*The Wandering Falcon, by Jamil Ahmad

9781594488276
Riverhead  Books, 2011
243 pp
(hard cover ed.)

"One lives and survives only if one has the ability to swallow and digest bitter and unpalatable things. We, you and I, and our people shall live because there are only a few among us who do not love raw onions." 

If you are considering writing as a vocation and you're getting along in years, do not despair: Jamil Ahmad wrote this lovely little book in his 70s, and this year it was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize.  

Courtesy of  Wikipedia

The book is set in what is now considered to be a very troubled and indeed, very controversial area, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Afghanistan.  Of of these areas, Waziristan,  has been in the news for some time due to its fame as a Taliban refuge, but Ahmad's focus is on the numerous tribes who occupied this region prior to modern-day conflicts; he examines how they maintain their ways of life as modernity encroaches on traditional societies.  The title character is Tor Baz, (Black Falcon) who was born near a military outpost, a "tangle of crumbling, weather-beaten, and broken hills where the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan meet," to a couple of illicit lovers from the Siahpad tribe who had run away from their home.  All goes well with this family of three until their pasts catch up with them and they are found by their kinsmen and dealt with in accordance to tribal custom. Tor is spared, but  abandoned; he is later picked up by Baluch tribesmen, then handed off from person to person and eventually, he simply strikes out on his own.  

Throughout the book, he  moves throughout  the various border areas, serving as the vehicle through which Ahmad brings his readers into the lives of the different tribes who inhabit this landscape: the Wazirs, Mahsuds, Brahui, the Kharot  and the Afridi; there are also the  Nasirs, the Dortanis and Baluchs.  Along the way Ahmad describes how changes in the world outside of these regions have affected the tribespeople. In one story, for example,  nomadic Kharot Powindas ("foot people") have brought their livestock to graze along their traditional wandering routes, but now the border is guarded by soldiers who will not let them pass without proper papers.  But these documents cost money and require birth certificates, health documents and identity papers, neither of which the thousands of Kharot possess.  One brave woman puts the Quran on her head, banking on the fact that she will be protected, and leads her animals forward only to be fired on by soldiers. As others make the same attempt, they and their animals are mowed down in what will become a massacre.    In another, tribes are aligned either with the British or the Nazis during World War II; and in still another, the key guide leading  climbers up the Tirich Mir in the Hindu Kush area finds himself with no income and unable to provide for his family once the summit is conquered; his daughter is stolen and later sold into prostitution.

Ahmad writes simply, adding few embellishments to his prose, but it is the sense of place that stands out in this book.  From the harsh, dry deserts with their blinding sandstorms to the peaks of the Hindu Kush, the landscape is eloquently and realistically described.  Combining his writing with his expert knowledge of the area, Ahmad takes his readers on a journey through lands they might otherwise never see,  revealing a longstanding way of life that has been disappearing for some time. The book is also filled with scenes that create vivid images in the reader's imagination; for example, in one story, a wife calls to her husband to come out and witness the beginning of spring:

"There was a full moon, and it hung half hidden behind the northern cliff.  The moonlight was strong and dazzling to the eyes... A long distance away on the mountain crest, he could see small antlike figures silhouetted against its orb. There was a long chain of them moving slowly with loads on their backs. These were the ice cutters." 

 It is very obvious that Ahmad has a deep fondness for the people and the landscape of these areas.  He is not critical of the people who inhabit this region; at the same time, he does not idealize them either. Through his eyes perhaps his readers will be able to envision a place, a time, and groups of people before all became  synonymous with terror and war.

Many of the book's critics have complained that it is misrepresented as a novel, and I agree. It is really a set of short stories, and using Tor Baz  as our eyes and ears in some cases does not imply that the book revolves around his character. The dustjacket blurb is a bit misleading in that respect. However, when all is said and done, whether or not it is a novel or a short-story collection just isn't that big of a deal, because it is such a good book no matter what you want to call it. Definitely recommended. 

You can find a brief article about the author here.

fiction from Pakistan

*The Lake, by Banana Yoshimoto

9781612190891
Melville House Publishing, 2011
originally published as Mizuumi, 2005
translated by Michael Emmerich
188 pp (trade paper ed.)


