Moth Smoke download epub

by Mohsin Hamid

Epub Book: 1127 kb. | Fb2 Book: 1278 kb.

Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Mohsin Hamid grew up in Lahore, attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School, and worked as a management consultant in New York and London.

Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Winner of a Betty Trask Award. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Brisk, absorbing, inventive. The first, Moth Smoke, won a Betty Trask award, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award.

I deeply enjoyed this book and the style of writing employed by Mohsin Hamid, he at once conveys the frustrations, elation, and tribulations of his characters

I deeply enjoyed this book and the style of writing employed by Mohsin Hamid, he at once conveys the frustrations, elation, and tribulations of his characters. Meanwhile he manages to weave together the snapshot of a man's life with the fate of an entire nation, and for that this work should be applauded.

Mohsin Hamid (Urdu: محسن حامد‎; born 23 July 1971) is a British Pakistani novelist, writer and brand consultant. His novels are Moth Smoke (2000), The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007), How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia (2013), and Exit West (2017). Born to family of Punjabi and Kashmiri descent, Hamid spent part of his childhood in the United States, where he stayed from the age of 3 to 9 while his father, a university professor, was enrolled in a PhD program at Stanford University.

His first novel, Moth Smoke (originally published by Granta in 2000 and now reissued by Penguin in paperback), provides the context for this clash of cultures in its portrait of a country violently divided against itself. Set over one sweltering summer in Lahore, Moth Smoke traces the disintegration of Daru Shezad, a junior banker with a fondness for hash and wisecracks

In Moth Smoke, Mohsin Hamid crafts a complex story and leaves you to judge the characters, their insecurities, their arrogance, and their crimes

In Moth Smoke, Mohsin Hamid crafts a complex story and leaves you to judge the characters, their insecurities, their arrogance, and their crimes. Dara has lost his job, and all desire to pull out from the economic slump that leaves him in. He is resigned to let his insecurities take him over. Reuniting with his childhood pal Ozi and Ozi's beautiful wife Mumtaz, bring out all the hitherto buried uncertainties.

Mohsin Hamid Mothsmoke. Want to like this page?

Mohsin Hamid Mothsmoke.

Mohsin Hamid is the author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Moth Smoke and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia.

Winner of a Betty Trask Award. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

For Nasim, Naved, and Zebunnisa. Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Hamid steers us from start to finish with assurance and care’.

The debut novel from the internationally bestselling author of Exit West and The Reluctant Fundamentalist, both shortlisted for the Man Booker PrizeMoth Smoke, Mohsin Hamid’s deftly conceived first novel, immediately marked him as an uncommonly gifted and ambitious young literary talent to watch when it was published in 2000. It tells the story of Daru Shezad, who, fired from his banking job in Lahore, begins a decline that plummets the length of Hamid’s sharply drawn, subversive tale.

Fast-paced and unexpected, Moth Smoke was ahead of its time in portraying a contemporary Pakistan far more vivid and complex than the exoticized images of South Asia then familiar to the West. It 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.

Comments: (7)

Freaky Hook

Mohsin Hamid is astounding in his range. This is clearly his voice, yet the book is so different from the others I've read from him that I become more astounded at his ability with everything I read. This first novel doesn't read like a first novel. There is no experimenting for experimentations' sake. There is no endlessly flowery prose. Every word is perfect. While it does skip around in time, that's extremely common, and this novel has a purpose for the jumps in time. We're drawn in by a scene that sets up a mystery - how will Daru end up where he does? And in the book, we're confronted with all sorts of red herrings that aren't obviously red herrings. It's wonderful, and I had no problem following the story. Scratch that. I loved following the story. And pages/chapters/breaks are clearly marked - situating us in the time and place for every part.

Daru Shezad is someone we all know -- whether we admit to it or not. He's not "exotic" despite how foreign the locale may be to me or other readers. He's an unemployed man of privilege - in love with the wrong woman and taking his anger out on anyone he deems less worthy than him. We know at the outset that Daru is not going to fare well and everything he does makes his situation worse, but it's so much fun to watch him crater. And he's not entirely unsympathetic. Hamid treats his characters gently, even while he makes us laugh aloud. Then there is the writing and the moth smoke itself - everything that makes the book sumptuous even while it's a meditation on vast wealth, a life of privilege and what we might do to keep up with the Pakistani Joneses.

