I paid full price for this book this week -- something I almost never do -- since it was just announced as a title on the 2004 Booker Prize longlist (addendum on 9/21/04 -- it didn't make the shortlist). Next on my TBR pile.

It's not until p. 5 of Maps for Lost Lovers that you know for sure whether this novel takes place in England or Pakistan (answer: England). The truth is, the story is set in an in-between place, in an unnamed town on a lake, at the base of an English valley known to its South Asian residents as Dasht-e-Tanhaii, "the Desert of Loneliness". Shamas, the protagonist, is a sixty-five year old former poet and Communist Party member, now Director of the Community Relations Council, who emigrated to England from the fictional town of Sohni Dharti ("beautiful land"), Pakistan in the 1950s. He is the person to whom his Pakistani and other South Asian neighbours turn for help in navigating the rough patches of their lives in England. His pious wife, Kaubab, is considerably more traditional and devout, and she and Shamas fail to see eye to eye on many social issues, with frequently tragic consequences. Both are part of the Pakistani diaspora, described at p. 9 of the novel:

"Pakistan is a poor country, a harsh and disastrously unjust land, its history a book full of sad stories, and life is a trial if not a punishment for most of the people born there: millions of its sons and daughters have managed to find footholds all around the globe in their search for livelihood and a semblance of dignity. Roaming the planet looking for solace, they've settled in small towns that make them feel smaller still, and in cities that have tall buildings and even taller loneliness.

At the heart of this story is the disappearance of Shamas' younger brother Jugnu, a Russian educated lepidopterist with glow-in-the-dark hands (earned during a stint painting radium dials in a clock factory), and his live-in lover Chanda, who've been missing -- and presumed dead -- for more than five months. Although Jugnu has lived for the better part of his life in Russia, the USA and England, and although he eschews many of the tenets of orthodox Islam, he and Chanda became notorious in Dasht-e-Tanhaii by living common-law in a house next door to Shamas and Kaukab's. It's widely supposed that Jugnu and Chanda may have been killed by Chanda's brothers in an "honour killing", and so the core story told in Maps for Lost Lovers involves the reactions of the main characters to this possibility, and the social consequences for Chanda and Jugnu's families.

Maps is a tragedy, by any definition. I thought of Monica Ali's Brick Lane while reading this book (the London neighbourhood of Brick Lane, an established South Asian community, is actually mentioned in Maps), and the two make an interesting comparison (both were Booker Prize nominees, although Maps didn't make it from the 2004 longlist to the shortlist). The book is literally peppered with stories of the brutalization of women (and some men and children) in the name of Islam -- passages like the description of what happens to a non-compliant young woman who is beaten and tortured to death by her own parents in an effort to drive the djinns from her body, are unforgettable. Nadeem Aslam is, it seems, unwilling to sugar-coat the bleak reality which forms the basis for Maps for Lost Lovers, and for this reason, it is a less enjoyable read than Brick Lane. But if you like your truths served straight-up, you may agree it is ultimately the more satisfying work.

You can read the Guardian's review of Map for Lost Lovers here, and the Independent's here.

INTERNATIONAL BOOKRAY

Rules of this bookray:
1. This is an international bookray -- if you join, you must be willing to ship anywhere.
2. Please journal the book when you receive it, and again when you mail it out -- that way, everyone will know the book's approximate location.
3. If you don't think you'll be able to read this book within a reasonable time of receipt, please let me know before it's sent to you by the previous reader, and I'll be happy to move your name down the list.
4. Whether you have read the book or not, please do not keep it longer than six weeks. Thanks!

Participants:
1. Ada2 - North Avoca, New South Wales, Australia - rec'd December 23, 04; mailed March 19, 05.
2. tantan - Gympie, Queensland, Australia - rec'd April 1, 05; mailed May 23, 05.
3. Soongsis2 - Singapore - rec'd May 30, 04; mailed June 23, 05.
4. Fellraven - Redditch, England, UK - rec'd June 28, 05; mailed July 6, 05.
5. tuff517 - McQueeney, Texas, USA - rec'd August 10, 05; mailed August 26, 05.
6. jenvince - Sherman Oaks, California, USA - rec'd September 3, 05; mailed September 13, 05.
7. Migdal - Warsaw, Poland - rec'd September 20, 05.

This arrived in my mailbox two days before Christmas...so I popped it under the tree for surprise on Christmas morning! Looks great - really looking forward to reading it. I have a few before it, but should make the 'six week' turnaround....
Thanks for including the reviews and web links on your entry goatgrrl - very interesting and informative....

PMd Ada2 on March 15, 2005 asking for an update on how she's doing with this book -- hope all is well, Ada2!

