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Noon
Rehan Tabassum has grown up in a world of privilege in Delhi. His mother is a self-made lawyer and her new husband a wealthy industrialist. But there is a marked absence in Rehan's life: his father, Sahil Tabassum, who remains a powerful shadow across the border in Pakistan. This story follows Rehan's attempts to negotiate this loss. Aatish Taseer was born in 1980. He is the author of Stranger to History: a Son's Journey through Islamic Lands (2009) and The Temple-Goers (2010), which was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award. He lives between London and Delhi.
298 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
12 people are currently reading
338 people want to read
About the author
Aatish Taseer
11 books164 followersAatish Taseer has worked as a reporter for Time Magazine and has written for the Sunday Times, the Sunday Telegraph, the Financial Times, Prospect, TAR Magazine and Esquire. He is the author of Stranger to History: a Son's Journey through Islamic Lands (2009) and a highly acclaimed translation Manto: Selected Stories (2008). His novel, The Temple-Goers (2010) was shortlisted for the 2010 Costa First Novel Award. A second novel, Noon, is now available published by Picador (UK) and Faber & Faber (USA). His work has been translated into over ten languages. He lives between London and Delhi.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
October 9, 2011
I hadn't read Taseer's Temple-Goers, but when I saw this book in the advance reading section of a bookshop, I couldn't help but snatch it up. I was truly disappointed. Perhaps my folly was attempting to read it while on a vacation in a tropical land, but I found the chapters disjointed and the protagonist extremely difficult to support. Was this his story, or his mother's new husband's? Was this a story about him finding his father who had abandoned him at an early age, because his father doesn't make an appearance once even though the narrator has clearly connected with him. I didn't understand the point of this book, nor why I spent three days trying to force myself to read it.
February 12, 2016
Loved the prose, but failed to make sense of the story...
this is what I understood :
post independence India and Pakistan of 70s and 80s. A young boy born out of a dysfunctional union between an Indian Sikh mother, Pakistani Muslim father, and who is influenced by Hindu idolatry is the main character. His lawyer mother remarried a rich Industrialist, similarly affluent father has married and divorced at Least a couple more times.
The boy is in search of his identity, and is sort of keen to meet his biological father, who's an enigma, though his step brother has always been charming and brotherly whenever they communicated.
The first half of the story, that which I found enthralling , is spent in India; latter half in Pakistan in pursuit of paternal roots, which was quite complicated with many intricacies, and the final few pages are very disappointing.
I would say
4 stars for first one third, 3 stars for the middle and 2 stars for the last third.
this is what I understood :
post independence India and Pakistan of 70s and 80s. A young boy born out of a dysfunctional union between an Indian Sikh mother, Pakistani Muslim father, and who is influenced by Hindu idolatry is the main character. His lawyer mother remarried a rich Industrialist, similarly affluent father has married and divorced at Least a couple more times.
The boy is in search of his identity, and is sort of keen to meet his biological father, who's an enigma, though his step brother has always been charming and brotherly whenever they communicated.
The first half of the story, that which I found enthralling , is spent in India; latter half in Pakistan in pursuit of paternal roots, which was quite complicated with many intricacies, and the final few pages are very disappointing.
I would say
4 stars for first one third, 3 stars for the middle and 2 stars for the last third.
January 29, 2014
I really lost my way in this book but carried on because I had bought it! I struggled with the relevance of the three sections and being set in India and Pakistan I had high hopes for something better.
August 26, 2011
A disappointing read. Glimpses of promise were quickly dashed away by an almost indifferent treatment of a tired and overdone subject.
February 12, 2012
I read a great review of this book when it first came out, so I was set up for disappointment. It's a quasi-autobiographical novel about a boy with a Pakistani father and Indian mother, and so there are two large parts to the book -- one in India and one in Pakistan. And they don't seem to have much to do with each other, and the boy doesn't really take his experience in one place to the other place. It reads like someone who's been told his life is really interesting and he should make it into a book.
