An Abundance of Wild Roses

by Feryal Ali-Gauhar

In the Black Mountains of Pakistan, the discovery of an unconscious, unknown man is the first stone in an avalanche of chaos. The head of the village is beset with problems - including the injured stranger - and failing to find his way out. His daughter receives a love letter and incurs her father's wrath. A lame boy foretells disaster, but nobody is listening. Trapped in terrible danger, a wolf-dog is battling ice and death to save a soldier's life. Beaten by her addict husband for bearing him only daughters, a woman is pregnant again - but can this child save her?In a land woven with myth, chained with tradition and afflicted by war and the march of progress, the spirits of the mountains keep a baleful eye on the struggles of the villagers who scrape a living from the bodies of their wildlife. As the elements turn on the village, can humanity find a way to co-exist with nature that doesn't destroy either of them?

Genres: Fiction, Pakistan, Asia, Mental Health, Contemporary

320 pages, Hardcover

Published June 11, 2024

Reviews

[Vada · Rating 2 out of 5]

My main grievance with this novel was the structure and general flow of the narratives. This is the tale of one Afghan village that struggles to align traditional beliefs and lifestyles with modernity. Ali Gauhar moves the third person perspective from villager to villager which allows the reader a well rounded view of life in Saudukh Das. Unfortunately I did not find the transition as effective as the author hoped as the flow of the storylines becomes clunky due to the sheer volume of third person perspectives she deployes. I greatly enjoyed the individual storylines and I believe that the tale would have been better formatted as a series of short stories.

Alongside the primary chapters, there are italicised chapters prefacing each ‘human’ chapter. I refer to the main body of the novel as the ‘human’ story as it is told by different human characters whereas the italicised chapters appear to be from ‘spirit’ POVs. This was an interesting twist to the story that compliments how complex modernising processes are: the external and internal. Once again, the fluidity of the read was not agreeable with how, I understand, the story is to be read. The intermittent ‘spirit’ chapters are brief, with little explanation given the identity of the spirits and what they represent to the citizens of Saudukh Das.

I struggled to enjoy this book as the layout really disrupted the readability, which is something I deem imperative to a good book. It was the beautiful imagery and language Ali Gauhar uses that garnered my interest. Separately the different storylines are very interesting and emotive, and I found myself caring for the characters, yet the constant movement from character to character detracts from the impact these differing lives can make upon the reader.

[charlotte, · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rep: Pakistani cast & setting

CWs: domestic violence, suicide

[Lady Fancifull · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunate overwriting minimises impact of important themes

I requested this because themes and setting appealed. Also, I do like to read writers whose culture, background and experience is different from my own.

Unfortunately, though the author writes with absolute passion and dedication to her important themes – environmental, feminist, what must be respected about different cultures, her undoubtedly ‘beautiful writing’ really gets in the way. There are too many over and over repetitive sections which don’t advance narrative drive, deepen awareness of character, or, even, say what she has previously revealed in a way which deepens that knowledge.

It is almost as if giving equal weight to describing the minutiae of how someone walks across a room, how an avalanche happens and the contents of a store cupboard is just, in the end detail which becomes tiresome.

This was a shame, and I wished the author and editor had heeded Noel Coward’s useful advice ‘Murder Your Darlings’ : don’t overindulge.

[Violet · Rating 3 out of 5]

That was a dark little novel, set in the mountains of Pakistan in a small village, where we follow several characters - Moosa, the village chief, and several men and women. A lot of the novel is around women and their treatment by the men in her lives, but you feel, in life as in the novel, that they remain in the periphery and the reader only really sees them through their interactions with their fathers, husbands, sons.

At the beginning of the novel, two men who have gone to gather wood, Hassan and Noor, find an injured stranger and bring him back to the village. There is a sense of unease from the beginning as the injured man is now under their care but they wonder who he could be - an enemy, a fugitive?

Between each chapter there is a lyrical passage around myths, memories of ancestors or gods (I didn't find it very clear) who observe the life of the village and draw parallels with folk tales and past events.

I found the writing very lyrical, quite flowery and this is something I personally don't enjoy. The author creates a good sense of tension and I found the soft focus on the women interesting, but it took me a while to finish this book despite its brevity.

Free copy sent by Netgalley.