The most recent of Yoshimoto's novels to be translated into English, The Lake is a good read, one that won't take you long to finish.  However, don't let the brevity of this book fool you: in its short length, it manages to touch upon issues of grief, trauma and family, and it offers a powerful surprise that is revealed near the end.  It's a blend of the real and the fantastic; in some parts of the story you need to be prepared to suspend disbelief and just go with the flow.  

The novel follows Chihiro, a young artist living in Tokyo whose mother has recently passed away.  Her unmarried mother owned a bar, where she met Chihiro's father; the lack of a "normal" family structure didn't prevent Chihiro from having a good childhood, but thinking of what people might be saying about her -- "Sure, she’s the daughter of a prominent local figure, but c’mon—he knocked up the Mama-san of a bar, right?" --  left her feeling "oppressed." Chihiro leaves for Tokyo as soon as possible to go to art school;  soon after moving from home her mother gets sick and ultimately dies. While dealing with her grief and looking back on her family life and her relationship with her mother,  she meets Nakajima, a man with his own  troubles.  She senses right away that he has been through some terrible trauma, but never pushes the issue.  Eventually she comes to be "awed by his terrible depths," but at the same time, she's drawn to this man, with whom she shares a number of similarities. Their relationship proceeds slowly and carefully; taking a new turn after Nakajima brings her with him on a visit to some old friends at his former home on a lake.  As Nakajima's history is revealed, some interesting questions come to light regarding the importance of perspective -- one of the themes that runs throughout this novel. 

The Lake is a mix of positives and negatives, but after all is said and done, what's good about this book outweighs what's not.  The prose is understated and very simply expressed, while  at the same time it is powerful enough so that the reader gets a clear picture of Chihiro as she tries to come to terms with her childhood, her family life and  the death of her mother as she moves into another phase of her life.  Nakajima is also drawn well -- a man of great intelligence, yet hampered from moving on  by the effects of a mysterious trauma that consumes him.  While ultimately his story is heartbreaking,  the author is very clever not to make it the central focus of the novel and reveals it only toward the end of the story, making it all that much more powerful once the facts are brought to light.  Chihiro is a likeable narrator, coming across as a real person throughout most of the story, using language normal people would use.   Another very positive point about this novel is the lake, not only in terms of amazing description which throws the reader right into its misty atmosphere, but also in Chihiro's growing attraction to it and to the inhabitants of the lake house, one that even finds expression within the context of her mural as it increasingly becomes a part of her consciousness. On the other hand,  I found the section on her refusal to incorporate a sponsoring company's logo within the mural she's painting a bit preachy and clichéd to the point of being very obvious; the same goes with her comments against homogeneity.  Good messages both, but a little overplayed here.

I'd recommend The Lake, especially to people who have read Yoshimoto in the past, but with the caveat that compared to say, Kitchen (which I really, really liked), this one comes across a bit flat. I'd also recommend it to readers of Japanese fiction -- it maintains that edginess that is so characteristic of Japanese writing. It's a good read, very brief, but powerful.

*Rebirth, by Jahnavi Barua

9780143414551
Penguin India, 2010
203 pp
(trade paper ed. - India)

Rebirth is Jahnavi Barua's first novel, although in 2008 she also authored a book of short stories entitled Next Door.  It is narrated by the main character Kaberi, and the narrative is addressed to her unborn baby, the type of thing I normally shy away from in my reading choices. No wait. I normally RUN from this type of thing. However,  to be perfectly honest, and much to my own surprise, there are several features that elevate this novel from being just another book of women's fiction or chicklit.  It has a vividly-evoked sense of place and time,  quality prose that does not fall prey to overdone cliches, and the reader catches a glimpse into  issues facing not only modern Indian women, but a bit of India's ongoing regional, political strife that affects people in all walks of life.   There is also a nice, reflective symmetry at work that is well constructed:  the story takes place over the few months between Kaberi's discovery that she is pregnant and the first pangs of labor contractions, and as Kaberi is patiently awaiting the baby's emergence, she is also on a path toward her own.