June 22, 2013
Nicely written, with an easy flow that has me speeding through the book.
What only have it two stars though, was the dividing of the book.
When it opens we are on a train, and learn a bit about our main character who is on his way to meet his father for the first time.....
Then we have approximately half the book devoted to a theft in his home when he is a college student...sure it told us about his attitude to the servants, but ultimately didn't go anywhere and for me didn't connect with the rest of the book.
Shame.
What only have it two stars though, was the dividing of the book.
When it opens we are on a train, and learn a bit about our main character who is on his way to meet his father for the first time.....
Then we have approximately half the book devoted to a theft in his home when he is a college student...sure it told us about his attitude to the servants, but ultimately didn't go anywhere and for me didn't connect with the rest of the book.
Shame.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 17, 2012
This was one of those books which showed a lot of promise, but overall was a little disappointing. Throughout much of the reading, I was kept interested but the book failed to live up to the hype and expectations.
Aatish Taseer's description of the lives of Delhi's elite socialites brought back memories for me. I could personally associate with many of the characters described in that portion of the book. The section about the lives of the Delhi servants was also pretty captivating. However, what I felt was the book's biggest weakness was the fact that the different elements of the book did not really come together effectively. The stories were quite disjointed and therefore it did not create the kind of impact that could have potentially be achieved. I also found Taseer's references to Pakistan as 'La Mirage' and Karachi as 'Port bin Qasim' to be rather pointless and unnecessary.
Taseer as an author has definitely shown signs of brilliance during the course of the book, but overall the story line definitely lacks some bite.
Aatish Taseer's description of the lives of Delhi's elite socialites brought back memories for me. I could personally associate with many of the characters described in that portion of the book. The section about the lives of the Delhi servants was also pretty captivating. However, what I felt was the book's biggest weakness was the fact that the different elements of the book did not really come together effectively. The stories were quite disjointed and therefore it did not create the kind of impact that could have potentially be achieved. I also found Taseer's references to Pakistan as 'La Mirage' and Karachi as 'Port bin Qasim' to be rather pointless and unnecessary.
Taseer as an author has definitely shown signs of brilliance during the course of the book, but overall the story line definitely lacks some bite.
August 3, 2015
solidly written but somehow flat and unimaginative (or uninspired). there was this level of snark and smugness that I did not enjoy for I couldn't see a purpose for it
October 28, 2014
You write what you see, yet tell what you don't!
This applies to Aatish Taseer's 'Noon' completely. In this book, he beautifully traces his journey from India to America to Pakistan as an audience as well as a participant. His journey from confused and insecure childhood to an adult searching identity and roots, from the corridors of ever changing power house Delhi to a volatile and extremist Port Bin Qasim, from a Hindu/ Sikh upbringing to the Muslim roots. There are gaps but they don't matter as he beautifully explains...
"The gaps in my life were too many, the threads too few. And though I knew this, knew there was little to string life together, the tendency was still to appear as a whole before the world, to let the imagination fill in the spaces that experience had left blank."
I had previously read Aatish's, Manto's short story translation, which was well done, but this novel gives a brilliant picturisation of him as an author. His observations are sensational yet true, oblivious yet deep, close yet far, secret yet public and fiction yet truth. Each character is real, strong and grey - from the servants in his Delhi farmhouse, or royalty in his step father's power struggle, or feudal lords of his real father's extended family and business. I loved the way Aatish went into the backstory of each character rather than staying at the surface or in the moment.
Take it as a compliment when I say Aatish has the renditions of Manto - a bitter man who looks at the world in a bitter way, because there is no other way he knows!
And clearly NOON is the ideal title... the book does what Noon does to you... makes you wonder about the past...
Some grey lines from the book...
Going blindly to college in America from India was an extension of other forms of entitlement, like summer holidays in the west or buying a nice car.