[MN · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to read
I really struggled to review this book – when I had finished it I felt thoroughly depressed and I simply wanted to read something else. This is undoubtedly my own issue with the way the world seems to be going. If I hadn’t been reading an ARC, I would have abandoned it after two or three chapters.
So in an isolated village in the mountains of Pakistan there is a village where life hasn’t caught up with modern ways – and modern wars.
The terrible stories of the lives of these people and the characters are described with some passion – there is the headman who feels he has to punish his daughter when she is given a poem by a man he doesn’t know. There are his three wives who have no means to deal with him. There is the boy who may or may not be prophesying some kind of doom who no one hears and the woman who cannot bear to carry yet another girl child to term. There are young men fighting in a very modern war, not so very far from this pit of oppression and depression and themselves being crushed by a pitiless landscape while a brave dog tries to save them. There are women who try to help each other and bring modern medicine to the village.
Meanwhile human lives are overlooked by bitter and angry mythical spirits of nature (while it was impossible not to agree with the spirits crushing view of humanity, it got a bit tired after about six chapters. Yes, trees and flowers and otters and pretty antelopes and otters and leopards are great and humans have done terrible damage but these people were dealing with a lot and they didn’t need this endless whingeing disapproval from above – well I didn’t need it on their behalf)
There are sparks of brightness, courage and compassion in all these stories which made it just about bearable to finish the book. But in the end I guess my own anxiety about the remoteness of a hopeful resolution for the story of the human race is what made it impossible for me to like this book.

[Ruthvi Shetty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historical Fiction based in Pakistan and exceeded my expectations. The book was just as beautiful as the cover was. Wonderfully unique style of writing.
Totally recommend :))))

[Dima · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book tells the story of a remote mountain village in Pakistan. Moosa, the village elder, is a proud man with three wives, and one daughter. Zarina is a local health worker, raising her daughters and trying to educate them, while her husband is serving in a remote military outpost in the mountains. Kulsoom is a mother of four daughters, and wife to a man addicted to cough syrup, struggling to find meaning and work, and blaming it all on not having a son. As these stories mature, we find our cast of characters dealing with matters of life and death, as a very traditional way of life comes into conflict with modernity. At the core of most of the narratives is the fate of women and young girls, and the terrible ramifications that occur when they get a glimpse of modernity and education, but are forced to live the lives of their forebearers, marrying young, bearing children (ideally boys), and slaving away for their husbands (in the true meaning of that word). As a backdrop, we encounter men who struggle to contain the erosion of their "respect" and "honor", and other men, who embrace modernity and aspire to have their daughters and wives learn, and be free.

I loved much about the story. The most astonishing thing was the characters and the depth of their emotional worlds. The character of Moosa, in particular, was a pleasure to understand, and see unravel. The characters were so vivid it was almost as if you could see them, and experience the angst and emotional turmoil that was eating them up inside. I also liked how the author prefaced most major events in the narrative with a story from folklore - it was enriching, relevant, and educational. Finally, while the book was not an easy read (content is not what I would call pleasant), it was well written, well paced, and contained just enough tension to make one want to find out what happens in the end.

I recommend it to anyone interested in the fate of young girls in the more remote parts of our world, be it Pakistan or elsewhere. The tragedies they endure, and the reasons for these tragedies, are soul shattering, and are worth being aware of.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

[Annie Leadley · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a powerful Book ! it tells of the awful life many Women & Girls still live & have in many rural parts of the world who's menfolk refuse to allow them to enter the 21st Century! They also twist the words of their religious beliefs to justify how the Women are treated & sadly because of this so many of these young girls & women commit Suicide because for them Death by any means is far less torturous than the life they may have to face , often being married as young as 15 years of age & even sometimes younger once they have had their first blood Loss they are deemed fit to marry & bare a man Sons.
There were also other stories twisted between the lines of the main story , of men who have to fight & are posted to the highest outpost of up to 21, 000 feet & of amazing search & rescue Dogs ( mainly German Shepherds) or in the case of this book a Wolf Dog called Malika who helped her caring Soldier & his companion survive a horrific Avalanche!
I think this book should be read in every English Literature Class in every High School to make our young Women & Men realise how fortunate they are ! #NetGalley, #GoodReads, #FB, #Amazon.co.uk, #Instagram,# , #, #.

[katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times the flowery language of this book does a disservice to the content, overshadowing the events with pretty prose, but it remained a powerful read nonetheless. I had to sit with my thoughts on this for a little while after I finished it. My heart feels quite heavy after reading all of the stories in this book, even though moments of light are present. This book outlines the lives of several residents of Pakistan, both human and animal. It doesn’t shy away from the heartbreak, terror, and devastation that life can often bring to the table but instead, transports you to being right there with the characters as they go through their experiences through descriptive language that does, as mentioned, feel like it’s too much at times (and not in a positive way).

This is not a book to read if you are clutching to the remains of hope for humanity. It will likely make you think even harder about how we have failed as a species, questioning how there are people who can go through life being so cruel. It will, however, remind you of the power of nature, of how important it is to coexist peacefully with the planet that provides us with what we need to be here. It’s heavy and hard to get through, but it’s a story that is well-told, regardless of how I do think that a more layman approach to the writing style could’ve made a deeper impact.