Kaberi is married to Ranjit (Ron) and lives a very middle-class existence in a nice flat in Bangalore. She has been working on a children's book for about a year, unbeknownst to her husband, and the book is now ready for her to begin the editing process.  But despite her environment, upscale life and her happiness about being pregnant, things are not so great for Kaberi: Ron is having an affair and living with another woman, and has moved many of his things out of the flat.  Ron's behavior toward Kaberi fluctuates erratically; often when Ron wants something from Kaberi, she usually acquiesces with little protest, but he is not above using physical violence on her from time to time. Kaberi hasn't mentioned the pregnancy to her husband; she wants him to return to her not because of the baby, but because he still loves Kaberi.  Actually, Kaberi hasn't mentioned the pregnancy or Ron's absence from their home  to anyone; the one friend in whom she may have confided early on was killed in a bus explosion  during an insurgency in Assam, and Kaberi just lets on that Ron's company frequently sends him away on business.  When Ron comes to her to ask for a divorce, he expects that she will give in to his request, but Kaberi realizes  that now she is in a position of strength, one that is only bolstered by a trip home to Assam when an unforeseen event occurs. Obviously there's a great deal more to the story, but to say any more would be unfair.

Yes, yes, yes, I know it sounds like the standard women's fiction/chicklit kind of story, but there is an unusual amount of depth at work in this novel which lifts the premise of this story from what it could have been to something on an elevated level. The sense of place moves the reader from modern city -- where even in the midst of the city's hustle-bustle an open  verandah attached to a flat can be an isolating experience --  to muddy roads to the lush jungle near Bangalore and then to the scenic river views in Assam where people float on barges for parties, each with its accompanying wonders and vivid colors in terms of flora and fauna. Moving along, the author never feels compelled to document incidents of domestic violence in graphic detail, nor does her main character wring her hands, bemoan her fate in a "poor, poor, pitiful me" kind of way, take revenge or take a lover to spite her unfaithful husband. The spotlight is always on Kaberi, her sense of isolation and the slow realization of her empowerment that comes about as a result of her inner strength, and the prose moves steadily and is, if anything,  quietly understated.  Finally, the author manages to weave in some of the political and social issues of the agitation in Assam, where people took to the streets to make their voices and agendas heard, only to be betrayed in the long run.

Rebirth is a very fast read but a good one, and if this is Jahnavi Barua's very first novel, then she's off to a running start in her writing career.   I did get a bit tired of reading through longish descriptions of different outfits the women wore in this book, and the colors and styles various people used in decorating their homes -- it was just too extraneous for me to really care about and added little to the overall story. But really, if that's the worst I have to say about this book, then that's a good thing! I'll look forward to more from this author in the future.

 *****

A note to publishers or to anyone else who cares: as an extremely avid consumer of the written word and buyer of hundreds of books per year,  I think it would be very nice if books listed for international prizes were available on an international scale, but I do understand that there are rights restrictions and whatever.  Personally, I don't get this phenomenon of  limiting award-nominated books to only one country or one region when the publishing business isn't doing so well these days and international releases might boost sales.  After looking around my usual online haunts to find this book, I had the choice of going to Penguin India or paying about $60 US for a 200-page paperback. I went with Penguin India and was happy to do so, but I can't speak for everyone else who might want to read this book here in the US.

*River of Smoke, by Amitav Ghosh

9780719568985
John Murray, 2011 (UK)
517 pp
(Hard cover edition)

"Look there, he said, pointing upriver. You'll see a big fort, down by the water, right at the river's mouth. The lascars call it 'Sher-ka-mooh,' the Tiger's Mouth; the Angrez call it the Bogue. It was built just a few years ago, to defend the river, and to look at it you would think no one could ever get into such a stronghold. But at night you or I or anyone else could walk in, without anyone stopping us. The soldiers are all lost in smoke, and their officers too. This is a plague from which no one can escape."

 ****

River of Smoke is book two of Ghosh's Ibis Trilogy, so named for the ship introduced in book one, Sea of Poppies.  In book one, set in 1836, the British colonial powers had changed the rich fields of Indian farmland into a veritable "sea of poppies," and had economically hogtied the people who used to raise their own food crops to the opium industry. Opium often forced farmers into debt and into leaving their homes, causing many of them to make voyage to plantations in Mauritius and other places where the abolition of slavery left a great demand for indentured workers. Now two years later, River of Smoke follows the opium from its origins in India to its final destination in China, where in thirty years the amount of the "black mud" penetrating throughout the country has increased "tenfold," and where

"...thousands, maybe millions of people ... have become slaves to it -- monks, generals, housewives, soldiers, mandarins, students,"

and now, in 1838, the Emperor has had enough, and he's sent an emissary to Canton to force the issue.

