Author Talk (2)

 The synopsis on the back

In Lahore, Daru Shezad is a junior banker with a hashish habit. When his old friend Ozi moves back to Pakistan, Daru wants to be happy for him. Ozi has everything: a beautiful wife and child, an expensive foreign education - and a corrupt father who bankrolls his lavish lifestyle. As jealousy sets in, Daru's life slowly unravels. He loses his job. Starts lacing his joints with heroin. Becomes involved with a criminally-minded rickshaw driver. And falls in love with Ozi's lonely wife. But how low can Daru sink? Is he guilty of the crime he finds himself on trial for?

I'll be frank, I wasn't very happy considering reading Moth Smoke. I was extremely apprehensive, in fact. Books about drugs, corruption and adultery are not my cup of tea. I do NOT like skimming through books. I do NOT like extra, unnecessary words.

This book is NOT one of them. Hamid displays a pattern here. His books are eccentric, hard to catch up with and makes you read on despite digressing themes.

Daru's father was close with Ozi's corrupt civil servant father before he died. Therefore, both grow up with a certain degree of luxury and are very close to each other until of course Ozi gets the most cherished thing in any developed country: a foreign degree. Despite getting better SAT scores and grades, Daru remains in Pakistan and life goes nowhere.

In a country where bank jobs are merely a trade off between the monthly salary and the rich family accounts brought in by the employee, Daru is truly in a soup when he recklessly loses his job (got by Ozi's father) at the bank when he fails to cozy up to a client.

Then begins a steep downward coaster ride with Daru losing his job, doing drugs, selling drugs, sleeping around with his best friend's wife and even armed robbery.

The main thing about this book was its central theme to moth smoke. It doesn't show itself to me until about halfway into the book.

That’s an ugly moth,’ I say.
I wait for Manucci’s response, but he says nothing.
The moth doesn't move.
‘He’s afraid,’ Manucci says.
‘He should be. Love’s a dangerous thing.’ I look carefully. Dark streaks run down the moth’s folded wings. ‘Maybe he’s burnt himself.

The moth takes off again, and we both step back, because he’s circling at eye level now and seems to have lost rudder control, smacking into the wall on each round. He circles lower and lower, spinning around the candle in tighter revolutions, like a soap sud over an open drain. A few times he seems to touch the flame, but dances off unhurt.Then he ignites like a ball of hair, curling into an oily puff of fumes with a hiss. The candle flame flickers and dims for a moment, then burns as bright as before.Moth smoke lingers.

From here on Daru is like a moth to the fire that is his pal's wife. It has a deeper meaning suggesting Pakistan's self destruction in the late 90s and also creates an Urdu literature like image in my head that is truly unique and differs itself from other literature in the subcontinent.

This book is filled with uncertainty at all times. Through Daru's fall from society, Hamid seeks to explore the complexities and corruption of Pakistan's late 90s society. It is not a flattering picture and gives you an air of reality by the lack of any moral stance by Hamid. Daru is a victim of circumstance, but is also capable of cruelty, hypocrisy and poor decisions. His pride takes a beating when his rich friends find out that he has stooped to the level of a drug dealer. His frustration is evident that the only way into Ozi's world is money.

Though the book involves much of Pakistan, it is simply a backdrop. The real story here is the smoke, the Moth Smoke. This is a story about love, betrayal, crime and punishment.

This book rants on, digresses and somehow manages to keep the reader interested. Though not perfect, Hamid's first book, the portrayal of corrupt Pakistan in the 90 s is much like the portrayal of the corrupt neighbor India by another debutante Arvind Adiga's Man Booker Prize winning book The White Tiger. Though cynical, it isn't implausible and mirrors How to Become Filthy Rich in Rising Asia in many ways. Just like How to become filthy rich in Rising Asia this book hasn't sunk in yet, but with interesting and thought provoking comparisons and a witty script it has caught my attention. All in all, a powerful read.

Author Talk

Speechless.

Having seen almost all of the top 250 IMDb movies, I really was amazed after watching unquestionably one of the top 20 thrillers I've seen. 

The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a movie about a Pakistani who after immense soul searching and a journey through 2 continents is now a Professor at the tense Lahore University, which can erupt into riots any second. This is a movie that will keep you on the edge of your seat at all times. No, not because a bomb is about to go off or the world is on the brink of nuclear warfare, its because Changez Khan, the protagonist is giving you a flashback into his life filled with intense drama, soul searching that will make you think and think hard.



