I’m half tempted to never write a review for this book again. Stress on the word ‘again’ because I’d already written and saved half of it and then promptly forgot about it right before I sent my laptop for repairs and IT GOT DELETED. Only someone who’s lost a significant portion of written material to a stupid mistake will be able to relate to the frustration that is a re-write. And of course you never remember exactly what you wrote, so you’re stuck in that awkward position where you want to write what you’d already mentioned, except now you have no memory of what that was. Which is why this book had been gathering dust in a corner for weeks until finally, moaning and groaning, I dragged it out.
Admittedly, I wouldn’t have been so against the idea of reviewing this if it had been a great collection of stories, but it’s really not. I get what the author was trying to do, by featuring characters from all sorts of religious/financial/social backgrounds, but I just didn’t care about them enough to feel invested. And while I’ve a strong sense of awareness about my casual indifference to short stories, I’ve read enough really good ones to know that quality can always convince me. With this collection, I wasn’t convinced at all.
Composed of ten entries, it’s pretty sad that the first one was the best out of the ten, because the quality steadily declined from there. In All in the Family, a man marries twice, with the stereotypical rivalry between both wives rearing up almost instantly. But what makes this tale interesting is that it mostly focuses on the women in the relationship, and gives them both agency in their lives. When their wayward husband’s intention to marry a third time becomes known, the wives are forced to figure out how to work together to protect their own interests, culminating in an ending I really didn’t see coming, which pleased me greatly, and made me hopeful for the rest of the series.
Daud knew that there was no love lost between the women, but managed to avoid taking sides. The feud worked to his advantage as both women fought to hold his interest.
Even the second entry could have maybe sustained my interest, given its focus on a ragtag family of beggars and thieves. A young boy named Peeru, growing up hungry and beaten on the streets, becomes the accidental caretaker of the street kids who become part of his temporary family. With one girl assaulted and another sold into child prostitution, Peeru finally takes things into his own hands when his ‘father’ tries to sell the kidneys of the youngest member of this family. This story might possibly have the best ending of all in this collection, raising lots of questions about poverty and desperation and the grey spaces between right and wrong. Unfortunately, the distance that the writing maintains detracts from feeling any emotions for anyone involved. In fact, it might be this minimalism in the writing that is the undoing of the whole series. Tales that could have been great for handling depth completely lack the expert touch which can draw the reader in, leaving everything very cold and detached.
This trend continues in the third story Sultana, where a husband is unable to deal with his wife’s sudden rise to fame after she discovers that she can sing well. I’m not sure how much this is based on reality in terms of the marital relationship, since it seems to imply a certain similarity to Pakistan’s own most famous ghazal singer Madam Noor Jehan. I didn’t quite know how to deal with the treatment of how a woman who is ambitious will ignore her family, since it seems to reek of misplaced misogyny, but I’m unable to provide a succinct review since I have, frankly, forgotten most of the plot already. All I know is that if the treatment of the subject matter had been well done, I would definitely have remembered, since in the hands of a Pakistani author that would have been a rare thing indeed.
It struck him that a transition had taken place. Sultana was no longer just a housewife but a rather more significant entity.
I think primarily the whole problem with this series can be summed up using one of my most-used labels: great idea, but bad execution. Even the fourth story in this entry, Queen’s Entry, which might get the most points for inclusivity (features a Muslim terrorist having an affair with a Christian girl, whose illegitimate child is then raised by a Hindu vegetable seller) can’t survive the treatment. This plot could make a great drama serial, with lots of material to work with, but it was severely empty of any actual feeling. Even though I loved the ending, cliché and all, in the hands of an expert storyteller it could have been something brilliant.
So even when the author was trying to make a point, or say something worth discussing, it would get lost in the bad writing. Through the fifth story, The Misfits (featuring two men, the son of a wealthy businessman and the businessman’s assistant, both caught in a corrupt world and horrified by it), AbdulKadir tried to show how good people could get caught up in the system, but was unable to properly create the sort of three dimensional characters who would elicit sympathy from the readers.
“Some are fully compromised; some partly so. There’s no way round it. If you want to work in this environment, you’ll be tainted sooner or later.”
This inability to breathe life into these characters is a damn shame, because the sixth story Through the Lattice tackled so many important issues. Assault, classism, marital rape, society’s expectations, and how well-educated women can be perceived to have loose morals all were touched upon fleetingly. What’s sad is not only the fact that it’s not well written, but also that the author seeks to only describe but never to criticize or censure. As a reflection of the society we live in, this particular entry is very good, but because it never goes out of its way or even mildly implies that these certain traditions or ways of thinking or being are wrong, I’m not sure how well I rate them. In fact, the author makes sure to never offer any commentary on his own, although you could argue that with his seventh entry, A Touch of Humanity, he redeems himself slightly. Featuring a widowed women involved in a slowly budding relationship over the internet, I was pleasantly surprised to find such a controversial topic being made the focal point of a story: online connections and widows are not really the forte of most Pakistani authors. Of course the fact that it’s not well written brings the whole thing crashing down on its head, but I’m glad that even if it’s not the best piece of writing, there is still someone out there willing to experiment.
Of course, then the tone of the stories change altogether, giving me whiplash with its back and forth between writing complex female characters and then resorting to subtle sexism. The eighth entry Two is an odd number features a marriage gone wrong, but seems to subtle imply continuously that it is the wife’s fault for that happening. Of course, I might have gotten the vibe all wrong, and it’s possible that the story did indeed feature the husband as being equally culpable, but about the only thing I remember is that when the couple are about to end up together again after their period of separation, we find out that the woman has gotten divorced while the man is a widower. These sort of conscious decisions writers take with their characters where stereotypes are bound to creep in (widower: deserving of sympathy; divorcee: incapable of maintaining her marriage) piss me off, because unconscious biases always come into play, and I don’t need that kind of subtle hinting, even if the writer didn’t mean it. Of course I know people argue that no writer thinks that much, but readers definitely read between the lines, which means I hold all authors to a higher standard of responsibility.
When leaving for London, she told Stefan that she understood his commitment to his beliefs but was not sure she was cut out for the part.
By this point I had already pretty much lost all interest, and the last two entries were so completely forgettable that the series finished on a complete low. I remember nothing at all from the second last tale Missing Person, and from Unfinished Mural all I remember is that it’s about an artist slowing going crazy. So a story you don’t remember and a story that makes no sense aren’t exactly the bang one wants to end with. Coupled with the fact that there is blatant misuse of ellipsis throughout the dialogues in these stories, which, why?! Why does everyone seem to speak in broken phrases with long, wonky pauses in between? It makes no sense.
“I saw the law being broken every day. Judges’ orders ignored, terrible crimes committed unchecked by citizens against citizens … abduction, rape, murder … of men, women, children … white-collar criminals patronized by top people … security agencies in cahoots with militants … and we are order by big guns to protect them in the courts of law.”
Basically, there’s some attempts at good stuff, but nothing remarkable enough to recommend. I think my barometer for stories that I think are ‘just okay’ is to see how long I remember them. If I come back to them later, even as a vague memory, it must mean that the story did something right. With this collection, I not only didn’t think about any of the stories, I ended up having to make an actual effort to remember what had happened in which entry. Definitely doesn’t age with grace, and not recommended.