Moth Smoke
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4.1 • 42 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
The debut novel from the internationally bestselling author of Exit West and The Reluctant Fundamentalist, both shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
In contemporary Pakistan, Daru Shezad is fired from his banking job in Lahore and thus begins a decline that plummets him into a dangerous world of drugs and crime. Fast-paced and unexpected, Moth Smoke portrays a Pakistan far more vivid and complex than the exoticized images of South Asia that are oft protrayed in the West.
This complex story established Mohsin Hamid as an internationally important writer of substance and imagination and the premier Pakistani author of our time, a promise he has amply fulfilled with each successive book. This debut novel, meanwhile, remains as compelling and deeply relevant to the moment as when it appeared more than a decade ago.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hamid subjects contemporary Pakistan to fierce scrutiny in his first novel, tracing the downward spiral of Darashikoh "Daru" Shezad, a young man whose uneasy status on the fringes of the Lahore elite is imperiled when he is fired from his job at a bank. Daru owes both the job and his education to his best friend Ozi's father, Khurram, a corrupt former official of one of the Pakistan regimes who has looked out for Daru ever since Daru's father, an old army buddy of Khurram's, died in the early '70s. As the story begins, Ozi has just returned from America, where he earned a college degree, with his wife, Mumtaz, and child. From the moment they meet, Daru and Mumtaz are drawn to each other. Mumtaz is fascinated by Daru's air of suppressed violence, and Daru is intrigued by Mumtaz's secret career as an investigative journalist; the two share a taste for recreational drugs, sex and sports. But their affair really begins after Daru witnesses Ozi, driving recklessly, mow down a teenage boy and flee the scene. Daru decides then that Ozi is morally bankrupt. But as Daru becomes more dependent on drugs, the arrogance he himself has absorbed from his upper-class upbringing stands out in stark contrast to his circumstances. Daru's noirish, first-person account of his moral descent, culminating with murder, interweaves with chapters written in the distinctive voices of the other characters. One in particular comes vividly to life: Murad Badshah, a sort of Pakastani Falstaff, officially the head of a rickshaw company, but kept afloat by drug dealing and robbery. Hamid's tale, played out against the background of Pakistan's recent testing of a nuclear device, creates a powerful image of an insecure society toying with its own dissolution.
Customer Reviews
Deterioration Done Almost Perfectly
Growing up as a Pakistani—American, I really only knew the contexts of my people when it involved terrorism. Upon engaging myself within literature, I found a need to explore such works within a scope I knew existed beyond what I had experienced throughout my early years. Moth Smoke is a brilliant commentary, in my opinion, on how the indulgences of selfish pleasures intoxicate common sense. Save one scene involving a palm reader and excessive sexual scenes (I’m a muslim), I can see this book being a literary Breaking Bad to someone. To me, it’s its own unique conglomeration of deterioration—save the included scenes that go against my beliefs.
Excellent
Hamid’s first novel and arguably his best. This story has so many levels to it. Are you the moth or the flame?
Oddly relatable
The story was very captivating!