Mohsin Hamid is a young overachieving author. After graduating from Princeton, he took to Mckinsey and studied law at Harvard Law School. He seems to have created the protagonist Changez much like him. They both share their home nation, their school, and even their financial analyst job in the same firm.

Right from his first sentence, "Excuse me, Sir, but may I be of any assistance", Hamid draws us into the dark and deep mind of Changez. It shows us through a different light the rise of fundamentalism in the United States, something he hated Pakistan for. Such is the bond with the reader and Changez that you cannot but help feel sympathetic.

  “I stared as one — and then the other — of the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center collapsed. And then I smiled. Yes, despicable as it may sound, my initial reaction was to be remarkably pleased." 

                                                                                              -Changez Khan

Though this sounds like another book about the immigrants' tales of hardship and racism, it is not. This book is about a person who has it all but gives it up after he sees that it was not what it used to be anymore. What makes this book/ movie so much more unique is that it gives voice to two different perspectives, both from the same character at different points of his life. It is as much a book of The United States hypocrisy as it it is of the numerous faults of Pakistan. Extreme times results in extreme writing and this book is exemplary in that sense.

Hamid has an art of subtly referencing to the dynamics of the Pakistani mind. Through his three books: Moth Smoke, The Reluctant Fundamentalist and How to get filthy rich in rising Asia, Hamid effectively traverses through the insecurities and the transitional thinking of the modern Pakistani. Both in The Reluctant Fundamentalist and HTGFRIRA, the protagonist is a new breed of the ambitious, willing-to-do-anything-for-success kind of person. Hailing from Asia myself, I know that Hamid has done an excellent and realistic job of portraying Pakistan where slums exist right beside million dollar homes.

Add to this mix eccentric decisions like labeling a Slumdog Millionaire like plot a self help book and referring to the protagonist as "you" and his girl as "the pretty girl", you've got yourself an awesome read by an even more awesome author. 

Mario Vargus Llosa

We have discussed at length Vargus Llosa's book, Lituma en los Andes and briefly the scenario in which he wrote the book.

Vargus Llosa however is much more than a failed presidential candidate of Peru. He is more a writer (he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010) who got pulled into politics by chance rather than a failed politician who happened to stumble into writing. He was initially a staunch leftist and vocally supported Castro's Cuba until Heberto Padilla's imprisonment. This turned him into a conservative or at best a moderate "rightist". 

 "But whence the Thatcherite drift of a man who had been an enthusiast for Fidel Castro in his youth? Salman Rushdie detected it as early as 1984 in the novel The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta (1984), deeming the book Vargas Llosa's "first overtly right-wing tract", but in truth he had drifted rightwards long before then: in 1971 he broke with his earlier enthusiasm for the Cuban revolution and mocked García Márquez as "Castro's courtesan"".      

                                                                                                           - The Guardian, 2012
With no experience in politics before, he was an outsider to both the leading parties at the time but was more of a prestigious image in the eyes of the people. This was the edge he required and to a large extent won the trust of the people.

Yet his very inexperience as a politician is one of his strengths because all other likely contenders are associated with political parties that have contributed to the present crisis. He is also the beneficiary of Latin America's tradition of looking to its literary figures as ''national consciences'' who are expected to provide moral leadership during times of disarray.

                                                                                                          - The New York Times, 1988
However, he was increasingly seen as a dreamer, unable to make pragmatic choices and his public reluctance at running for the presidency was a huge setback.

Unsurprisingly, with cartoonists showing the tall, slim, elegant writer as an aloof preppie figure lost in an alien world, many of Mr. Vargas Llosa's friends are already wondering aloud whether he has the thirst for power necessary to keep going on the 20-month march to elections.

His highly Utopian views on repairing Peru's economy was very unpopular with the rural peasants who would lose thousands of jobs as a result of harsh austerity programs that he eschewed.  While these were in theory, the right way to move forward, they were politically not feasible. It was these policies that gave a little known Japanese descent contender - Fujimori the advantage in the form of support by the Andean peasants.

After a long hiatus from writing he lashed out at the ignorant peasants of the Andes by releasing two books,
Who killed Palomino Molero? and Death in the Andes.

Lituma: British or American?

I'll start out with something we heard in class.

There are two kinds of detectives: British, like Sherlock Holmes who use their extraordinary skill to follow "clues" and solve crimes almost in a couple of days and the second, American ......
( I don't know any really famous American detectives but you get the point.....)