He was the most bendable unbending man I ever knew!
What royalty? An occupying power comes to your country and appoints some local chieftain the king, and two hundred years later once the power has left, we're still saying "Hukum this, Hukum that."
When someone puts forward the cup of friendship, it's not right to spit in it, no matter how bogus the wine might be.
He is present in my life as an absence, and that if u were only able to fix him in my mind physically, that sense of absence would diminish.
That which is not to be found is what I desire. - Rumy
This applies to Aatish Taseer's 'Noon' completely. In this book, he beautifully traces his journey from India to America to Pakistan as an audience as well as a participant. His journey from confused and insecure childhood to an adult searching identity and roots, from the corridors of ever changing power house Delhi to a volatile and extremist Port Bin Qasim, from a Hindu/ Sikh upbringing to the Muslim roots. There are gaps but they don't matter as he beautifully explains...
"The gaps in my life were too many, the threads too few. And though I knew this, knew there was little to string life together, the tendency was still to appear as a whole before the world, to let the imagination fill in the spaces that experience had left blank."
I had previously read Aatish's, Manto's short story translation, which was well done, but this novel gives a brilliant picturisation of him as an author. His observations are sensational yet true, oblivious yet deep, close yet far, secret yet public and fiction yet truth. Each character is real, strong and grey - from the servants in his Delhi farmhouse, or royalty in his step father's power struggle, or feudal lords of his real father's extended family and business. I loved the way Aatish went into the backstory of each character rather than staying at the surface or in the moment.
Take it as a compliment when I say Aatish has the renditions of Manto - a bitter man who looks at the world in a bitter way, because there is no other way he knows!
And clearly NOON is the ideal title... the book does what Noon does to you... makes you wonder about the past...
Some grey lines from the book...
Going blindly to college in America from India was an extension of other forms of entitlement, like summer holidays in the west or buying a nice car.
He was the most bendable unbending man I ever knew!
What royalty? An occupying power comes to your country and appoints some local chieftain the king, and two hundred years later once the power has left, we're still saying "Hukum this, Hukum that."
When someone puts forward the cup of friendship, it's not right to spit in it, no matter how bogus the wine might be.
He is present in my life as an absence, and that if u were only able to fix him in my mind physically, that sense of absence would diminish.
That which is not to be found is what I desire. - Rumy
January 20, 2015
It flits from one country to another and follows 4 disconnected incidents in Rehan Tabassum's charmed life - 2 in India and 2 in Pakistan. The India ones (One about little Rehan and his single Mom moving from their grandma's and the other about a grown up Rehan trying to work with Delhi authorities to get to the bottom of a household theft) are actually intriguing. The little Rehan one can't help but adore and sympathize with, the older, spineless Rehan in India one tends to despise but it still moves you. But the Pakistan stories, particularly the 2Nd one where he falls head first into a really potentially tense story of vengeance, intrigue and unfathomable violence, left me quite disappointed. I feel like I'm not allowed to feel anything. There is a distance in his visual of India as well, but it strikes you as a self preservation thing. The distance mechanism for Pakistan is so underutilized that it just feels like he hasn't looked at all. That's not self preservation.. that's the unforgivable premature decay of Rehan himself.
The other Pakistan story is an encounter in a train where he hears a first hand account of the earthquake. A really good start to the book.
Seems like Taseer floundered quite a bit with this one. He's very out of his element. He doesn't seem comfortable with his material, it feels like he hasn't figured out what to make of it, what to prioritize, and it seems to interfere with his usual dexterity. It also somehow felt... disrespectful.
The other Pakistan story is an encounter in a train where he hears a first hand account of the earthquake. A really good start to the book.
Seems like Taseer floundered quite a bit with this one. He's very out of his element. He doesn't seem comfortable with his material, it feels like he hasn't figured out what to make of it, what to prioritize, and it seems to interfere with his usual dexterity. It also somehow felt... disrespectful.