Despite what may be expected of the second novel of this trilogy, River of Smoke does not actually pick up where Sea of Poppies left off.  Although some answers as to the respective fates of the characters from Sea of Poppies are partially revealed, and although some familiar characters continue on in River of Smoke, Ghosh sets the action in Canton and brings in new faces, most notably that of Bahram Naurozji Modi, a wealthy Parsi merchant from Bombay.  He had married into a family of famous shipbuilders who had made their fortunes after being awarded a contract from the East India Company;  he decided that he would like to get into the export business. At age 21, he made his first trip to Canton, where he was "stripped of the multiple wrappings of home, family, community, obligation and decorum," and became a different person altogether, even taking on a mistress who gave him a son.  Known there as Barry Moddie, he has returned after a three-year absence, sailing in his beloved ship Anahita, with a hold full of opium, "possibly the single most valuable cargo that had ever been carried out of the Indian Subcontinent." He is banking on making enough money to satisfy his investors, make a fortune for himself and prove something to his wife's family.   Now that he is in Canton just as the Emperor has decided to crack down and start enforcing the longstanding ban on opium imports, his ability to sell his cargo is on hold; in the meantime he is appointed to "the Committee," which runs the Canton Chamber of Commerce, "the foreign enclave's unofficial Cabinet." Bahram has his appointment because he is the longest-standing merchant from India, not because of any feelings of equity from the other members of the Committee. It is there that the merchants' battles over the opium trade will be fought, and where Bahram, as the member from India, will be caught in the middle of the debate between free trade as a God-given right of imperialistic nations and the morality of the opium trade as well.   With this role comes great responsibility, as his friend Zadig reminds him:

 "You will have to ask yourself: what of the future? How do we safeguard our interests in the event of war?...And if the Chinese manage to hold off the Europeans, what will become of us, and our relations with them? We too will be suspect in their eyes. We who have traded here for generations, will find ourselves banned from coming again."

But it is not just the future of trade that Bahram must contemplate: first, he must acknowledge his own role in the opium trade currently devastating China, since


"almost all the 'black mud' that came to Canton was shipped from your own shores; and you knew also that even though your share of the riches that grew upon that mud was minuscule, that did not prevent the stench of it from clinging more closely to you than to any other kind of Alien."

and this truth will have ultimately have devastating implications for Bahram as a human being. 


There is a great deal of use of the term "civilized nation," and it is ultimately up to the reader to decide what this means.  River of Smoke also presents the flip side of relations with China, in which cultural exchange has benefits for all nations: in art and poetry as represented by the character of Robin Chinnery and in the exchange of plants, carried out by Mr. Penrose, a wealthy man whose nurseries in Britain were famous for their wide variation in imported plants, and Paulette Lambert,  one of the original passengers of the Ibis from Sea of Poppies. While Paulette sort of sits on the sidelines of all the politics since as a woman she cannot enter the foreign enclave in Canton, she and her patron work to collect and trade plants with the Chinese, but even their work is interrupted by politics.

If you read Sea of Poppies, you will remember the fast-paced action of that story; don't expect the same here. I have to admit to being skeptical of this novel at first because the action in River of Smoke is slow to build, but once the story got to Singapore, the pace picked up and I found myself  in the role of observer of events leading to a critical moment in China's history.  I often use the phrase "I couldn't put the book down," meaning I was absorbed in the pages in front of me, but this time I literally did not stop reading until I had come to the very end and I have the dark circles under my eyes to prove it. This book put me in the skins of the main characters and I was caught up in the all of the political and  moral debates, felt the tensions rising in the foreign enclaves, and then became ultimately saddened by knowing what's in store for the Chinese within the next year or so and where it's all going to lead.  And in today's global geopoliticking, the same old songs are being heard again and as in the past, the big powers aren't listening. 