As the book comes to an end you will notice that Lituma is slightly better defined as a person that say Rufus.
He's honest, crass and cannot easily get forget grave injustices committed to the powerless.
But was he always like that? Was he always this perfect? Was he too a Tomasito once with his own Mercedes?

To find out I've revisited Mario Vargus Llosa's book. No, not Death in the Andes! but
"Who killed Palomino Molero?", another book that features Lituma but hey! this time he's a chicken.

At a glance

So a little about the book.
The two cops this time are Lieutenant Silva and our own Lituma. Lituma plays second fiddle to Silva and we get valuable insight into Lituma's character as the book progresses. And yes, they are solving the murder of Palomino Molero. Molero enlisted though he was exempt to be close to a woman living close to an air base. Colonel Mindreau is the commander of the air base.


"I just can't stop thinking about that skinny kid. I have nightmares. I think someone's pulling off my balls like the way they did to him. His balls were hanging down to his knees, smashed as a pair of fried eggs."


Thats the compassionate Lituma we know. (Sob!)




“Why do you hate us?” thought Lituma. “And why are you such a bully, asshole?”
Lituma wondered whether the colonel’s peremptory, unwavering tone would intimidate his boss and make him back down. But Lieutenant Silva stood firm.

Mindreau turned to Lituma. “You did? What was it?”

Lituma cleared his throat to answer, but the colonel’s sardonic expression silenced him. Then he blurted out: “Palomino Molero was deeply in love and it seems . . .”

“Why are you stuttering?” asked the colonel. “Not feeling well?”

“Where did you get that stuff about Palomino Molero having an affair with a lady from the Piura Air Force Base?”

“I have no proof, Colonel,” stammered Lituma, frightened out of his wits. “I found out that he would give serenades around here.”

Lituma isn't exactly the epitome of courage and determination here now is he?

“He really put us through the ringer, didn’t he, Lieutenant?” Lituma dried his brow with a handkerchief. “I’ve never met a guy with a worse temper. Do you think he hates the Guardia Civil just because he’s a racist, or do you think he has a specific reason? Or does he treat everybody that way? Nobody, I swear, ever made me swallow so much shit as that bald bastard.”

“You’ve got a lot to learn about this business, Lituma,” said the lieutenant, laughing. “It was a bitch of an interview, let me tell you. Unbelievably useful.”

“That means I didn’t understand a thing, Lieutenant. It looked to me as though the colonel was treating us like scum, worse than the way be probably treats his servants. Did he even give us what we asked for?”

‘Appearances are tricky, Lituma.” Lieutenant Silva once again burst into laughter. “As far as I’m concerned, the colonel yakked like a drunken parrot.”

Ah, seems you've a lot to learn Lituma!

It was a kind of waking dream, again and again he saw the happy couple enjoying their premarital honeymoon in the humble streets of Amotape: he a half-breed cholo from Castilla; she a white girl of good family. There are no barriers to love, as the old waltz said. In this case the song was correct: love had broken through social and racial prejudices, as well as the economic abyss that separated the two lovers. The love they must have felt for each other had to have been intense, uncontrollable, to make them do what they did. “I’ve never felt a love like that, not even that time I fell in love with Meche, Josefmo’s girl.” No, he’d fallen in love a couple of times, but they were passing fancies that faded if the woman gave in or if she put up such a strong resistance that he finally got bored. But he’d never felt a love so powerful he’d risk his life for it, the kind the kid had felt, the kind that had made the girt stand up to the whole world. “Maybe I’m not the kind who gets to feel real love,” he thought. “Probably it’s because I’ve spent my life chasing whores with the Unstoppables, my heart’s turned whore, and now I can’t love a woman the way the kid did.”

WHOOPS! HE HAD IT FOR MERCEDES TOO

Ok, alright I'll finish the book and the blog now...

“What was Palomino Molero like, miss?” A chill ran down Lituma’s spine, he was so surprised to hear himself. He’d spoken without premeditation, point-blank. Neither the lieutenant nor the girl turned to look at him. Now Lituma walked just behind them, occasionally stumbling.

“The nicest boy in the world. An angel come from heaven.”

“That’s right, the guitar. His mother, Doña Asunta, from Castilla, is a little crazy on the subject of her son’s guitar. She wants to get it back. Who could have stolen it?”

“I have it,” said Alicia Mindreau. Her voice broke suddenly, as if she hadn’t meant to say the words she’d just spoken.

