There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact

I realized that it is somewhat peculiar that every reader is looking for something new in a book of fiction. If you read the reviews, the cause of disappointment with a book is very often the same one. I think if somebody studies the statistics of why a book is disliked, this particular reason might be a big percentage. Yet, people are also skeptical about ideas that are too far-fetched. They also demand that the concepts should be able to survive practically and that they should be germane to the theme of real world. Why I find it peculiar is that the ideas that we call hackneyed are the ones that we really never think about or even bother to observe, although it is by them that we are affected the most.

I finally completed reading all of the three Mohsin Hamid's books and I think I see now what his pattern is. He simply picks up a stereotype and turns it into an enigma. Though I would like to add that the settings might not be cliché for Western audience but being a Pakistani, I can tell that all his characters are those that we already have in our minds. All the things about his characters are what we say when we talk about those class of people in general and we even have commonly used maxims for the concepts.

The characters in Moth Smoke are the general egoistic, vindictive and licentious elite class with restless and unhappy marital relationships and the hopeless, unemployed, educated and intelligent but morally timid and ease-loving middle class and the impossible friendship between the two.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist talks about what we have been hearing for years now: the changing of the attitude of West towards the Muslims after 9/11 and America's self-righteous attitude towards the East despite her own cruelty to Afghanistan and Iraq and the double-standards in her dealings with Pakistan and India. Really, this is all this book is about, yet you don’t know until the end what really is the point the writer is trying to make. The most remarkable thing is that the character Changez is just an average Muslim without any emotional attachment to his religion or his country. He is a good person culturally. He is honest and hard-working and determined to make his way into the world through honesty and hard work, but he refuses to play in the hands of a nation that was the cause of threat to the well-being of his family. Some of the quotes from the book where I think Hamid has very intelligently summed up the situation:

"On the flight I noticed how many of my fellow passengers were similar to me in age: college students and young professionals, heading back after the holidays. I found it ironic; children and the elderly were meant to be sent away from impending battles, but in our case it was the fittest and brightest who were leaving, those who in the past would have been most expected to remain. I was filled with contempt for myself, such contempt that I could not bring myself to converse or to eat. I shut my eyes and waited, and the hours took from me the responsibility even to flee."

"I had always thought of America as a nation that looked forward; for the first time I was struck by its determination to look back. Living in New York was suddenly like living in a film about the Second World War; I, a foreigner, found myself staring out at a set that ought to be viewed not in Technicolor but in grainy black and white."

"that America was engaged only in posturing. As a society, you were unwilling to reflect upon the shared pain that united you with those who attacked you. You retreated into myths of your own difference, assumptions of your own superiority. And you acted out these beliefs on the stage of the world, so that the entire planet was rocked by the repercussions of your tantrums, not least my family, now facing war thousands of miles away. Such an America had to be stopped in the interests not only of the rest of humanity, but also in your own."

In short, through the character of Changez, Hamid states what a man of principles would do in the circumstances.So really nothing new, but presented in a way that echoes its truthfulness.

Then there is How To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia. Here again is an image of rise and fall in the life of a stereotyped corrupt business man, whose desire for money has its origin in the extreme poverty and it drives him to overcome all obstacles however he can. The most remarkable and interesting thing I found in this book is that it is written in a very unique way. It calls itself a seIf-help book which is supposed to instruct the reader about how to become filthy rich in contemporary Asia. However, it does so by telling a story of nameless common man, so you can call it a novel. It is very personalized for a self-help book and extremely impersonal for a novel. You want to know what really is going inside the nameless character's head what you never manage to do it as he continues his journey through life committing crimes, giving bribes, getting married and then divorced and then being betrayed and then finally getting together with the love of his life. All the time, the character is a mystery and yet, he is so typical. You might hate him or may be sympathize with him to some extent or pity him if you could somehow know how he was feeling all the time but till the very end, he remains as distant as ever.

Other than that, when I started reading it, I felt that this was going to be overly skeptical and bitterly sarcastic about the Asian culture, which I think is mostly the South-Asian culture. It was like that in the beginning with some very crude descriptions. But later, the tone was more resigned. It looked like one thing was the consequence of the other and that your nameless character starts to blend in the picture about which he was sarcastic earlier as an outsider.

As I said, his journey through life is really nothing new to hear. He was just a common man coming from an extremely poor family and having seen disease and death at the hands of poverty, he obviously wanted to rise to the status of the rich. Having no strong family background and no monetary support available and more importantly having no regard for principles and values, he enters a life of crime and deceit. As he rises, he has to face rivals in the form of business competitors and the state bureaucrats. At the same time, he has to deal with a failed marriage. The reason was probably  his never-ending love for another girl the "pretty girl", who herself was struggling to escape the claws of poverty and secondly, may be his own disturbed and restive mind because of the life he was living. Like I said, you really don’t know what was going inside his head. It is a story of pursuit of a strong financial status and of love in the time of great social and economic upheaval.