Although tempered by humor, especially in terms of language misunderstandings, River of Smoke is an intense novel that rises above the ordinary to tell an incredibly devastating story while offering a glimpse of what could have been if greed and nationalistic pride hadn't interfered. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but it is an excellent book, and I recommend it very highly.

fiction from India

The Sly Company of People Who Care, by Rahul Bhattacharya

9780374265854
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011
278 pp
(hardcover ed)

The Sly Company of People Who Care is Rahul Bhattacharya's first novel,currently  shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize, and winner of the Hindu Literary Prize for Best Fiction in 2011.   It is structured in three parts, told via first-person narrative and set in the country of Guyana. It's also a  hell of a good book that will leave you thinking long after you've set it down. 

The story is told from the point of view of the narrator, who has left his home in India for Guyana to escape the "deadness" of his life.   His plan is to stay for a year, to become a "slow ramblin' stranger." He'd been in Guyana before for a week reporting on a cricket match, and during that time he sensed "moods and images, names and rhythms, contours of a mystery world one could perceive but not grasp."   This time around,  he  finds this place  to have the "feel of an accidental place," a place of "epic indolence," with a multitude of voices to be heard: "chinee, putagee, buck, coolie, and the combinations emanating from these, a separate and larger lexicon."   While  traveling into the interior with a local huckster and "porknocker" (diamond miner) named Baby, he soaks up local life along the way,  and becomes enthralled with Guyana's natural beauty. There he discovers that while he's in awe at Baby's freedom and ability to live off little more than his wits, he also finds witnesses an act of betrayal and something worse that leaves him wondering.  On his return to Georgetown, after recovering from a case of dengue fever, he realizes that

"One escapes one's life for however long, seeking adventure - I think of the Hindi word dheel. That is what kite-flyers in Bombay shouted when they wanted the spooler to let loose the thread...So one escapes one's life seeking adventure, and with enough dheel and some luck, that happens.  But the thread is anchored. You can only go so far. The impulse must change. Instead of adventure one seeks understanding."

Hooking up with a local character named Ramotar Seven Curry, a professional wedding guest, the narrator is at one such event, "where everyone is welcome," regardless of social class, but as it turns out, that blanket doesn't exactly include Africans.  Here the narrator begins to grasp what really lies beneath Guyana's beautiful exterior.  The tone of the novel begins to shift, as the author explores "the wounds left behind," and where the narrator makes a critical discovery about the country he at first thought so "accidental." While discussing India's hierarchical class rigidity and the fact that Indian nationals do not see their fellow Indians in Guyana as Indian at all, in a mix of both fiction and nonfiction, the narrator also relates how Guyana became a nation divided along the lines of race beginning with its European colonization. The narrative  goes back into Guyana's troubled past to make some sense of its troubled present. It is a story of the forced migration of slaves, the end of slavery and the introduction of indentured servants largely from India, and the social, political and economic displacement of one set of people over another via policies set by the Europeans. What's left now is a  "competition of suffering" between the two groups," with  the Afro-Guyanese seeing things from one point of view and the Indo-Guyanese having an altogther different take on the situation.   What Europeans started before leaving the country has left long-standing wounds that continue to inform most aspects of life in this country, and not just the economic and political aspects. And the pattern of movement and displacement continues today, as "there are more Guyanese living outside Guyana than in it."

In another shift of tone, the narrator's story picks up with him becoming a bit bored and restless, ready for yet another journey.   He meets a local girl named Jan, and they're off to Venezuela.  He falls head over heels; she's looking for an escape.   They're attracted to each other by the sex, but otherwise he comes to realize that they have very little in common, and the excitement begins to wear thin.  As his visa is about to expire, the two head back to Guyana, and it is then that he runs into a moral dilemma or two over "wounds left behind" for which he might be responsible.

There's a great deal more to this book, but there's too much to encapsulate in a few paragraphs.  Suffice it to say that the narrator ultimately comes to realize that in Guyana, everything is not so accidental after all -- that everything has been created, seeds have been sown that have taken  root deep within the very souls of the Guyanese people, and they all stem back to the European colonizers.

At first I wasn't so sure about this book, but after finishing it and giving it some thought, I grew to really like it as I considered all of the ironies within.  I'll leave you to figure them out for yourself. The prose is lush and  descriptive, especially in detailing the beauties of the Guyanese landscape.   Some people have criticized the book for having no real resolution, but perhaps the lack of an ending tied up neatly in a little bow is reflective of the content of the novel.  Definitely and highly recommended.  There is a lot of really good fiction coming out of South Asia right now, and this book is no exception.