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Title:
Trespassing: A Novel
Type: Book
Author(s): Uzma Aslam Khan
Publisher: Picador
Pages: 448
Binding: Paperback
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Other reviews |
| Product Description: |
Back in Karachi for his father's funeral, Daanish, a young Pakistani changed by his years at an American university, is entranced by Dia, a fiercely independent heiress to a silk factory in the countryside. Their illicit affair will forever rupture two households and three families, destroying a stable present built on the repression of a bloody past.
In this sweeping novel of modern Pakistan, Uzma Aslam Khan takes us from the stifling demands of tradition and family to the daily oppression of routine political violence, from the gorgeous sensual vistas of the silk farms to the teeming streets of Karachi--stinking, crumbling, and corrupt.
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| by anonymous customer: |
Fairly good, but not great
Uzma Aslam Khan in her first novel gives us an interesting and useful view of contemporary Pakistani life, but this book has its flaws. She uses the literary technique of bouncing forward and backward in time far too much, so that assembling the chronology in your mind can be difficult. The characters are presented often in the third person in such a way that they remain distant and, for me, not fully developed. Many women characters come across like romance novel stereotypes with a South Asian twist. Take note that the narrative includes a strong political polemic about United States foreign policy in Iraq and the Middle East which is one-sided and overblown, and yet still a good description of the way many -- indeed, most -- Pakistanis view the the course of U.S. activity and influence in the region. Several reviewers here have said they could not put this book down, but I was glad to be finished with it to get on to better writings. For a much better written and more enjoyable account of modern Pakistani lives and attitudes I would recommend Daniyal Mueenuddin's "In Other Rooms, Other Wonders," a National Book Award finalist. |
| by anonymous customer: |
Impressive!
I couldn't put this book down. This is a richly crafted novel about opposing cultures, youth, love and political conflict. Daanish and Dia are real. The author crafted their characters with such complexity that I felt as if we were all in the same room together. The stories of each family are spun as smoothly as the silk on which the story is based. Brilliant!
Linda C. Wright, Author, One Clown Short
One Clown Short
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| by anonymous customer: |
An excellently written, moving story
An excellently written, moving story that allowed me see some of what living in Lahore might be like. |
| by anonymous customer: |
An author ahead of her time?
I came across this book because I mentioned to a friend that I was sick of books written about 'the post-9/11 Muslim disaffection' and she said that TRESPASSING was written BEFORE and ABOUT pre-9/11 disaffection, so I might want to give it a try. I'm glad I did. It's a shame this book isn't getting as much attention as the spate of post-9/11 books, because there are so many things it puts into deeper perspective.
The character Daanish is studying in the States during the 1991 Gulf War, and the alienation and anger he feels as a young Muslim male during the Iraq invasion and subsequent American 'victory' are an eerie foreshadowing of the current crisis. It's not just the anti-Muslim media that oppresses him, but the general apathy of ordinary, even friendly Americans who don't want to know about their country's foreign policy. This book implies that the cost of this apathy is more anger, more alienation -- and more violence. If you want to know that the world we're living in today did not begin on 9/11, I highly recommend this book.
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| by anonymous customer: |
Amazing look in the complexities of contemporary Pakistan
Uzma Aslam Khan pulls off a very difficult feat in this novel. She successful creates a wide range of compelling characters who wind their way through various aspects of Pakistan of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The main protoganists are a male student who has returned home from America and is being set up with a woman from a well-connected family. The other is a free sprited local woman who has never been outside Pakistan and has fallen in love with this recent returnee, who is being set up with her best friend. Their relationship tests the limits of what is tolerated in a very traditional culture.
Other characters explore the political nature of life in Pakistan, from involvement in a movement against the government, to anger expressed at foreigners (i.e. Koreans fishing off the coast in traditional fishing waters to the First Iraq War.) This book is authentic in the sense that it explores the frustrations of Pakistani people, regardless of its justification. In fact, the author doesn't justify anything. She presents and lets the reader make his/her own judgements.
My only criticism is that she uses anti-U.S. Iraq War sources (i.e. from General Ramsey Clark) that the average Pakistani would not have access to and is very one-sided. However, this does not detract from the overall message that the average Pakistani was most certainly against the 1991 U.S. war in Iraq.
This is a moving tale and you feel sympathy for all of the principle characters who are caught in a system not of their own making and from which they cannot escape. The concerns are political, social, and economic.
Most Westerners have a difficult time seeing life through the lenses of those who don't have the freedoms and wealth that most in the world do not possess. Though I am an American who has lived many years overseas (I live in Taiwan), I live in a relatively open, prosperous and democratic country. Life here bears no resemblance at all to life as portrayed in Pakistan.
Ms. Khan deserves praise for daring to present to a Western audience the realities of Pakistani life as seen through her eyes. Even if you don't agree with some of the conclusions and beliefs of some of the characters, particularly vis a vis the United States, they also can't be denigrated or ignored. Even if you don't agree with the feelings of those in another culture and you feel they are the result of incomplete information, the feelings are still real and are ignored at our peril. Ms. Khan effectively weaves this into the story without being overly judgemental in her own right.
This book is a must read. |
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