June 2, 2013
Story at page 200 is totally crap
Of, a tow cays later, a wedding massacre in Smv| h
pictures wore awful: images of the young couple conn.vM,v}
with scenes of butchery and chaos, the red and goM ^ ^
Wedding lehnga stained with the deeper red ot brutal Mv\m
But once more, the motive for, in this case, tr.Urmdc w.,v
mvstifving: the girl's brother and friends had turned on \\\y
wedding party with axes upon discovering that not ,i vnv^W
member of the groom's side could convert simple Urdu noutu
into their plural forms. This, from her brother: 'M\ suspuuHVs
Wert first aroused when I heard one of them s,u. "hav \ Aht"
"Yakht?" I thought; strange that he didn't sav "aukaat" No. out
oi interest, my friends and I, we began questioning them
do vou know what? Not one of them, not even the man who
was to marry my sister, could tell me what the singular fonw
of "auraak" was. Worse still, when we asked them to tonn
agent nouns from simple nouns, "intezar" to "muntazn" sa\,
not .i man among them could do it. lint wis when ft*> >N ¦
began to boil. I thought what kind of family am I letting nn
sister marry into? How would my nieces and nephew «s be
raisedFTTie shame! That was when m\ fur\ ow h ann
j j ' ~
I took matters into my own hands.'
Of, a tow cays later, a wedding massacre in Smv| h
pictures wore awful: images of the young couple conn.vM,v}
with scenes of butchery and chaos, the red and goM ^ ^
Wedding lehnga stained with the deeper red ot brutal Mv\m
But once more, the motive for, in this case, tr.Urmdc w.,v
mvstifving: the girl's brother and friends had turned on \\\y
wedding party with axes upon discovering that not ,i vnv^W
member of the groom's side could convert simple Urdu noutu
into their plural forms. This, from her brother: 'M\ suspuuHVs
Wert first aroused when I heard one of them s,u. "hav \ Aht"
"Yakht?" I thought; strange that he didn't sav "aukaat" No. out
oi interest, my friends and I, we began questioning them
do vou know what? Not one of them, not even the man who
was to marry my sister, could tell me what the singular fonw
of "auraak" was. Worse still, when we asked them to tonn
agent nouns from simple nouns, "intezar" to "muntazn" sa\,
not .i man among them could do it. lint wis when ft*> >N ¦
began to boil. I thought what kind of family am I letting nn
sister marry into? How would my nieces and nephew «s be
raisedFTTie shame! That was when m\ fur\ ow h ann
j j ' ~
I took matters into my own hands.'
May 18, 2013
Even though it claims to be a novel, the chapters in Noon are too disjointed to really read as one. Taseer's attempts at weaving together the narrative fall flat. I really did not enjoy the first two chapters that are set in India. Having read other works by Taseer in which he mines his personal life for material, they were repetitive and uninteresting. I especially did not like the chapter about his step-father's party because it was too reminiscent of 'Durbar,' written by Taseer's mother Talvin Singh. But Taseer hits his stride with the last two stories: He writes with unsettled and unsettling plainness about the rigid hierarchies, modern madnesses and casual cruelties of South Asia, both India and Pakistan not so different after all. His writing, in these last two chapters, is controlled, evocative and at times, even haunting. I would recommend reading these two chapters - and maybe prologue - as stand-alone stories.
April 18, 2015
It's a 2,5 actually. It reads like something I've read before - which I have. Taseer's autobiographical Stranger to History is really the base of this book too. The Indian mother, Pakistani father etc. And the morally corrupt modern India and Pakistan he writes about in Noon, while sounding true does not pull you in, the way it does in Adiga's White Tiger or Suketu Mehta's Maximum City or even a Mohsin Hamid's How to get filthy rich in rising Asia. What you sense is a distinct lack of empathy with what he sees and experiences. Quite disappointing.
