What can one fairly expect from a debut novel? On the one hand, many writers take a book or two to get their first (often semi-autobiographical) thoughts out of their system and improve their craft. So it seems only fair to be less critical of a first-time author, in the hope that their second book will be better. On the other hand, the first books of many writers have been splendid — The God of Small Things, The Golden Gate, The Secret History, White Teeth.
Unfortunately, Mira Sethi’s Are you Enjoying? falls into the first category. A collection of linked short stories set in Pakistan, it benefits from the author’s familiarity with well-to-do Pakistani society. Still, this is not enough to make up for the shaky writing and the fact that the stories simply go nowhere, as if the author ran out of ideas.
In the first story, Mini Apple, Javed is a divorced forty-year-old on the rebound. The American embassy official who lives across the street is single, adventurous, confident, and they fall into a passionate but short-lived affair. The title of the story, it turns out, is the origin of the name Minneapolis where the American is from, but it’s also Javed’s fond description of her breasts. Their affair intensifies, at least on Javed’s part, and he forgets about his infant daughter and ex-wife. And then (sorry for the spoiler, but the events are not the point of the story) she leaves. He “gazes blankly forward”. I turned the page, assuming there was more, but there was not.
The writing was marred by sentences like these.
Maulana Amin rubbed his eyes, his stomach a gushing sack in the center of the screen.
Gushing? Good heavens, was the man being attacked by ninjas with swords?
The tamer descriptions are not as startling, but don’t add much in the way of visual or verbal imagery.
Her mouth was slack, in exaggerated disdain, like that of a comedian.
In one story, Mehak, a pretty, naive, and untalented actress, is pushed by a director to perform scenes that she is uncomfortable with, such as when another character kisses her cheek. She is then taken to a party full of women in dresses, where again she is uncomfortable. There is a gay tea-boy who she chats with. There is the suggestion of impending sexual exploitation and casting couches, but nothing happens.
Other stories too touch on intense and topical subjects: ‘honor killing’, feminism, extremist groups, medieval village justice (a 14-year-old girl sentenced by a village court to be paraded naked to pay for her brother’s crime of elopement). Yet, in each story, little is done with these topics. People are horrified or accepting, life goes on, the reader gets no new insights into the people or their motivations. And the stories end, abruptly.
One story, Tomboy, exudes stereotypes. A girl is tomboyish and likes to drive cars, refuses to ‘bleach her upper lip’. Surprise, surprise, she turns out to be attracted to women. Her childhood best friend, Zarrar, is not interested in sports, is chubby, and into fashion design and art. He turns out to be gay. Their sexual preferences are known, but unspoken. The interesting twist to this story is the way their parents manipulate a society-approved ‘solution’, but I wish the characters had been drawn with more nuance.
The well-to-do speak normal English, while the tea-boy is given awkward lines like
Last night a stranger messaged me saying my family doesn’t love me because it’s haram to love me. I got so upset I uploaded a photo of myself without a shirt. Lots of ‘likes’ came. Then I was relax.
The two strongest stories involve Syeda Zareena Bokhari, the wife of a feudal landlord who half-heartedly holds a seat in Parliament. ZB, as she is called, is elitist, opinionated, rude, and arbitrary in the way of those who have always known privilege. Her husband wants to retire from politics, and she is considering a run in his place. Will her involved feudalism be better than his hands-off entitlement? An interesting question, very relevant to South Asia with its family-connected politics, and in fact these were the only stories that left me pondering larger issues.
Occasionally the dialogue is phonetically written.
“Welcuhm, welcuhm”, ZB murmured to the Willoughbys.
and two pages later, ZB sounds very upper-crust Pakistani, and the same word is spelled differently.
“It’s always a delight to welcome British friends here,” said ZB […]. “One has many fond memories of the Raj. “
The British visitor’s reaction to her statement is described thus:
A ripple puzzled across Cynthia’s features.
Other trite, unappealing, or simply confusing sentences:
The neurons in his brain fired with distress.
His curling fat hands reminded me of the mesh washing sponge in our kitchen.
ZB felt the blood rushing, a peculiar knotted energy coursing through her limbs.
My face flushes red, flushes blue.
The more contemptuous she was of her sisters-in-law, the more food she spun in her kitchen.
Pakistani English writing is not in its infancy, where such a book might be more kindly looked upon. There is excellent writing like Daniyal Mueenuddin’s In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, Mohsin Hamid’s Moth Smoke, several of Kamila Shamsie’s novels, and Mohammed Hanif’s A Case of Exploding Mangoes — all original, clever, distinctive contributions to Pakistani-English writing.
I was not enjoying.
Oh this was a great review, hilarious, and LOL at the end!
Alas, that we have all read this kind of poor writing, where the author seems to have something they want to say, but have little idea of the craftsmanship involved in writing. As you say though, the bar is already set high, with a fair numbers of very accomplished Pakistani writers working in English; your list of favourites is very similar to my own – just add Nadeem Aslam in too, with his Maps for Lost Lovers and The Golden Legend.