Hallo goatgrrl and fellow-readers,
Can't get this finished! It's a beautiful book and I've enjoyed the first quarter, but time is against me I'm afraid. The imagery and atmosphere in the book are stunning and the attention to the tiniest emotional and scene detail is rarely found in modern literature. A lovely book, and I will return to it when I have more time on my hands....
A recent job change has diminished my available reading time (I used to read whilst travelling), as well as an increasing interest in writing.
So I have contacted tantan and will send this in the next few days when I receive her address.
Happy reading to all....

I just read that Maps for Lost Lovers was awarded the 2005 Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize for fiction.

I received this yesterday thanks to Ada2. I've got a few in front of it, but I'll get to this as soon as I can.

My apologies for having had this so long. I've just started today, and will get through this as quickly as I can.

This was a rather slow read, but what a beautiful and yet also terrible story. The writing was exquisite, and every word had the ability to be savoured. Definitely a worthwhile read.

I feel terrible that I've hung onto this for so long, and it will be heading off to Soongsis2 as soon as I have an address.

Came in the mail today! What coincidence - 2 South Asian themed books arrived today... the other one is The Mistress of Spices. I think I will go for an Indian meal this coming weekend to keep with theme. :-)

Looking forward to reading this book.

Update: 21st June 2005
This is a beautiful but very painful book to read! I couldn't bring myself to read it in one go, but only bit by bit, or else it'll be too unbearable. The tragedy and pain all the main characters go through seemed so unremitting and there was no redemption in sight except to bear with it as best as one can.

I could really empathise with Kaukab with her overwhelming (and misguided) love and expectations for her children, and her insecurities with adapting to life in a foreign culture was heartbreaking. Shamas, her husband, was also a sympathetic character, the goodness and charity of his heart regardless of race or religion, his yearning for that spark in life that Suraya ignited in him... But their dreams all came to nothing.

**Spoiler Alert**
What I didn't understand is the ending... how did Shamas died as mentioned in the last chapter? Was it an accident when he went to drop the jar of coins into the lake towards the end of the book? OR this happened much later, and this was another murder. Help, please!

Leighspeak asked to be skipped, so will send this onto Fellraven by end of this week.

Thanks goatgrrl for organising this ring and sharing such a haunting story.

Update: 23rd June 2005
Dropped it off at the post office today to Fellraven via airmail. Cheers!

Received from Soongsis2 in this morning's post and I'll start reading it straight away.

Previous readers have already said much of what needs to be said about this novel and its themes. It *was* painful to read, being a seering indictment of superstition, hypocrisy, misogyny and vicious tribal brutalities rife and accepted as normal amongst the poorest and most poorly educated Muslims living in Britain - Muslims left behind by their more educated and more prosperous co-religionists who have fled the run-down urban areas such as the one in which the story is set for pleasanter, suburban, surroundings.

It was also a *beautiful* read, full of lyricism and poetry which contrast hideously with the ugly, backward culture which Aslam depicts. To be honest I'm rather surprised that Aslam hasn't found himself on the receiving end of a fatwa from some enraged cleric or other. As well as the aforementioned indictment of superstition etc, he puts words of blasphemy and apostasy into the mouth of Shamas and his younger son Ujala and writes graphically of the complicity of the mosque authorities in covering up serial sexual abuse of children by a junior cleric at the mosque. Perhaps things *have* moved on from the days when Rushdie was the subject of a fatwa for *his* writings perceived as critical of Islam.

Edited to add that I was surprised by the number of typographical errors in the book. I counted getting on for 20 of them, which is very high for a relatively expensive trade paperback. Anything more than a couple is very strange these days.

I'll be posting this off to tuff517 tomorrow.

Posted to tuff517 today by surface mail.

Received today, will start ASAP.

This was a beautiful book. The words and descriptions were as colorful as the wings of an Eastern Tailed Blue Moth. I thought it was a sad story, of people mired in circumstance, mired in belief, life, choice. I felt great regard for Shamas until his decision regarding Saraya. I pitied him then. For Kaukab I also felt pity and frustration towards her. I wonder at their faith that turns them against their own family. Not deriding it, just wondering. Thanks so much for sharing this book. Will send on to jenvince tomorrow.

It's here! Will get to this as soon as I can.

I feel bad. I've picked this up several times, tried to get into it, and have put it down. I'm just having trouble with it. I'm sending it on to the next person 9/13/05.

It's here :] Just received the package.
I'll start reading it this evening, I should finish it quite fast, cose later I won't have time fot it.
Sending it next week is very possible.
Argh can't wait to read it and yet I have so much to do today :D

goatgrrl I'll PM you during this weekend.

Book has arrived this morning 'safe and sound' and it does looks fabulous!
Migdal thank you so much for sending it here :)
Cheers!