια έκανε να το γράψει ο συγγραφέας, έντεκα μέρες έκανα να το διαβάσω (χωρίς να το επιδιώξω) !