Silver Globol

Hamid is one author I am going to read ferociously. I wanted to crawl inside his prose-- it was electrifying, razor-sharp, melancholic, to the point. I can't describe exactly why I loved this book, but I did. I love how the characters were all flawed, and you find yourself in bed with them even when they don't deserve your sympathy. The book sharpened a dull understanding of Lahore, Pakistan, and made me eager to go deeper. Great book overall.

Eta

Very strong first novel by Pakistani writer, Mohsin Hamid. Daru's story of a failed attempt at social mobility gives Hamid plenty of room to criticize the lasting effects of colonialism, namely tension between cultural traditions and capitalist values.

The novel is experimental in structure with some chapters following the narrative in a straightforward manner and others written as interviews with minor characters. Though messy at times, the structure does give some interesting insight into how the different classes function and live in modern Pakistan.

Zadora

Moth Smoke is a short but interesting novel that focuses on the imprisonment of Daru and the events that lead to the downfall of his life. The book appears at first to skip around, and can become somewhat confusing as you're taken through the twists and turns of the upper and middle class of Pakistan. As you traverse the novel you meet different characters who all play an important part in Daru's life, and have a large affect on his fate.

While the book starts, centered in the courtroom where he is accused of murdering a child, it quickly shifts to the story as it needs to be told by the main character and eventually his former best friend, his once lover (who is also his best friend's wife) and brief appearances from servants to pugnacious rickshaw drivers.

Though we learn a great deal about Daru's life, from being fired from his job and living without electricity in the middle of the hot Pakistani summer what is more important is the relationships he has and the different perspectives that all of the characters have on how his life and the story unfolds. I found this enchanting and very well pulled off, it gives the reader a glimpse into other minds and a chance to see through other eyes throughout the book.

This isn't a novel that alienates those who are unfamiliar with the culture of Pakistan, it does a very good job of illustrating the different nuances and differences of life and the author makes several acerbic but accurate observations on his culture. If anything, Moth Smoke is about the plight of the common man in a country struggling at once for footing in the modern world and global economy and the people who are trapped between classes hard to bridge for both old and new reasons.

I deeply enjoyed this book and the style of writing employed by Mohsin Hamid, he at once conveys the frustrations, elation, and tribulations of his characters. Meanwhile he manages to weave together the snapshot of a man's life with the fate of an entire nation, and for that this work should be applauded.

Tamesya

The novel is set in 90’s Lahore which is in middle of corruption scandals and class warfare. Mohsin’s writing style is quite engaging coupled with a very unique style of narrative. Even though this is his first work, it’s not hard to spot the signs of a good author in making.

The novel revolves around the story of a young middle class man who is trying to find his way up in a world that is skewed in favor of rich, corrupt and powerful. There is very strong underlying theme of disillusionment and defeatism that continues throughout the course of the story. Read this book if you are in a reflective mood and looking for something different.

kewdiepie

Hamid is a very good novelist. I've read everything he wrote. His novels are all very engaging ("How to Get Filthy Rich is Rising Asia" is the weakest, but it's still very good, especially it's ending). He writes about Pakistan, though "Moth Smoke" is the only book in which the country is explicitly named. His heros are people who are born into poverty but are clawing their way upward. The reader gets an acute sense of the ruthlessness needed to survive in ways Americans, especially those of us who are middle class or better, rarely see in such raw detail. One's empathy is expanded. For me this book felt more informative and eye-opening than I imagine a trip to Pakistan would be.

Genre Fiction

Author: Mohsin Hamid
ISBN: 1594486603
Category: Literature & Fiction
Subcategory: Genre Fiction
Language: English
Publisher: Riverhead Books; Reprint edition (December 4, 2012)
Pages: 288 pages

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