So they are all really mundane characters in a really commonly-viewed form of world. But still Mohsin Hamid managed to make three really good books without adding any fantastical adventure in the mix. 

"Don't think or judge, just listen." (Sarah Dessen)

A Review of Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid:

Well, today I am going to be voicing some very bitter facts about our dear country Pakistan's culture. This voice is not really original, rather it will be a narrative of thoughts set into motion by this book I finished last week. This review is not any guide to judge any Pakistani, because every society has its share of good and bad people. If there is any index of the health of a socioeconomic system, it should be judged by the direction in which it evolves. Evolution is a continuous process which can change its course any time. And hopefully it will.

First of all, I want to say that Mohsin Hamid is a great writer. He has deep insight and strong imagination. His style of writing is unique in the use of figurative language and abstract in a thought-provoking way that appeals to the intelligence of the reader . He has laid out the causes and effects of the restlessness in Pakistani society in an apparently simple but in its meaning and implications, an intricate story. Moth Smoke is undoubtedly a masterpiece coming from an undoubtedly intelligent writer.

Aurangzeb belongs to the elite class that is quintessential for lack of conscience and their perception of themselves as being above the law. Darashikoh is from a poor family who owes his education and his job to Aurangzeb's father. They think themselves as friends but actually they have very complicated relationship. Darashikoh never quite trusted Aurangzeb. And Aurangzeb could never accept him as his equal. There is this difference of status that neither of them can ever overcome. As Darashikoh goes to visit Aurangzeb at his house and Aurangzeb offers him drinks, the writer narrates what is really going on inside his head. What he feels when visiting his friend is that he might not be able to afford that drink himself, so he should take the benefit when he can. His situation is even worsened when he meets Aurangzeb's wife Mumtaz, because he becomes conscious of his own loneliness. There is a triangle of wealth, need and friendship.

As the story progresses, we come to know that whatever his present situation may be, Darashikoh is not some idiot, illiterate farmer from some remote village but he was at one time pursuing his Ph.D and was admired by his professor. But he has fallen a victim to the uncertainty that has long been an essential feature of Pakistani society, originating from the scarcity of employment opportunities and even these scarce opportunities being provided on references regardless of merit. To survive in such a society, one has to have unwavering will power. Darashikoh, who had fortunately been helped by Aurangzeb's father, does not possess any significant sense of self-worth. He naturally hates being in need. After losing his bank job, he literally abandons looking for any other work. Instead he gradually indulges in a life of forced lethargy. He stops paying his servant and somehow he takes out his anger on him. He represents the effect of the unjust socio-economic setup that has the ability to aggravate itself by developing a psychology among the oppressed. They develop a sadistic attitude of subjecting themselves and others around them to as much misery as they can manage to inflict. Somehow, it gives them a sense of power although they do not realize that their notion of power is not any different from those they hate. This is what happens to Darashikoh. He, who was very upset about witnessing his friend Aurangzeb killing a poor boy in an hit-and-run accident, does not find it cruel to stop paying his servant or punishing him when he questions him. Slowly, he enters into drug dealing.

Mumtaz is another difficult character. She is the beautiful wife of Aurangzeb and the mother of a little boy. In the start of the novel, they appear to be a happily married couple, yet Mumtaz's behavior is queer in a way. As the story moves forward to unravel her restive personality, we come to know that she feel trapped in a marriage that was totally her own rash decision. She tries hard but fails to establish an intimate relationship with her son. From the very beginning, she is trying to find an outlet to pour out her feelings. She has an autistic and mistrustful relationship with her husband. She does not talk about her problems, rather becomes more and more secretive and starts satisfying herself with little adventures.

Their restlessness leads Mumtaz to infidelity and destruction of her relationships and Darashikoh to being accused of a crime he did not commit.

Meanwhile, Aurangzeb manages to remain largely unperturbed by the betrayal of either of them. Why? Because he is in position of power to avenge himself. In an unstable and morally degrading judicial system of Pakistan, laws are made and implemented by and for the rich. This is what  they term as "democracy". So he satisfies his ego by sending Darashikoh to prison for his own crime.

At many places in this novel, I kept recalling The White Tiger, another narrative of the society dominated by the rich.

It was a thoroughly great book.

I pointed out earlier that it was going to be an analysis of a Pakistani mind. The characters in this novel are very much representative of the thinking of some classes in our society.

The rich who deem themselves as some superior form of species, capable of doing without the law. They can run their very own, personal system of justice which is designed to serve their ego and their bank accounts.

The competent but financially mediocre, low self-esteemed people who quit trying for lack of fruitfulness of their endeavors. They tend to find easier ways of supporting themselves, which are more often than not illegal.

Those who feel indecisive and weak who cannot stand by their own choices and end up being rebellious.

The whole picture is that of discontentment and psychological degradation.

But the bright side is that: all is not yet lost. And to preserve what is left and grow from it, we have to be very strong-willed.