August 2, 2012
My first book by Aatish Taseer and I must say the experience has been really bad. The chapters in the book do not link each other, completely disjointed. It makes it all the more confusing not to mention an already boring narrative. I wouldn't recommend this book but of course it is my personal opinion. I had to force myself to finish this book.
September 7, 2013
The story is absolutely disjoint. The plot collapses after the first few pages. An absolutely disappointing read.
I just could not proceed after the first few pages of the second chapter. Boring and annoying.
I just could not proceed after the first few pages of the second chapter. Boring and annoying.
November 25, 2015
This book too, seems autobiographical like A STRANGER TO HISTORY. But it wasn't as gripping or dramatic as expected. I felt quite disconnected from the story though there was so much material, so many topics and diverse characters to tackle.
January 3, 2013
not quite what i expected
November 15, 2011
Was expecting too much from the book i guess, to me it seemed half-baked/unfinished...as if it was an introduction to a story.
April 8, 2012
Completely uneven. Doesn't do a good job tying things together. I wanted to follow the stepfather more than the main character. I really didn't care about much in this book.
February 3, 2013
I received a free copy from the Goodreads First Reads Program. I expected more.
March 10, 2018
Not sure what to think, seemed well-writen but felt a bit jumpy and hard to follow in places. Didn't find any of the characters particularly likable.
June 21, 2021
I really struggled with this book and did not enjoy it at all. The story was confusing and hard to follow and I did not connect with the book at all. I persevered through with the hope that it might get better but the story just did not make sense to me. I couldn’t really tell you what the story was about.
April 25, 2021
I rate it four stars because I love how he strings words together to describe people and their feelings towards religion and freedom and love. But I agree with the other readers - the book is a little disjointed.
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June 12, 2014This novel had a lot of material to work with, upper class society in India, upper class society in Pakistan, the differences and relations between the two, sexuality and homosexuality in Pakistan, the inner workings of a telecommunications conglomerate in Pakistan, etc. But it turned out to be just a tale of an overprivileged, entitled, lazy young man having an epiphany about his complicity in social ills, and about a spoiled man who suffers emotionally because of estrangement from his father. The potential was there, but the narrative was disconnected, the drama wasn't dramatic, and it was filled with truisms and adolescent cliches. A disappointment.
October 12, 2016
Has an interesting flow; layered characters; a well-crafted story with some good writing.
September 4, 2021
“The country was founded for a purpose ; if its not going to realize that purpose, then what is the point of the country? Thats our biggest problem, you know. Everyone has some high idea or the other about what the country was founded for, but its always something completeky divorced from the reality of the place, something we have to be and are not”.
- Noon by Aatish Taseer
.
.
I love the premise of the story but not the way it was written. I was promised Rehan’s journey in exploring his father’s country. However, the book only give me about 25% of what has been part of its synopsis. I am not gonna lie that i was a bit dissapointed. While Rehan admitted that he has gaps in his memories causing that his narration of whatever he can recalled either in India, Pakistan, USA or London, i felt this book is severely disjointed. I just could not make the connection. I felt that if every chapter were to be written a full lenghth novel, they could stand on its own. The book brought us readers revisited some of Rehan’s childhood memory on his mother and grandma turmoil relationship. There are some distant moment recollection of His father and eventually how his father left his mother only to return to his own country. Then, there are part of rehan recalled when he went abroad to study, he felt that he doesnt really fully do what he supposed to do unlike his friend Zack. Rehan’s regret can be really overwhelming on some pages of this book. At one chapter, it really just a part of crime investigation whereby both safe box and laptops went missing from Rehan Mother’s house. Only on the few final chapters, we saw how the stranger Rehan knew on the train is there working for his father’s family , the subtle conflict that existed in it, the rivalry and animosity that has gone too deep among his step siblings. I tried to love this novel because despite its flaws, it did pretty good job in providing glimpses of class division in Both Pakistan and India. The old raja or hukum that still cling to the idea that they must be respected and The industrialists that felt they are the one that made the country prosper as it is. The author also demonstrated that the colonial legacy which is English has been the warring subject for one who wanted it to remain as it and others who wanted it gone. The clashes of values and religion also is part of the subject writing whenever Rehan’s mother and grandmother is in the picture. One despised it, calling it outdated and one believe it should be part of one’s life - in every way. Overall, this is my first Aatish Taseer novel but i dont think i would read any book from him - at least not at the moment.