TW: abuse (domestic violence), suicide, death

3.5/5 rounded up

[Anjana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a much deeper book than I expected. I expected something of the sort just with the blurb and the cover art, but there was more to the content than meets the eye, so much so that I am a little confused about a part of the ending and I genuinely hope it was not as sad as I suspect it to be. There is enough sadness already!

There are several characters in this tale. They all live in a small village where everyone knows the other person. Alternating chapters talk of the current events while being interspersed with the tales of the gods ( for the lack of a better word in my head) of nature. These are woven into the tale but I must admit to skimming through a couple.

In the current events, an unknown man is found felled down by a tree, barely alive. He is brought to the house of the main man of the village. This coincides with the latter’s own problems at home. There are several other people whose lives are about to be impacted by this one event. The story spans very few days altogether but talks of the kind of lifestyle and hardships the rural folk face and the condescending help people from outside might offer. It is a tough read, one that gets harder to read as the story progresses. There are a few moments of respite where subtle humour at a person or situation might be obvious but overall it was a heavy read.

I would recommend this book to people who like realistic and possibly depressing ( due to the reflections of reality) narratives with hardy characters. I would definitely read another book by the author if I get the chance.

I received an ARC thanks to Netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

[Lia · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Abundance of Wild Roses is not an easy read. It speaks of traditions that I may be able to understand but find very hard to accept. It’s with a heavy heart that you read about husband’s violence towards his wife for producing daughters and not sons, about mothers loosing their children in a war that “has little purpose”, about a boy running around in his dead father’s coat that is a few sizes too big for him. Your heart is bleeding from start to finish.

Despite all the uneasiness the novel is somehow very poetic and at times reads almost like a folktale.

The narration reminded me of a crochet blanket in the making where multiple colours are used. You start with one shade of yarn then leave it to pick up the next and so on. We slowly learn what life in this mountain village is like for different families. You’d nearly think this little place is lost in time but there’s governments, hair-removing creams, cell phones and newspapers that bring you back to the present. People here, nevertheless, are in tune with the nature as well as the spirits of many kinds. That was another reason why I felt this story was not attached to reality.

There are no speech marks but somehow, almost intuitively, you guess who’s talking. This was an unusual experience as well.

This is a devastating story but very powerful in its own way. It definitely makes me ponder over the essence of human existence.

This copy is a courtesy of NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

[Haxxunne · Rating 4 out of 5]

When nature begets tragedy and helplessness
—
Deep in the Black Mountains of Pakistan, two villagers out gathering firewood discover a dying man. When they bring him back to the village, nature herself seems to turn against them: safe roads vanish under avalanches; ancient glaciers melt and flood other villages further upstream; the seasons are off-kilter, threatening everyone’s lives. Now the men are turning against the women, the women against the men, old against young, fathers against daughters. Violence begets violence and the village grows closer and closer to tearing itself apart.

In Ali-Gauhar’s fictional village, the spirits live alongside the human villagers, almost always there but separate. The villagers, for the most part, believe in the spirits but not enough to see them. They never interact in the narrative, which I think might have helped to integrate the book, to give an observing perspective as a proxy for the reader. As it is, the dense and extra-referential text, the lack of speech marks, the constantly changing central character followed in the narrative, all of this casts a veil across the book, a perceptual challenge that the reader has to get over before understanding the tragedy and the helplessness of these people in such a remote region, the world steamrollering over them.

[Hadi · Rating 2 out of 5]

what can one expect from the novel with a village named Saudukh Das (bearer of hundred sorrows) other than a that its a perfect recipe for a disaster. it starts with the discovery of an unidentified injured man in this remote village in northern Pakistan where educating girls is looked down upon, domestic abuse is rampant, bearing a girl child is sinful enough to commit suicide and grief is rife like an open wound. it was like reading the stereotypical train-wreck that Khaled Hosseini has mastered aa he catered the 'global' audiences.
only interesting aspect for me was the parallel chapters on the indigenous mythological characters from Gilgit-Baltistan folklore who look at humans as they are moving towards one disaster after another. the ethos of this storyline depicts the imbalance that human greed and self-centeredness has created as they destroy delicate ecosystem of the mountains. but it also become boring after a point. i don't know why this story needed to be told as we have already heard, read, watched and consumed tragedy porn.

[Farah G · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a sweeping story set in the Black Mountains of Pakistan, which examines the fate of a number of interesting characters - from the all-too-familiar situation of a woman who is abused for failing to give birth to a male child, to the plight of an animal fighting to help its human survive.

When an injured stranger appears in this remote place, it is only one of the factors that a beleaguered tribal leader must contend with in an already challenging domestic situation.

