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Moth Smoke

By Mohsin Hamid

(10)

| Paperback | 9781862074057

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Book Description

A fast-paced first novel that paints a dazzling portrait of contemporary Pakistan

When Daru loses his job as a banker in Lahore, he begins a long fall from grace that cascades the length of this lively and inventive tale. Too clever for his own good, he descends into drug dealing, then heroin adContinue

Critics

Moth Smoke, By Mohsin Hamid

A re-issue of Moshin Hamid's first, prize-winning novel, this is a story of crime and passion set in modern-day Lahore – a divided city where the intellectual elite party, drink, take drugs, have affairs, and make money while the mass of ordinary peo ... (read full critics)

independent published on Sun, 15 May 2011

Moth Smoke

I don't quite know how I missed MOHSIN HAMID's MOTH SMOKE when it came out in paperback last year, but I did. It's far too good and interesting a novel to let pass, and I should make amends. The relatively recent flourishing, artistic and commercial, ... (read full critics)

asianreviewofbooks published on Tue, 31 Aug 2010

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1 Review

This is a good, elaborate first novel set within the Pakistani upper-class; the story revolves around the fall of a young man and addresses issues such as the role of society in each individual's life and free will in a country where corruption rules.
The tale is developed through a series of diffe ... (continue)

This is a good, elaborate first novel set within the Pakistani upper-class; the story revolves around the fall of a young man and addresses issues such as the role of society in each individual's life and free will in a country where corruption rules.
The tale is developed through a series of different points of view (including the monologues of the main character, of his friends and lover and a second person narrator) and is marked by a strong symbolism; I sometimes wondered if this complicated and unusual structure, starting off with a kind of frame tale and displaying such a variety of voices and metaphors, flashbacks and time shifts, was fully justified and convincing, in particular with regards to the second-person narrator *****SPOILER**** (the judge) which I ended up considering a ruse to indirectly address the reader and prompt him/her to answer the moral question of responsibility, and to judge the “hero” (!!) guilty or not guilty *****END OF SPOILER****
I think the novel and the structure do work in the end, though it felt a bit fake and overdone to me.

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