- Noon by Aatish Taseer
.
.
I love the premise of the story but not the way it was written. I was promised Rehan’s journey in exploring his father’s country. However, the book only give me about 25% of what has been part of its synopsis. I am not gonna lie that i was a bit dissapointed. While Rehan admitted that he has gaps in his memories causing that his narration of whatever he can recalled either in India, Pakistan, USA or London, i felt this book is severely disjointed. I just could not make the connection. I felt that if every chapter were to be written a full lenghth novel, they could stand on its own. The book brought us readers revisited some of Rehan’s childhood memory on his mother and grandma turmoil relationship. There are some distant moment recollection of His father and eventually how his father left his mother only to return to his own country. Then, there are part of rehan recalled when he went abroad to study, he felt that he doesnt really fully do what he supposed to do unlike his friend Zack. Rehan’s regret can be really overwhelming on some pages of this book. At one chapter, it really just a part of crime investigation whereby both safe box and laptops went missing from Rehan Mother’s house. Only on the few final chapters, we saw how the stranger Rehan knew on the train is there working for his father’s family , the subtle conflict that existed in it, the rivalry and animosity that has gone too deep among his step siblings. I tried to love this novel because despite its flaws, it did pretty good job in providing glimpses of class division in Both Pakistan and India. The old raja or hukum that still cling to the idea that they must be respected and The industrialists that felt they are the one that made the country prosper as it is. The author also demonstrated that the colonial legacy which is English has been the warring subject for one who wanted it to remain as it and others who wanted it gone. The clashes of values and religion also is part of the subject writing whenever Rehan’s mother and grandmother is in the picture. One despised it, calling it outdated and one believe it should be part of one’s life - in every way. Overall, this is my first Aatish Taseer novel but i dont think i would read any book from him - at least not at the moment.
February 12, 2018
This was the second book that I picked up this year in 2018 and dang! it was good. It's subtle in its own way. Although I liked the cover of the book but the story of REHAN SAHAB was no where near to reflect in it. Book covers does say a lot about a story but in this one it didn't. It was nice to read about past. I liked how it was a smooth read. I completed this book in one day. How? well let's just say that I was excited to read it and that I was on a family trip to my aunt's house in Tariq road and it was quite a long road trip. I enjoyed reading it.
The first aspect that I liked about NOON was the female character of Rehan's mother, she seemed so different in speech and manner than today's women. She was a beauty but her relationship with Rehan, her son was a spark. The second aspect was the dinner party event at which how guests at that time conversed is portrayed by Aatish Taseer. Where ego issues are more dominant within people. The elite class especially in which Rehan's stepfather was the center of the story. The third aspect was the scene of the robbery and how the emotions and feelings are still valid today. Trust issues were present then also but now they are everywhere within us. The servants were asked in detail to confess that they stole the two laptops.
I would give the novel a 3 star out of 5, all because it lacked the emotional relationship a reader builds up with the protagonist which lacked in this novel. I didn't liked the shift from Rehan to neutral language. Also, the end was not satisfying as a novel. But I liked the writing, I would sure try Aatish Taseer's other novels in the future.
The first aspect that I liked about NOON was the female character of Rehan's mother, she seemed so different in speech and manner than today's women. She was a beauty but her relationship with Rehan, her son was a spark. The second aspect was the dinner party event at which how guests at that time conversed is portrayed by Aatish Taseer. Where ego issues are more dominant within people. The elite class especially in which Rehan's stepfather was the center of the story. The third aspect was the scene of the robbery and how the emotions and feelings are still valid today. Trust issues were present then also but now they are everywhere within us. The servants were asked in detail to confess that they stole the two laptops.