The prose is lush and evocative, and the author brings alive a culture that is alien to many, but a conflict between humans and nature that will be all too familiar to most. Well worth a read. It gets 3.5 stars.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting book. It is set in the mountains of Pakistan and provides some wonderful imagery. There are so many stories within this book, some quite challenging to hear. The chapters are short, which I liked, especially as it gives the reader time to savour the imagery. The only reason I gave it three stars, as in many ways it deserves more, is that the story was so challenging.
It has been written with incredible detail. I always wanted to come back to reading it, as throughout there was a sense of the unexpected. I also want to reread this book, as I sense there is more to appreciate.

[Mansi V · Rating 3 out of 5]

This for me was one of those books where it felt like there was more of a focus on the writing rather than the story. Whilst the writing was beautiful at times, especially the short myth snippets, it sometimes became too much to understand and made it harder to engage with the story which is a shame because the actual story and themes did sound interesting from the synopsis. In all fairness, this was probably not the best book to read when during a reading slump and I may have enjoyed it more at some other time, but in general I think this book could have benefited slightly from the 'less is more' approach.

[Asjad Ulhaq · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story, the characters, the emotional drama, the perfect timing of unfolding things and top of it all the message really makes the book a must-read.
It was a hard read. The author could've added much more to the story had she not focused more on the writting part. Being from Pakistan, I can acknowlege how difficult it is for writers and artist to do their work as there is always some hindrance in their way. Sometimes clerics, sometimes establishment and sometimes the state itself. Nothing here is unfiltered. So just want to appreciate the efforts that the author made in an environment so hostile and conservative that most of us wouldn't even dare to say or write about these matters.

[Ciaran McLarnon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an absorbing story with a wide range of flawed characters none of whom enjoy an easy life. The Numberdar is central to the story, finding himself caring for an unknown man who was discovered by two herders on the frozen mountainside. He does his best with the help of the local nurse but has his own family issues to deal with. His third wife is soon to give birth whilst the daughter of his second wife has been sent a love letter which angers the Numberdar.

Despite the tragedy, conflict and suffering that the characters endured, I found myself engrossed.

[Alisha Bilal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very poetic, beautiful prose and loads to analyse
Emotionally charged, feel this book in your heart
Overwriting and over complications sometimes made the handling of the themes slightly less powerful

[Jill Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A valuable insight into lives lived and stories told within, to the outside viewer, harsh boundaries of a patriacally constructed and geographically bound place in time in Pakistan. A poetic and humanitarian tour de force.

[Annarella · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that talk to my heart and soul. Lyrical and impressive style of writing, excellent storytelling.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

[Melissa D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Made me anxious the entire time I read it.

[Noor · Rating 1 out of 5]

And yet i read the whole thing

[Sherry]

DNF-ING
Putting it off for a while. I am not able to connect with the book, it's not an easy read, to be honest.
Maybe sometime later I will be able to pick it up again.

[Juana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and achingly sad.

[Therese Cawley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I struggled with the structure and the flow, the themes in this book were very poignant and heartbreaking to read.

[Hafiza Adeena · Rating 3 out of 5]

The spirit part of the book is obnoxious......it would've been nice if writer created series of short stories so each one could have their own ending...

[Beatrice · Rating 3 out of 5]

An Abundance of Wild Roses is one of those books I picked up not knowing what to expect beyond the fact that it was set in Pakistan, a country that hasn’t really featured that much on my reading list and that I was very curious about. This book sadly fell in my review burnout phase, so even though I read it last year I never got around to reviewing it – this is the moment I’m very thankful for the notes I wrote myself after finishing it!

The book follows multiple characters living in and around a remote village in the Black Mountains of Pakistan, but also incorporates reflections on humankind and its destructive behaviour expressed by supernatural entities deeply embedded in the natural world. The narrative is rich and luscious, never shying away from the more brutal aspects of a society in which the men seek absolute control over the women, the rich exploit the poor, and all destroy nature.

Although the story develops over only a few days, it is very rich, presenting multiple characters and covering a wide range of themes, some of which might be disturbing for certain readers. The writing is beautiful, even though at times for me it came across as slightly overwritten, making it hard to follow the narrative and forcing me to re-read certain parts to ensure I understood them correctly. It might be the case that I read this when my concentration wasn’t optimal, but I definitely struggled with a few sections. The pacing also didn’t always work for me, as I found some parts to be very repetitive, which made it feel as though it dragged a fair bit.

I’d still recommend this to readers who enjoy very lyrical, descriptive writing and are looking for a book exploring feminist and environmentalist themes.

CWs: This book contains mentions of domestic violence, misogyny, violence, death and suicide.

I received an e-arc of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

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