“The poor old lady said, When they find the guitar, they’ll find the killers. Not that she knows anything. Pure women’s or mothers’ intuition.”

He felt the lieutenant turn to look at him.

“What’s she like?” said the girl. Now she turned, and for a second Lituma saw her face: dirty, pale, irascible, and curious.

“Do you mean Doña Asunta, Palomino Molero’s mother?”

“Is she a chola, a half-breed?” specified the girl impatiently. It seemed to Lituma that his boss guffawed.

He wished he were there with them instead of here listening to these things. And, nevertheless, he heard himself whisper: “And what about your other boyfriend, miss?” As he spoke, he felt he was balancing on a high wire.

“You must mean Miss Mindreau’s official boyfriend,” said the lieutenant, correcting Lituma. He sweetened his tone as he spoke to her: “Because since you came to love Palomino Molero, I would imagine that Lieutenant Dufó could only be a kind of screen to keep up appearances in front of your father. That’s how it was, right?”

“That’s right.”

“So your dad wouldn’t catch on about your love for Palomino Molero. Naturally, it wouldn’t exactly make your father happy to find out his daughter was in love with an ordinary airman.”

“The one who brought me the revolver and told me to kill him was Daddy. What will you do to him?”

So now the story's over, what do you think about the other side of Lituma.
I sure as hell got to see Lituma as he grew into the man he is.

Seems like he has experienced a lot and with his Lieutenant and cracked a high profile case involving the colonel. What now? How'd he meet Tomasito?

“Bad news for you. You’ve been transferred to a little station as imaginary as those stories, somewhere in Junín Province. You’ve got to get there right away. They’ll pay for the bus ticket.”

“Junín?”

“I’m being transferred, too, but I still don’t know where. Maybe the same place.”

“That’s got to be far away.”

“Now you see, asshole,” the lieutenant teased him affectionately. “You were so eager to solve the mystery of Palomino Molero. Well, now it’s solved, and I did it for you. So what do we get for our trouble? You’re transferred to the mountains, far from your heat and your people. They’ll probably find a worse hole for me. That’s how they thank you for a job well done in the Guardia Civil. What will become of you out there, Lituma? Your kind of animal just doesn’t grow there. I feel sorry just thinking about how cold you’re going to be.”

“Sons of bitches.”

What's the book about?

Zaq's accomplishments, Rufus' dilemmas, Boma's troubles and the Major's woes- Oil on water has taken me on a wild goose chase as I attempt to make sense of what this book is about. So I sat down one Saturday and read the whole book ahead of the class to see what this book is really about. Then I sat in class and watch the drama unfold. As we discussed each subtopic, I saw that the plot efficiently deceives. It immerses us within the journey of Zaq and Rufus while slowly revealing a bigger picture. Habila believes in writing about the present and in retrospect, I see that plot was just that; a plot.

"It's well written, and it's well researched; maybe that's why he won. But I'm against that kind of writing. It's just bullshit. That is the kind of stuff that Achebe wrote in Things Fall Apart. Fifty years ago. There are things to write about that are not just Africans going about naked and all that shit. Where everybody is speaking in proverbs. It doesn't happen. It's just not there anymore. So we just have to write about what's happening now."
                                                                                 -Habila in an interview

Oil on Water offers a detailed narrative of the plot, often taking up couple of pages in the process of explaining events in great detail. Slick, wet oil on the trees, heart-wrenching, emotional flashbacks of the Major ,Zaq and Rufus and the quest to achieve journalistic excellence all form enjoyable and interesting parts of the book. Helon Habila uses this book to show the effects of the oil exploration on the people of Nigeria while being annoyingly lengthy and a stickler for details. The ending took me completely by surprise as he veered away from his style and left the plot wide open to interpretations of the reader.


To understand the source of Habila's inspiration, I look to Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe. Achebe's book is the standard for modern African novel in English. The protagonist of the book, Okonkwo, cannot adjust to the change brought by white men to his village in Nigeria. It focuses on the ultimate destruction of Okonkwo due to his inability of coming to terms with modern culture. A similar feature in Habila's book is the oil which brings about tremendous change in the lives of millions in Nigeria and washes away those who do not conform and adapt to its ravages.


While I try to gauge what the meaning of the book is Habila takes me to issue of the human effect of oil on the waters of Africa. In turn I look to the effects like poverty, hunger, forced migration and corruption in the Tropic of Chaos (countries between Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn). I appreciate Habila's story but what I appreciate more is his indirect reference to the larger picture.
Any other interpretations?