I would give the novel a 3 star out of 5, all because it lacked the emotional relationship a reader builds up with the protagonist which lacked in this novel. I didn't liked the shift from Rehan to neutral language. Also, the end was not satisfying as a novel. But I liked the writing, I would sure try Aatish Taseer's other novels in the future.
November 16, 2018
My friend @thecrookedskull reccommended me Aatish Taseer's memoir "Strangers to History",about a Modern muslims many contradictions in today's world, I was so impressed that I bought all of Taseer's book. This review is about one such book, Noon.
The story is about Rehan Tabassum who born out of a short affair and wrapped in a cocoon of priviledge. After his Pakistani father leaves , his strong empowered Indian mother brings him up with a gusto but never for a moment touching the cocoon and send him to the US for his studies. It is only on his return to India does the whole construct of phony structure start to fall into places. Later as he takes a trip to Pakistan to visit his father , the novel then binds in further elements of politics and the fight within that plagues the priviledged.
Taseer puts enough of his own life into Rehan and the central characters for them to not appear as caricatures. Yet all around them are stereotypes and caricatures which makes the novel fall flat in its face in places. It a shame though. In places you could see the potential that the novel could grow into .You could see the beautiful writer that Aatish Taseer is. Yet it falls short. Just.
The story is about Rehan Tabassum who born out of a short affair and wrapped in a cocoon of priviledge. After his Pakistani father leaves , his strong empowered Indian mother brings him up with a gusto but never for a moment touching the cocoon and send him to the US for his studies. It is only on his return to India does the whole construct of phony structure start to fall into places. Later as he takes a trip to Pakistan to visit his father , the novel then binds in further elements of politics and the fight within that plagues the priviledged.
Taseer puts enough of his own life into Rehan and the central characters for them to not appear as caricatures. Yet all around them are stereotypes and caricatures which makes the novel fall flat in its face in places. It a shame though. In places you could see the potential that the novel could grow into .You could see the beautiful writer that Aatish Taseer is. Yet it falls short. Just.
June 30, 2019
This is the second book I have read by Aatish Taseer; the first book I read (The Twice-Born) was non-fiction, and this book is nominally fiction, but is obviously based on his own life with lots of autobiographical themes and details. A young man with an Indian Sikh mother (who is a lawyer), and a Pakistani Muslim father, the book moves from stories about Rehan and his single mother moving from his grandmother's, and then a really well-written story about Rehan trying to deal with a household theft (where the trusted servants are under scrutiny), and finally Rehan travels to Pakistan to reconnect with his father's family, such that the book could easily read as two or as four different stories. There are many themes here, involving upper class society in both India and Pakistan, sexuality and homosexuality, vengeance and more, but as other reviewers have pointed out, in the end it is a story of an overprivileged, entitled, lazy young man and somewhat disappointing and disjointed, and the reader never really figures out what the significance of the title is. Still, an intriguing writer, and I will read more of his work.
June 16, 2021
Just want to say that despite the low rating, the writing is good. Taseer knows how to create vivid and immersive environments. The details give the novel verisimilitude. But, I don’t know how this considered a novel. it’s more a collection of short stories - each one inflicting some emotional psychological trauma. I think it’s a collection of instances from the protagonist’s life which make him the person he becomes (he remains a civil person but comes across as an unfeeling one). Some of his stories feel a bit randomly extreme - covering harassment, robbery, abandonment, sexpliotation, classism, among other things. Couldn’t really empathise with the protagonist because he never gives insight to his emotions. Just states out the events like he’s relaying facts. The protagonist goes to India, America, England and Pakistan. And his stories become more and more pessimistic.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews