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Ashes, Wine and Dust
Immersed in the set imperative of middle-class life in contemporary Pakistan, Mariam Ameen decides to challenge the tradition of being female. Beginning in Lahore, the novel enters its first phase with Mariam struggling to retain the memories of her dead grandfather so engrained within her.
With willful and determined self-assurance, she leaves for America in search of better days, carrying these memories with her. But encounters with strangers in an unfamiliar land leave Mariam confused and vulnerable. In the midst of forging new paths, she learns of the disappearance of her younger brother, Abdullah, in America.
A reverse journeying then begins as she travels backwards to her roots to confront what she once left behind, in order to find the answers she is looking for. Against the backdrop of unyielding social institutions threatened by change and independent individuals, Mariam vows that she will not stop looking for her brother.
Ashes, Wine and Dust describes a young woman’s exploration of self-identity through the invisible ropes of social customs, stereotypes and love. As love in all forms is tested in the most strenuous of ways, disappearance in turn, becomes the less chosen road towards a self-discovery.
With willful and determined self-assurance, she leaves for America in search of better days, carrying these memories with her. But encounters with strangers in an unfamiliar land leave Mariam confused and vulnerable. In the midst of forging new paths, she learns of the disappearance of her younger brother, Abdullah, in America.
A reverse journeying then begins as she travels backwards to her roots to confront what she once left behind, in order to find the answers she is looking for. Against the backdrop of unyielding social institutions threatened by change and independent individuals, Mariam vows that she will not stop looking for her brother.
Ashes, Wine and Dust describes a young woman’s exploration of self-identity through the invisible ropes of social customs, stereotypes and love. As love in all forms is tested in the most strenuous of ways, disappearance in turn, becomes the less chosen road towards a self-discovery.
383 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2015
32 people are currently reading
721 people want to read
About the author
Kanza Javed
4 books158 followersKanza Javed holds an MFA in Fiction from West Virginia University, where she was awarded the prestigious Rebecca Mason Perry Award. She has also received two U.S. State Department research scholarships, studying at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Arizona State University.
Her debut novel, Ashes, Wine and Dust, was shortlisted for the Tibor Jones South Asia Prize and became a national bestseller in South Asia. Her short stories have appeared in esteemed literary journals, including American Literary Review, The Punch Magazine, Salamander, Greensboro Review, and The Malahat Review. She is the recipient of the Reynolds Price Prize for Fiction (Center for Women Writers, Salem College) and has been a finalist for the 51st New Millennium Writing Award, the Salamander Short Fiction Award, and the Robert Watson Literary Prize.
Javed’s work has been highlighted in The Commonwealth Journal and included in Narrating Pakistan (Pakistan's first literary anthology), as well as Oxford University Press's In the New Century: An Anthology of Pakistani Literature, along with several other publications
Her debut novel, Ashes, Wine and Dust, was shortlisted for the Tibor Jones South Asia Prize and became a national bestseller in South Asia. Her short stories have appeared in esteemed literary journals, including American Literary Review, The Punch Magazine, Salamander, Greensboro Review, and The Malahat Review. She is the recipient of the Reynolds Price Prize for Fiction (Center for Women Writers, Salem College) and has been a finalist for the 51st New Millennium Writing Award, the Salamander Short Fiction Award, and the Robert Watson Literary Prize.
Javed’s work has been highlighted in The Commonwealth Journal and included in Narrating Pakistan (Pakistan's first literary anthology), as well as Oxford University Press's In the New Century: An Anthology of Pakistani Literature, along with several other publications
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
January 5, 2016
Hauntingly beautiful , emotional and so sensitive in each page. This is the kind of books that stay in your heart and keep you company for a long time after you are finished. I have mixed feeling for this book , its characters and the city of Lahore. In so many ways I felt more sad for the bittersweet , loose ends. Life isn't black and white ever , nor is this book.
October 26, 2015
Ashes, Wine and Dust is a remarkable novel with such depth that the reader once immersed in the words finds it hard to put the book down. The intrigue of the mystery kept me on the edge of my seat till the very last page of the novel. Beautifully capturing the local Lahori flavour in not only the tangible environment but also in the social consciousness of the characters, Ashes, WIne and Dust becomes greatly relevant to our terror-stricken society where individually all of us are on similar quests like Mariam as we search for peace, innocence and love within ourselves and in all those moments that we hold on to for dear life.
Well-constructed, sensitive and multi-layered, Ashes, Wine and Dust explores a plethora of themes such as loss, innocence and experience, and most importantly growing up and delving into a world of masked danger with a whole set of decisions that need to be made and choices that not only affect you but also the people you love.
Well-constructed, sensitive and multi-layered, Ashes, Wine and Dust explores a plethora of themes such as loss, innocence and experience, and most importantly growing up and delving into a world of masked danger with a whole set of decisions that need to be made and choices that not only affect you but also the people you love.
July 15, 2016
I found this book through reading some archive articles on dawn and let me say, I am glad I found this book. The book's themes revolve around betrayal, loss and self identity and uses such powerful imagery to decipher every situation from both a child and adult point of view. It constantly uses symbols like Ashes, Wine, Dust, sisters and every small event to signify how Mariam looks to develop a self identity and discover happiness again. In conclusion, this book is perfect for individuals who want to explore how a character experiences loss and betrayal and how it copes with it. Well done Kanza Javed on her first debut novel. Looking forward to reading more novels from you.
September 10, 2023
“The place inside my head was never quiet. It has always been loud, it is always living and you don’t know how painful that is, how painful it is to feel every grief like it were your own.”
There’s a scene in this book in which a character describes our protagonist as sullen, boring and pensive. That, my friends, is basically a description of the book as well. Which is such a damn shame because this book actually had me at ‘decides to challenge the tradition of being female’, but this was one of those cases where the blurb is better than the actual story.
And the sad thing is that I really, really wanted to like this because look at that author bio: Young female author! Award winner! So many reasons to be excited about an author like this in a country like Pakistan, with its dead publishing industry, fatally injured understanding of female rights and nonexistent encouragement of the arts as a viable career field. So I wanted to like this, and yet, how BLAH.
Moody and slow, both our protagonist Mariam and the story are in turns dull, dreary or urging the reader to doze off in a stupor. The book is split into three parts: the first, Ashes, deals with Mariam’s early life in Lahore, Wine sees her shifting to America and Dust is about her return to Lahore. Throughout the story, Mariam tries to deal with her grandfather’s death, an event that happened early in life and left her in limbo, and her brother’s disappearance in America, another event which sends her off the deep end. Both these tragedies, supposedly huge catalysts in Mariam’s life, manage to create no sense of urgency and connection, primarily because I never learned to care about Mariam.
That is basically the problem with this book: a main character so boring that it’s hard to feel anything for her. Mariam’s constant crying, sniffling, woe-is-me attitude gets so tedious after a while that I had to struggle on after the first 50 pages, wondering why I was still bothering to read. There’s no narrative arc, no tension in the story to keep you glued to the pages, and that’s mostly because Mariam is the most epically soulless, emotion-lacking robot that ever existed. I think the author was trying to create an introspective, shy and sharp-eyed female character here, one who thinks before she speaks and spends her time examining and thus understanding life’s mysteries. That would have been brilliant because quiet, observant characters make for fascinating first-person perspective story tellers. Instead what you get is the personality equivalent of watching paint dry.
It was not inside of me – the bright spark of spontaneity, a flare of impulsiveness and the acute sense of risk and adventure. I had what Anika called “a dry soul”. She thought this “dryness” would smother me, suck away my youth and spirit.
What is fascinating is that in the book guys are constantly falling for her, even with her utterly soul-sucking personality. Mariam has a sister who loves talking to her, and yet Mariam’s conversations verge on the lacklustre. Mariam has a friend who loves to spend time with her, actively seeking out her company, yet Mariam herself invites no warmth, or makes no show of emotion. So not only is Mariam a mind-numbingly tedious person, she’s also attracting people in droves with her uninteresting personality. How? How is this happening?
“This world is so stifling. Sometimes I wish I could just freeze time and trap the years past in a glass globe.”
The rest of the characters are pretty much the same too. The question that came repeatedly to my mind while reading was ‘Why do I care where this book is going?’ because the truth was, I didn’t. I would probably never have finished this if I didn’t have to review it. Even those characters that struggle and suffer in this book are unable to create a sense of sympathy in the reader. Everything, from marital problems to the death of relatives to alcoholism and conflicted artists make an appearance, but you don’t get the sense that this is a sorrowful, tragic representation of the reality we live in. More like a vague sense of irritation at the utter, complete hopelessness and lack of agency exhibited by everyone. It’s like watching a horror movie where you see something horrible happening but you don’t particularly care and you wish the hero and heroine would stop being silly and escape already, so you could do something more productive with your time rather than watch this train wreck.
She didn’t deserve any of this. She was the good daughter. She did everything to appease the family. She was supposed to have it all.
Even the heroine’s relationship with her brother, one of the most fundamental points of the story’s conflict, remains pointless and weak. It’s so ridiculously hollow that even the story acknowledges this, with the brother choosing to contact everyone in the world except his sister when he gets in trouble. And yet Mariam is determined to find him. She misses him, she feels guilt and sorrow, she remembers his face vividly all the time. Why, when she didn’t even care that much when he was actually around?
For me, none of this mattered. The dancing, the music, the food, nothing made me happy. No matter how much we pretended and evaded the questions about Abdullah, he loomed over the entire celebration.
Ditto her relationship with her grandfather, another one of the major points in the story. The grandfather’s illicit love affair and Mariam’s supposed connection with him are repeated throughout the story, yet it never feels real, it never feels like something we should really care about.
The thought of Grandfather’s spirit performing mischievous deeds, scampering about trying to frighten the chickens and goats of the village, seemed preposterous. His spirit, despite transcending from the physical world, had to be pensive and profound like he was.
This isn’t a flaw of the storytelling so much as a flaw of the writing. There are constant appearances of odd phrases, conversational peculiarities, weird usage of particular words. There’s a lot of pointless philosophising, a lot of discussions about love and life and pain and fear and other such four-lettered abstract nouns. And not in an impressive, well-written, wow-what-brilliant-prose way. More like a hallmark card, twitter hashtag sentence sort of way.
“The world is so beautiful and big,” he said suddenly, “But where there is the beautiful sun, there are also dark roads. We have always chosen to stay in the light.”
The conversations are stilted and awkward between almost everyone: sisters, cousins, friends. There’s also a certain sense of pretention in the writing, as if these quotes are less apt to the setting and more carefully structured to be hung up in picture frames. Basically, showy and pointless and fitting nowhere in the text.
“Well, this is life, Mariam. We are all born, some live, some suffer and then we all die. We are told that this world is a passing dream and now it has started to feel that way.”
There are also slight editing mistakes throughout the book, and after coming across them quite a few times one starts to be less forgiving and more irritated. I’m also not quite sure how I feel about the italicization of the desi words: baji, charpoy, hookah, bhai, literally each and every one of these words has been italicised to death in this story, which also, why? Is there a particular policy this publisher follows that says books must cater to a western audience, whose poor non-Urdu speaking minds will stumble over the word dupatta, a word that is literally present in every English language dictionary at this stage? What is going on here?
And of course, no Pakistani story, no matter how character-focused, is complete without the bomb explosion (is it heartless to call it clichéd?) After a while, every version of an explosion just starts to feel the same. Unless it’s really well written, I find that I don’t care anymore, which is an unnerving sort of numbness, but there you have it.
That day, Lahore bled and so did its people. More heart-wrenching stories surfaced the television and with each new story, a piece of us died. We died many times that day.
I guess the only plus point that registers is that you must give the author props for trying. You can tell she wants to write about smart stuff, about the barriers that females have faced throughout the centuries because of society and expectations.
My sisters’ lives were so much simpler; they were given a sort of code book to follow. A list of what they should and shouldn’t do. They didn’t deviate and they never doubted this family codebook. They understood that life could never completely be reshaped into what they desired, thus they never desired anything at all.
And that’s great, that’s fabulous. Female authors tackling such topics give me the feels because we need this! Except this book doesn’t really, actually, tackle anything. Sure, Mariam has problems, but these are problems because of who she is, not because of what her gender is. Take, for example, the struggle of female students everywhere to break out of the bonds of family pressure and go study abroad. And yet, Mariam does nothing extraordinary in her pursuit of higher education. Her parents willingly give her permission. She easily gets accepted. Mariam wants to go meet a journalist so she can secretly look for her brother. Her only problem? Having to go early in the morning so no one sees her. Does anyone in her family feel betrayed? Is there a violent response to her sneaking around? Nope. So where is the struggle? Where is the patriarchy destroying her desire to become someone? If only life was this easy for all women everywhere.
“What is real is the inevitable pain every woman experiences in her life. By that i don’t mean childbirth. Other kinds of pain, a heartbreak, death of a lover, infidelity, losing a child to various things, death...this world...a woman is built to endure great pains. But don’t worry, a real woman never gives up...”
So I’m going to accept that the author wanted to do something good, but there were definitely places where she stumbled, so that’s about the only concession I’m willing to give. In all other cases, it’s a definitive no.
Recommendation
You can’t force yourself to like a book, and this book is incapable of being liked. I mean, I got bored just writing this review. My honest opinion? If you really want to read good literature written by female Pakistani authors, try Kamila Shamsie for the serious or Shazaf Fatima Haider for the light-hearted, and give this one a skip.
***
I review Pakistani Fiction, and talk about Pakistani fiction, and want to talk to people who like to talk about fiction (Pakistani and otherwise, take your pick.) To read more reviews or just contact me so you can talk about books, check out my Blog or follow me on Twitter!
***
Original Update:
Oh God, how BORING. And I so wanted to love this book. Look at that blurb! For shame.
There’s a scene in this book in which a character describes our protagonist as sullen, boring and pensive. That, my friends, is basically a description of the book as well. Which is such a damn shame because this book actually had me at ‘decides to challenge the tradition of being female’, but this was one of those cases where the blurb is better than the actual story.
And the sad thing is that I really, really wanted to like this because look at that author bio: Young female author! Award winner! So many reasons to be excited about an author like this in a country like Pakistan, with its dead publishing industry, fatally injured understanding of female rights and nonexistent encouragement of the arts as a viable career field. So I wanted to like this, and yet, how BLAH.
Moody and slow, both our protagonist Mariam and the story are in turns dull, dreary or urging the reader to doze off in a stupor. The book is split into three parts: the first, Ashes, deals with Mariam’s early life in Lahore, Wine sees her shifting to America and Dust is about her return to Lahore. Throughout the story, Mariam tries to deal with her grandfather’s death, an event that happened early in life and left her in limbo, and her brother’s disappearance in America, another event which sends her off the deep end. Both these tragedies, supposedly huge catalysts in Mariam’s life, manage to create no sense of urgency and connection, primarily because I never learned to care about Mariam.
That is basically the problem with this book: a main character so boring that it’s hard to feel anything for her. Mariam’s constant crying, sniffling, woe-is-me attitude gets so tedious after a while that I had to struggle on after the first 50 pages, wondering why I was still bothering to read. There’s no narrative arc, no tension in the story to keep you glued to the pages, and that’s mostly because Mariam is the most epically soulless, emotion-lacking robot that ever existed. I think the author was trying to create an introspective, shy and sharp-eyed female character here, one who thinks before she speaks and spends her time examining and thus understanding life’s mysteries. That would have been brilliant because quiet, observant characters make for fascinating first-person perspective story tellers. Instead what you get is the personality equivalent of watching paint dry.
It was not inside of me – the bright spark of spontaneity, a flare of impulsiveness and the acute sense of risk and adventure. I had what Anika called “a dry soul”. She thought this “dryness” would smother me, suck away my youth and spirit.
What is fascinating is that in the book guys are constantly falling for her, even with her utterly soul-sucking personality. Mariam has a sister who loves talking to her, and yet Mariam’s conversations verge on the lacklustre. Mariam has a friend who loves to spend time with her, actively seeking out her company, yet Mariam herself invites no warmth, or makes no show of emotion. So not only is Mariam a mind-numbingly tedious person, she’s also attracting people in droves with her uninteresting personality. How? How is this happening?
“This world is so stifling. Sometimes I wish I could just freeze time and trap the years past in a glass globe.”
The rest of the characters are pretty much the same too. The question that came repeatedly to my mind while reading was ‘Why do I care where this book is going?’ because the truth was, I didn’t. I would probably never have finished this if I didn’t have to review it. Even those characters that struggle and suffer in this book are unable to create a sense of sympathy in the reader. Everything, from marital problems to the death of relatives to alcoholism and conflicted artists make an appearance, but you don’t get the sense that this is a sorrowful, tragic representation of the reality we live in. More like a vague sense of irritation at the utter, complete hopelessness and lack of agency exhibited by everyone. It’s like watching a horror movie where you see something horrible happening but you don’t particularly care and you wish the hero and heroine would stop being silly and escape already, so you could do something more productive with your time rather than watch this train wreck.
She didn’t deserve any of this. She was the good daughter. She did everything to appease the family. She was supposed to have it all.
Even the heroine’s relationship with her brother, one of the most fundamental points of the story’s conflict, remains pointless and weak. It’s so ridiculously hollow that even the story acknowledges this, with the brother choosing to contact everyone in the world except his sister when he gets in trouble. And yet Mariam is determined to find him. She misses him, she feels guilt and sorrow, she remembers his face vividly all the time. Why, when she didn’t even care that much when he was actually around?
For me, none of this mattered. The dancing, the music, the food, nothing made me happy. No matter how much we pretended and evaded the questions about Abdullah, he loomed over the entire celebration.
Ditto her relationship with her grandfather, another one of the major points in the story. The grandfather’s illicit love affair and Mariam’s supposed connection with him are repeated throughout the story, yet it never feels real, it never feels like something we should really care about.
The thought of Grandfather’s spirit performing mischievous deeds, scampering about trying to frighten the chickens and goats of the village, seemed preposterous. His spirit, despite transcending from the physical world, had to be pensive and profound like he was.
This isn’t a flaw of the storytelling so much as a flaw of the writing. There are constant appearances of odd phrases, conversational peculiarities, weird usage of particular words. There’s a lot of pointless philosophising, a lot of discussions about love and life and pain and fear and other such four-lettered abstract nouns. And not in an impressive, well-written, wow-what-brilliant-prose way. More like a hallmark card, twitter hashtag sentence sort of way.
“The world is so beautiful and big,” he said suddenly, “But where there is the beautiful sun, there are also dark roads. We have always chosen to stay in the light.”
The conversations are stilted and awkward between almost everyone: sisters, cousins, friends. There’s also a certain sense of pretention in the writing, as if these quotes are less apt to the setting and more carefully structured to be hung up in picture frames. Basically, showy and pointless and fitting nowhere in the text.
“Well, this is life, Mariam. We are all born, some live, some suffer and then we all die. We are told that this world is a passing dream and now it has started to feel that way.”
There are also slight editing mistakes throughout the book, and after coming across them quite a few times one starts to be less forgiving and more irritated. I’m also not quite sure how I feel about the italicization of the desi words: baji, charpoy, hookah, bhai, literally each and every one of these words has been italicised to death in this story, which also, why? Is there a particular policy this publisher follows that says books must cater to a western audience, whose poor non-Urdu speaking minds will stumble over the word dupatta, a word that is literally present in every English language dictionary at this stage? What is going on here?
And of course, no Pakistani story, no matter how character-focused, is complete without the bomb explosion (is it heartless to call it clichéd?) After a while, every version of an explosion just starts to feel the same. Unless it’s really well written, I find that I don’t care anymore, which is an unnerving sort of numbness, but there you have it.
That day, Lahore bled and so did its people. More heart-wrenching stories surfaced the television and with each new story, a piece of us died. We died many times that day.
I guess the only plus point that registers is that you must give the author props for trying. You can tell she wants to write about smart stuff, about the barriers that females have faced throughout the centuries because of society and expectations.
My sisters’ lives were so much simpler; they were given a sort of code book to follow. A list of what they should and shouldn’t do. They didn’t deviate and they never doubted this family codebook. They understood that life could never completely be reshaped into what they desired, thus they never desired anything at all.
And that’s great, that’s fabulous. Female authors tackling such topics give me the feels because we need this! Except this book doesn’t really, actually, tackle anything. Sure, Mariam has problems, but these are problems because of who she is, not because of what her gender is. Take, for example, the struggle of female students everywhere to break out of the bonds of family pressure and go study abroad. And yet, Mariam does nothing extraordinary in her pursuit of higher education. Her parents willingly give her permission. She easily gets accepted. Mariam wants to go meet a journalist so she can secretly look for her brother. Her only problem? Having to go early in the morning so no one sees her. Does anyone in her family feel betrayed? Is there a violent response to her sneaking around? Nope. So where is the struggle? Where is the patriarchy destroying her desire to become someone? If only life was this easy for all women everywhere.
“What is real is the inevitable pain every woman experiences in her life. By that i don’t mean childbirth. Other kinds of pain, a heartbreak, death of a lover, infidelity, losing a child to various things, death...this world...a woman is built to endure great pains. But don’t worry, a real woman never gives up...”
So I’m going to accept that the author wanted to do something good, but there were definitely places where she stumbled, so that’s about the only concession I’m willing to give. In all other cases, it’s a definitive no.
Recommendation
You can’t force yourself to like a book, and this book is incapable of being liked. I mean, I got bored just writing this review. My honest opinion? If you really want to read good literature written by female Pakistani authors, try Kamila Shamsie for the serious or Shazaf Fatima Haider for the light-hearted, and give this one a skip.
***
I review Pakistani Fiction, and talk about Pakistani fiction, and want to talk to people who like to talk about fiction (Pakistani and otherwise, take your pick.) To read more reviews or just contact me so you can talk about books, check out my Blog or follow me on Twitter!
***
Original Update:
Oh God, how BORING. And I so wanted to love this book. Look at that blurb! For shame.
October 26, 2015
Often while picking up a debut novel, the reader dives into it expecting a few plot holes and the occasional weak character - and understandably so. However, this is one of the few times I'm happy something didn't meet my expectations. Merely a few chapters in, I couldn't believe this was the work of an inexperienced writer. All the characters felt real, every place felt alive and as the book progressed, I could feel the characters grow. As the name suggests, the book takes place over three distinctly different settings and generations of characters: Lahore in the '90s (Ashes), Washington DC (Wine), and Lahore in the 2000s inflicted with political religious violence (Dust) - no longer sacred like it was in 'Ashes.' As the characters degenerate, so does the setting. This diversity of settings and prevalent mindsets is the reason everyone can take something away from this book. Progressing through the book and becoming acquainted with Mariam's wit, Daada's wisdom and Dadi's philosophical musings, coupled with Kanza Javed's unique ability to paint scenes vividly enough to bring them to life for the reader, it would be hard for any reader not to become invested in the characters and the story at large. I couldn't stop reading, not only because the book was addicting, but because the way the situation and characters were described, I couldn't help but feel sympathy for them. At its core, Ashes, Wine and Dust serves well to teach readers something about their presumptions regarding debut novels. In the words of Javed herself, "The silent ones are the most dangerous, they say. They are the fiercest from inside." I, for one, can't wait for her next novel.
October 26, 2015
The novel is exquisite highlighting a unique perspective of a pakistani protagonist in a patriarchal society against all odds. The writer has skillfully created a powerful momentum of characters and their actions in order to break the stereotypes enforced on the pakistani characters which makes us realize that the novel is part of a reality that exists whether society chooses to highlight or ignore it. The fact that the novel's language and the accuracy of words has iĺluminated the issues being faced by the characters. It does give hope to its readers that is precious and is desperately needed to face the world a man, or a woman, a child, or an elder lives in.
March 24, 2016
We've come from dust and to dust we shall return. We've come from dust and to dust we shall return.- Ashes, Wine and Dust
To elders the loss was inexpressible, but to children it was nothing. Except for Mariam Ameen, who was standing by the hand pump as water bearer for her grandfather's funeral. Though she was not able to register the loss properly, the impact of it was only felt when everything came crashing down in her life.
Ashes, Wine and Dust by Kanza Javed is an extraordinary book that revolves around the life Mariam Ameen, who is an introvert and is busy trying to figure out her life as a child. Unique as a child and unique even when she grew up, Mariam always stood out from the crowd of regular girls of her age, living in Lahore, Pakistan. Fighting to retain the memories of her grandfather, she decides to pursue her further studies in America, where she tries to mix up with the crowd without losing herself. But encounters with strangers leave her broken heart there also.
pablo (41)
Life comes to a halt when she learns about the disappearance of her brother, Abdullah. From there on, Mariam Ameen begins a reverse journey, going back to Lahore and finding answers from her past. Though her family is used to the loss of Abdullah now, but Mariam doesn't give up. She keeps on looking and fighting against the set societal norms. A life that is made to destroy Mariam emotionally forever, will she able to recover from the losses and ghosts of the past?
Ashes, Wine and Dust is a unique story coming from a debutante, Kanza Javed. And when you read the book, it transports you to a different world altogether. It takes you the glamour city of Lahore, which has changed drastically now. It makes you meet middle-class families residing there, bound with societal norms and facing accusations over small things regularly in their lives. For them, their children and image are everything.
Mariam Ameen from Ashes, Wine and Dust is a character that will be embedded in your mind. Since childhood, she has faced losses. Starting from her grandfather for whom she was a secret keeper to Karan, her neighbor in grandfather's village who disappeared one day. When she tries to figure out her life in America, her relatives only turn out to be sour. And then the final blow, loss of Abdullah.
A time when Mariam also starts questioning her relationship with her brother, were they ever close?
Ashes, Wine and Dust is a story that leaves you spellbound. As love in all forms is tested in the most strenuous of ways, disappearance, in turn, becomes the less chosen road towards a self-discovery.
pablo (42)
The story of Ashes, Wine and Dust is something which will be etched in your heart always. It is emotional, full of love and loss that will pull a string at your heart. Once you start reading, you will be engrossed in it. I could hardly stop and when the story was finished, I could feel the loss of Mariam in my heart. Only a few books leave that kind of impact on me, Ashes, Wine and Dust is definitely one of them. The story line is engaging and is divided into three sections, depicting journey of Mariam Ameen. Ashes depicting her life during her grandfather's funeral and her life at her ancestral village, Wine depicting her life in America and Dust, when she comes back to Lahore to find her brother Abdullah. Though some of the parts could have been removed so that book doesn't seem to be dragged towards the end.
The words only will leave you enchanted. Ashes, Wine and Dust is a book that should definitely devour into this summer..
To elders the loss was inexpressible, but to children it was nothing. Except for Mariam Ameen, who was standing by the hand pump as water bearer for her grandfather's funeral. Though she was not able to register the loss properly, the impact of it was only felt when everything came crashing down in her life.
Ashes, Wine and Dust by Kanza Javed is an extraordinary book that revolves around the life Mariam Ameen, who is an introvert and is busy trying to figure out her life as a child. Unique as a child and unique even when she grew up, Mariam always stood out from the crowd of regular girls of her age, living in Lahore, Pakistan. Fighting to retain the memories of her grandfather, she decides to pursue her further studies in America, where she tries to mix up with the crowd without losing herself. But encounters with strangers leave her broken heart there also.
pablo (41)
Life comes to a halt when she learns about the disappearance of her brother, Abdullah. From there on, Mariam Ameen begins a reverse journey, going back to Lahore and finding answers from her past. Though her family is used to the loss of Abdullah now, but Mariam doesn't give up. She keeps on looking and fighting against the set societal norms. A life that is made to destroy Mariam emotionally forever, will she able to recover from the losses and ghosts of the past?
Ashes, Wine and Dust is a unique story coming from a debutante, Kanza Javed. And when you read the book, it transports you to a different world altogether. It takes you the glamour city of Lahore, which has changed drastically now. It makes you meet middle-class families residing there, bound with societal norms and facing accusations over small things regularly in their lives. For them, their children and image are everything.
Mariam Ameen from Ashes, Wine and Dust is a character that will be embedded in your mind. Since childhood, she has faced losses. Starting from her grandfather for whom she was a secret keeper to Karan, her neighbor in grandfather's village who disappeared one day. When she tries to figure out her life in America, her relatives only turn out to be sour. And then the final blow, loss of Abdullah.
A time when Mariam also starts questioning her relationship with her brother, were they ever close?
Ashes, Wine and Dust is a story that leaves you spellbound. As love in all forms is tested in the most strenuous of ways, disappearance, in turn, becomes the less chosen road towards a self-discovery.
pablo (42)
The story of Ashes, Wine and Dust is something which will be etched in your heart always. It is emotional, full of love and loss that will pull a string at your heart. Once you start reading, you will be engrossed in it. I could hardly stop and when the story was finished, I could feel the loss of Mariam in my heart. Only a few books leave that kind of impact on me, Ashes, Wine and Dust is definitely one of them. The story line is engaging and is divided into three sections, depicting journey of Mariam Ameen. Ashes depicting her life during her grandfather's funeral and her life at her ancestral village, Wine depicting her life in America and Dust, when she comes back to Lahore to find her brother Abdullah. Though some of the parts could have been removed so that book doesn't seem to be dragged towards the end.
The words only will leave you enchanted. Ashes, Wine and Dust is a book that should definitely devour into this summer..
July 2, 2016
Ashes, Wine and Dust is Kanza Javed’s debut novel published in 2015. Its story revolves around Mariam Ameen – a quiet, thoughtful and kind woman – from her childhood to how she transforms into an adult and everything she has to go through on the journey we call growing up. The book depicts the little wonders, compelling intrigues, the indescribable moments and infinities of what is known as life. This is simply one of those books to which everyone can relate to, one way or the other; its characters portray qualities that are common to basic human nature. If you plan on going on a road trip then taking Ashes, Wine and Dust as your reading companion can be a good choice. It has that serene element to it which will stick to you wherever you go.
We all hear about writers that have that elaborate style of writing, the one which keeps us ‘hooked’ to the book. All such writers use the tool of creativity – how well they carve their scenes and make use of metaphorical language to vividly paint a picture of feelings and thoughts etc – which keeps the reader glued. But only few writers possess the gift of a high level of creativity which enables them not only to capture and portray scenes, feelings and thoughts etc but also to leave a permanent impression of all those things on the reader’s subconscious. I remember reading this, “Pain transcends through an invisible crack in your body and slithers inside you. It travels in your vessels, befriends every organ and leaves a great impression as a souvenir. A shaped scar, a burning bruise or a deep wound. This souvenir is a constant reminder of the excruciating past. The brutal wound throbs and it reminds you that the pain has not yet set you free. The tattoo still burns. The tattoo always burns.” and reminding myself never to view pain as something negative, but instead a reason to stand up strong; something that makes us feel alive.
The book covers a multitude of topics quite concisely, so you will not be bored when you read it. We were all children once, so we will understand the dilemma of growing up when we see Mariam going through the process herself. And as Kanza Javed explains it herself in the book while focusing on the positive side of childhood, “I have learned the beauty of childhood, now. Every trivial thing holds great significance. You are sensitive and vulnerable to everything around you; you notice the changing leaves and all the colors in the rainbow. Every conversation leaves a brilliant imprint on your mind.” On the other hand, she weaves the negative side of childhood as she writes, “A child’s world is confusing; he is continuously deceived, deceived about broken relationships, fallen relatives, family history, secrets; deceptions perpetuated for the sake of keeping him safe, untainted, unharmed from the claws of the outside world.” So you see, she has a way with her writing where she lays out the bigger picture by such simplicity – saying so much by saying so little. Not every writer can do that.
Another important thing the book covers is the little moments that make us who we are – memories. As you read on, you will find how magnificently they affect Mariam and all those around her. Many of us can see a little bit of ourselves in Mariam based on that side of her which holds on to memories so dearly, forever living in a conundrum of letting go of memories and finding herself without them or doing the entire opposite. It makes you think the inevitable, that who are we as individuals if it is not for the memories we treasure? Where do we stand in our life as well as others’ if we do not remember the major and minor moments that define us? What are we left with to love and live for if we let go of those memories? How do we find meaning in our existence if we do not hold on to our memories concerning our likes and dislikes, our strengths and weaknesses, our darkness and light, our loved ones and the forgotten souls wandering in our life’s pages? Javed could not have explained it any better when she wrote, “After everything is said and done, a memory remains a treacherous thing…How long does one cling on to the people they’ve lost?...it is the sad reality to understand early that our lives are nothing but a series of fleeting moments, moments that will keep escaping if we do not preserve them in our memories. Memories cannot be stolen. They are ours and ours forever.”
This book made me smile and cry inwardly by its undivided power to show how life is both a terrifying and beautiful thing, that it is too dear to let go of and too tiring to hold on to yet the ideal is to find middle ground; to balance everything out. The book also talks about the bond of friendship: its endearing side as well as its delicate one. And when you read what Kanza Javed has to say about the friendship between two contrasting souls in the following words: “What happens when two introverts collide? Do they dissolve completely in each other’s patience and silence, or do they break their glass shells and become new people?” then you will automatically think of your past friendships or some current ones that can test this claim quite perfectly. As I said, each one of us can relate to this book somehow. It is a pure adventure into the highs and lows of life and relationships.
Images of the political scene in the country the book is set in are also covered neatly in the book. The fact that Javed has managed to bring the city of Lahore to life in her book is spell-bounding. Another one of her distinguishing writing skills in the book is how she makes the reader feel like they are immersed in the scenery being described. As you read about Mariam walking the streets in Lahore and the art galleries in Washington D.C, you will feel as if you are walking there right beside her.
All in all, Kanza Javed’s Ashes, Wine and Dust is a refreshing piece of art in every sense of the word…for like true art, it has the ability to console those broken by life.
We all hear about writers that have that elaborate style of writing, the one which keeps us ‘hooked’ to the book. All such writers use the tool of creativity – how well they carve their scenes and make use of metaphorical language to vividly paint a picture of feelings and thoughts etc – which keeps the reader glued. But only few writers possess the gift of a high level of creativity which enables them not only to capture and portray scenes, feelings and thoughts etc but also to leave a permanent impression of all those things on the reader’s subconscious. I remember reading this, “Pain transcends through an invisible crack in your body and slithers inside you. It travels in your vessels, befriends every organ and leaves a great impression as a souvenir. A shaped scar, a burning bruise or a deep wound. This souvenir is a constant reminder of the excruciating past. The brutal wound throbs and it reminds you that the pain has not yet set you free. The tattoo still burns. The tattoo always burns.” and reminding myself never to view pain as something negative, but instead a reason to stand up strong; something that makes us feel alive.
The book covers a multitude of topics quite concisely, so you will not be bored when you read it. We were all children once, so we will understand the dilemma of growing up when we see Mariam going through the process herself. And as Kanza Javed explains it herself in the book while focusing on the positive side of childhood, “I have learned the beauty of childhood, now. Every trivial thing holds great significance. You are sensitive and vulnerable to everything around you; you notice the changing leaves and all the colors in the rainbow. Every conversation leaves a brilliant imprint on your mind.” On the other hand, she weaves the negative side of childhood as she writes, “A child’s world is confusing; he is continuously deceived, deceived about broken relationships, fallen relatives, family history, secrets; deceptions perpetuated for the sake of keeping him safe, untainted, unharmed from the claws of the outside world.” So you see, she has a way with her writing where she lays out the bigger picture by such simplicity – saying so much by saying so little. Not every writer can do that.
Another important thing the book covers is the little moments that make us who we are – memories. As you read on, you will find how magnificently they affect Mariam and all those around her. Many of us can see a little bit of ourselves in Mariam based on that side of her which holds on to memories so dearly, forever living in a conundrum of letting go of memories and finding herself without them or doing the entire opposite. It makes you think the inevitable, that who are we as individuals if it is not for the memories we treasure? Where do we stand in our life as well as others’ if we do not remember the major and minor moments that define us? What are we left with to love and live for if we let go of those memories? How do we find meaning in our existence if we do not hold on to our memories concerning our likes and dislikes, our strengths and weaknesses, our darkness and light, our loved ones and the forgotten souls wandering in our life’s pages? Javed could not have explained it any better when she wrote, “After everything is said and done, a memory remains a treacherous thing…How long does one cling on to the people they’ve lost?...it is the sad reality to understand early that our lives are nothing but a series of fleeting moments, moments that will keep escaping if we do not preserve them in our memories. Memories cannot be stolen. They are ours and ours forever.”
This book made me smile and cry inwardly by its undivided power to show how life is both a terrifying and beautiful thing, that it is too dear to let go of and too tiring to hold on to yet the ideal is to find middle ground; to balance everything out. The book also talks about the bond of friendship: its endearing side as well as its delicate one. And when you read what Kanza Javed has to say about the friendship between two contrasting souls in the following words: “What happens when two introverts collide? Do they dissolve completely in each other’s patience and silence, or do they break their glass shells and become new people?” then you will automatically think of your past friendships or some current ones that can test this claim quite perfectly. As I said, each one of us can relate to this book somehow. It is a pure adventure into the highs and lows of life and relationships.
Images of the political scene in the country the book is set in are also covered neatly in the book. The fact that Javed has managed to bring the city of Lahore to life in her book is spell-bounding. Another one of her distinguishing writing skills in the book is how she makes the reader feel like they are immersed in the scenery being described. As you read about Mariam walking the streets in Lahore and the art galleries in Washington D.C, you will feel as if you are walking there right beside her.
All in all, Kanza Javed’s Ashes, Wine and Dust is a refreshing piece of art in every sense of the word…for like true art, it has the ability to console those broken by life.
January 21, 2016
Kanza Javed, with her début novel, has been established as an author par excellence. The liveliness induced in her words is nothing but the intensity and sensitivity of her soul. Reading her descriptions, we see nature gleaming out of the pages to captivate us in the world she has created. The characters are finely executed, settings staged with precision, and thoughts conveyed with composure. Javed, testing her characters in terrorizing situations shows the courage and love of humans in the face of current dilemmas. She has also highlighted important issues women face, raising voice for their case while urging them to question their identity and to recognize themselves for who they are - when they stand alone. This novel, in all its sensitivity, also has suspense thrill to it that makes it even more exciting. I recommend this book to those, who want to know about the strength women possess, to those who want to enjoy poetic renderings, and to those who have suffered loss and want to evolve.
November 12, 2019
Ashes, wine and dust, I recently read this book again as I was headed to an art residency in Islamabad, where I intended to work on idea of relation between Memory and Architecture. Kanza Javed with this book portrays the very relation brilliantly. She contextualizes her memories beautifully by adding the spatial details to the narrative. My work at the art residency is heavily influenced by her book and I am more than happy to acknowledge her one of the inspirations for the artwork that I am working on. For me Ashes, Wine and Dust was more than just a story, it is a book that leaves an impact on you. I did not deliberately choose it as an inspiration for my artwork but it happened very subconsciously. Only after writing my proposal for the residency and reviewing it, I realized how much of it has its roots from the book.
July 31, 2019
Before I begin my review, let me provide a few disclaimers: I am an American white male. The majority of my novel-reading consists of commercial, best-selling novelists, especially American and British authors, such as Stephen King and J. K. Rowling.
However, out of all the novels I’ve read, Kanza Javed’s ASHES, WINE AND DUST is one of the most beautiful and rewarding that I’ve ever experienced.
The story is relatively simple, but Javed’s way of telling the story is so haunting, beautiful, and melodious, that the prose reads more like fine poetry. Indeed, I couldn’t help but read several passages out-loud, savoring in the sheer musicality of the language.
And yes, as an American reader, there were many instances in which I had to use Google (especially Google Images) in order to understand some of the Urdu phrases within the novel. However, I never found these constant breaks to be frustrating. Indeed, this novel made me want to visit Lahore and experience its people, its culture, its history, its wishes, its regrets, its ghosts….
And that’s what this novel really is. Yes, at its most basic level, it’s a story about a young middle-class woman’s search for belonging. But more than that, it’s a love story to Lahore. And what I appreciate about this love story is that it’s honest. Rather than being merely propaganda (only highlighting the best parts of Pakistani culture), and rather than descending into “poverty porn” (describing only the worst characteristics of the culture, and often resorting to stereotypes), Javed’s novel provides an honest depiction of Lahore, warts and all.
Indeed, the citizens of Lahore truly shine in this novel: they are beautiful, thoughtful, whimsical, dreamers, lovers. But Javed doesn’t shy away from revealing some of their less appealing aspects as well: their xenophobia, their blind adherence to tradition, their sense of entitlement (especially in some of the male characters). And the novel also deals with Mariam’s coming-to-grips with the cultural differences between Pakistani, Hindi, and American cultures, and the expectations (and stereotypes) that each of those cultures tend to associate with each other.
At its heart, I believe Javed’s novel is about bridging gaps between other cultures. This message can be especially felt in the novel’s conclusion,
As an American, my only exposure to Pakistani culture has been in the media, which is often portrayed through an American point-of-view. To read about Pakistani culture through the point-of-view of a member of that culture was a refreshing and rewarding experience for me. In America, Pakistan is often maligned; they represent the “darkness” in many American films, television shows, and news stories. In this review, I urge you to not only read this book, but also to talk to any people who your culture views as the “darkness,” the people who your culture has told you to avoid, the people who belong to maligned cultures. By doing so, we might be able to bridge the gap between those cultures, and find that they aren’t as “dark” as we expected. Like three of the characters in this novel (), we might then be able to put aside our differences, and enter Paradise.
However, out of all the novels I’ve read, Kanza Javed’s ASHES, WINE AND DUST is one of the most beautiful and rewarding that I’ve ever experienced.
The story is relatively simple, but Javed’s way of telling the story is so haunting, beautiful, and melodious, that the prose reads more like fine poetry. Indeed, I couldn’t help but read several passages out-loud, savoring in the sheer musicality of the language.
And yes, as an American reader, there were many instances in which I had to use Google (especially Google Images) in order to understand some of the Urdu phrases within the novel. However, I never found these constant breaks to be frustrating. Indeed, this novel made me want to visit Lahore and experience its people, its culture, its history, its wishes, its regrets, its ghosts….
And that’s what this novel really is. Yes, at its most basic level, it’s a story about a young middle-class woman’s search for belonging. But more than that, it’s a love story to Lahore. And what I appreciate about this love story is that it’s honest. Rather than being merely propaganda (only highlighting the best parts of Pakistani culture), and rather than descending into “poverty porn” (describing only the worst characteristics of the culture, and often resorting to stereotypes), Javed’s novel provides an honest depiction of Lahore, warts and all.
Indeed, the citizens of Lahore truly shine in this novel: they are beautiful, thoughtful, whimsical, dreamers, lovers. But Javed doesn’t shy away from revealing some of their less appealing aspects as well: their xenophobia, their blind adherence to tradition, their sense of entitlement (especially in some of the male characters). And the novel also deals with Mariam’s coming-to-grips with the cultural differences between Pakistani, Hindi, and American cultures, and the expectations (and stereotypes) that each of those cultures tend to associate with each other.
At its heart, I believe Javed’s novel is about bridging gaps between other cultures. This message can be especially felt in the novel’s conclusion,
As an American, my only exposure to Pakistani culture has been in the media, which is often portrayed through an American point-of-view. To read about Pakistani culture through the point-of-view of a member of that culture was a refreshing and rewarding experience for me. In America, Pakistan is often maligned; they represent the “darkness” in many American films, television shows, and news stories. In this review, I urge you to not only read this book, but also to talk to any people who your culture views as the “darkness,” the people who your culture has told you to avoid, the people who belong to maligned cultures. By doing so, we might be able to bridge the gap between those cultures, and find that they aren’t as “dark” as we expected. Like three of the characters in this novel (), we might then be able to put aside our differences, and enter Paradise.
June 1, 2016
Dear Kanza Javed,
You have earned one fan for lifetime with your debut novel.
Today I read some article on India Pakistan relations and how politicians malign the image of both the country for their dirty politics. The crux of the matter is, it nudged the feeling in me, which was still there but was lying dormant. When I finished you book, it left me with a void when the protagonist, Mariam, loses her brother after a long backbreaking attempts/battle to locate her brother. I have an elder brother whom I love the most, whose place in my life is irreplaceable by anyone. This was one of the many reason I could not put the book aside (I finished it in a day); besides this, every single thread of the narrative connected to mine as I continued reading. I guess two pages was all that was needed for me to connect with the plot. There was a parallel imagery on play (in my mind) as I read your novel, from my childhood plays to my relation with my grandparents to sibling bonds to that unfathomable love of Mariam for her brother. It (the novel) was and is as real as me and you, even in its fictional state and I felt it (every relations, emotions and lives) as it was my own.
However after I finished reading the book, I was restless because I wanted to speak my mind, tell you what and how I was feeling at the moment. Let you know how beautiful your narrative was and how people like me needed more of this wonderful gift you had given us. To encourage you to come up with more of such works and explore further but with the same honesty which reflects in your first work. I desperately needed to find your id (I googled too hahaha but could not find it; the only id provided by the book was of the publishers but I wanted it to be a direct message to you). I wanted to write to you to let you know what your work did to me and how beautiful and hauntingly true it was in every context of one's being a breathing body. Today I finally did mail you (on your fb page) and no words can define what/how I felt when I clicked that send button. It gave me partial satisfaction which I reckon will be complete only the day I meet you in person.
I have always wondered about the life in Pakistan (due to the constant exposure to partition stories) and your book increased that wonderment and desire to visit Pakistan manifolds. It was to a certain extent answer to my many questions in context to Pakistan, people and their life in particular.
Thank you for this amazing work. Hope to read more of your work in the coming time and someday Inshallah I will be in Pakistan and may be if I get to meet you, I would reiterate every detail of the emotion you stirred in me.
Thank you.
May the good forces always be with you and may you give us many such mind boggling works.
God Speed.
You have earned one fan for lifetime with your debut novel.
Today I read some article on India Pakistan relations and how politicians malign the image of both the country for their dirty politics. The crux of the matter is, it nudged the feeling in me, which was still there but was lying dormant. When I finished you book, it left me with a void when the protagonist, Mariam, loses her brother after a long backbreaking attempts/battle to locate her brother. I have an elder brother whom I love the most, whose place in my life is irreplaceable by anyone. This was one of the many reason I could not put the book aside (I finished it in a day); besides this, every single thread of the narrative connected to mine as I continued reading. I guess two pages was all that was needed for me to connect with the plot. There was a parallel imagery on play (in my mind) as I read your novel, from my childhood plays to my relation with my grandparents to sibling bonds to that unfathomable love of Mariam for her brother. It (the novel) was and is as real as me and you, even in its fictional state and I felt it (every relations, emotions and lives) as it was my own.
However after I finished reading the book, I was restless because I wanted to speak my mind, tell you what and how I was feeling at the moment. Let you know how beautiful your narrative was and how people like me needed more of this wonderful gift you had given us. To encourage you to come up with more of such works and explore further but with the same honesty which reflects in your first work. I desperately needed to find your id (I googled too hahaha but could not find it; the only id provided by the book was of the publishers but I wanted it to be a direct message to you). I wanted to write to you to let you know what your work did to me and how beautiful and hauntingly true it was in every context of one's being a breathing body. Today I finally did mail you (on your fb page) and no words can define what/how I felt when I clicked that send button. It gave me partial satisfaction which I reckon will be complete only the day I meet you in person.
I have always wondered about the life in Pakistan (due to the constant exposure to partition stories) and your book increased that wonderment and desire to visit Pakistan manifolds. It was to a certain extent answer to my many questions in context to Pakistan, people and their life in particular.
Thank you for this amazing work. Hope to read more of your work in the coming time and someday Inshallah I will be in Pakistan and may be if I get to meet you, I would reiterate every detail of the emotion you stirred in me.
Thank you.
May the good forces always be with you and may you give us many such mind boggling works.
God Speed.
June 15, 2016
So this book is a beauty that envelopes your heart as you read it. It is sad, its is lonely and it is beautiful.
The narrative of the book is like a flowing stream of water, which takes the reader with it effortlessly. It just you put your feet in and the stream will take you where it will.
The protagonist Mariam Ameen is so relatable yet so out of reach. The loss begins in her life at the age of 8 and continues all her life. Mariam's fight against her basic nature is painful, tortuous and at the same time very serene. The book is set up in a juxtaposing of calm and the storm. There is a constant storm in Mariam's head, but a constant calmness in the book. Anybody who reads the book can feel how quiet is the narrative SO quiet that it starts to leave an impression on you.
The themes of love, loneliness, rebellion, terrorism and nostalgia are incorporated so beautifully that you feel like staring at the sky for a while after you finish it.
You relate to Mariam's pain, you want to ease it, yet you stand there helpless. A girl who had all the chances to escape her pain but she chooses to be that dark shell of life - she chooses or was involuntary captured by the pain? A question that you keep finding an answer too.
Beautiful read. Every single line. Every single word .
The narrative of the book is like a flowing stream of water, which takes the reader with it effortlessly. It just you put your feet in and the stream will take you where it will.
The protagonist Mariam Ameen is so relatable yet so out of reach. The loss begins in her life at the age of 8 and continues all her life. Mariam's fight against her basic nature is painful, tortuous and at the same time very serene. The book is set up in a juxtaposing of calm and the storm. There is a constant storm in Mariam's head, but a constant calmness in the book. Anybody who reads the book can feel how quiet is the narrative SO quiet that it starts to leave an impression on you.
The themes of love, loneliness, rebellion, terrorism and nostalgia are incorporated so beautifully that you feel like staring at the sky for a while after you finish it.
You relate to Mariam's pain, you want to ease it, yet you stand there helpless. A girl who had all the chances to escape her pain but she chooses to be that dark shell of life - she chooses or was involuntary captured by the pain? A question that you keep finding an answer too.
Beautiful read. Every single line. Every single word .
October 27, 2015
"The wind trusts me with her stories, stories of a simpler time. A time when two lovers corresponded through secret letters, when two children played under the sweet winter sun, and when a grandfather gently stroked the hair of his grandchild till she drifted to sleep in his lap."
-Ashes, Wine and Dust
I must say that you have indeed written well but what struck me most is the way you have captured a tale with such simplicity and beauty. It has that effect on you the kind you have after reading Ghalib's poetry. You feel tragic like you lost something, something that was not even yours to begin with. I admire the way you have captured a haunting quality in your novel without trying so hard. Truly proud of you for accomplishing this beautiful tragic love story that is unlike any other love story yet can be relatable on many levels.You have painted through your words. Your novel possesses a transcendental quality that is reminiscent of a lost era. It transports the reader to a world that is deeply ingrained within each and everyone one of us and we harbour a strange longing to return to this world but only through our memories.
-Ashes, Wine and Dust
I must say that you have indeed written well but what struck me most is the way you have captured a tale with such simplicity and beauty. It has that effect on you the kind you have after reading Ghalib's poetry. You feel tragic like you lost something, something that was not even yours to begin with. I admire the way you have captured a haunting quality in your novel without trying so hard. Truly proud of you for accomplishing this beautiful tragic love story that is unlike any other love story yet can be relatable on many levels.You have painted through your words. Your novel possesses a transcendental quality that is reminiscent of a lost era. It transports the reader to a world that is deeply ingrained within each and everyone one of us and we harbour a strange longing to return to this world but only through our memories.
August 10, 2016
The book somehow holds a grip on your nerves, as throughout it deals with the losses by deaths, which is the ultimate reality of every human being. Without delving into what the book is all about (because people can read the book, if they want to) I'd want to highlight what it was lacking for me. It didn't give me a complete understanding of why Abdullah got killed? Did he become a Terrorist? Who exactly was behind those attacks? A proper investigation of the blast at Data Darbar was needed, man. Even if the answers were mentioned anywhere in passing, it wasn't enough. There had to be few more pages at least, devoted to the research and efforts in tracking the culprits. The ending is okay. All in all, Ashes, Wine and Dust finely captures its title and theme, the characters visits graveyard often, reminding us all that "From the Dust we came, to the Dust we return." That is something.
July 13, 2016
I loved the narration especially the ashes part. Smoooth. I was surprised because this is debut novel. I was overwhelmed by emotions while reading it. Made me cry. It made me reminiscent of past. The dust part was bit rocky and needed effort but everything else is just too good. The relation b/w Mariam and her brother is ... how should I put it...? Different? Made me angry and sad at the same time. Also this book definitely questioned & challenged my stereotyped perspective about Pakisthani women. Definitely worth a read. Soothes you, especially if you're going through a bad phase.
July 7, 2020
Hemingway once said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” I believe that is exactly what the author has done - bled magnificence.
Simplicity is often confused with incompetency but how does one complicate something as beautiful and primitive as emotions? To quote, Arthur Schopenhauer, “one should use common words to say uncommon things.” From the protagonist’s sharp vicissitude of fortune, to her metamorphosis unto the ‘self’. How simply and beautifully the author is able to describe a young girl’s journey of self-realization aided by interactions with characters often overlooked and decisions often muted by the noise of societal expectations has been enlightening. Ashes Wine and Dust to me, is a modern portrayal of the pursuit of the demons that lie within the ‘Jungian Shadow’.
Simplicity is often confused with incompetency but how does one complicate something as beautiful and primitive as emotions? To quote, Arthur Schopenhauer, “one should use common words to say uncommon things.” From the protagonist’s sharp vicissitude of fortune, to her metamorphosis unto the ‘self’. How simply and beautifully the author is able to describe a young girl’s journey of self-realization aided by interactions with characters often overlooked and decisions often muted by the noise of societal expectations has been enlightening. Ashes Wine and Dust to me, is a modern portrayal of the pursuit of the demons that lie within the ‘Jungian Shadow’.
July 29, 2016
One seldom comes across a novel which grasps the utter interest of the reader from its prologue. I came across such a masterpiece when I read Kanza Javed's "Ashes, Wine & Dust". The author's forte lies in the realm of description as she realistically paints an ethereal picture of Pakistan's rural and urban life. The lush greenery, shimmering water and every other description of nature is throbbing with life which truly makes it a "Paradise" on earth.
It is felt that south Asian literature is rich in content but lacks eloquent diction. However, Javed's writing style is exemplary. It is opulent. Thence, it confers immense relief to know that South Asia has an impeccable writer who penned down "Ashes, Wine & Dust". (and will hopefully continue with the journey of words) The novel's pensive tone is its biggest attraction for it unveils the beautifully sketched characters of Mariam & Dadda in the most elegant manner.
Javed has amalgamated a plethora of themes such as love, mystery, introspection, social commentary, nostalgia, human degeneration and philosophy in just one novel in the most witty manner that it does not even seem to be overloaded. Rather, it is perfectly balanced.
The ending is the pinnacle of the author's pre-eminence. It is a very strong ending which sustains mystery while conferring the right amount of information to appease her readers. It is reminiscent of Emily Bronte's use of theme of mystery pertaining to Heathcliff's whereabouts & his short disappearance.
Javed's characterization is poignant. It has artistic strokes of reality which makes them round characters. The two towering figures are Mariam & Dadda. Both depict the author's keen sense of observation & transcendence in the realm of philosophy.
Put simply, "Ashes, Wine & Dust" is par excellence. In addition to that, the author has proved herself to be worthy of being shortlisted for the Tibor Jones South Asia Prize.
It is felt that south Asian literature is rich in content but lacks eloquent diction. However, Javed's writing style is exemplary. It is opulent. Thence, it confers immense relief to know that South Asia has an impeccable writer who penned down "Ashes, Wine & Dust". (and will hopefully continue with the journey of words) The novel's pensive tone is its biggest attraction for it unveils the beautifully sketched characters of Mariam & Dadda in the most elegant manner.
Javed has amalgamated a plethora of themes such as love, mystery, introspection, social commentary, nostalgia, human degeneration and philosophy in just one novel in the most witty manner that it does not even seem to be overloaded. Rather, it is perfectly balanced.
The ending is the pinnacle of the author's pre-eminence. It is a very strong ending which sustains mystery while conferring the right amount of information to appease her readers. It is reminiscent of Emily Bronte's use of theme of mystery pertaining to Heathcliff's whereabouts & his short disappearance.
Javed's characterization is poignant. It has artistic strokes of reality which makes them round characters. The two towering figures are Mariam & Dadda. Both depict the author's keen sense of observation & transcendence in the realm of philosophy.
Put simply, "Ashes, Wine & Dust" is par excellence. In addition to that, the author has proved herself to be worthy of being shortlisted for the Tibor Jones South Asia Prize.
December 28, 2015
After attending the DWL event at t2f for the Ashes, Wine and Dust; I got the book signed for a friend of mine who wasn't able to make it to the event yet wanted to.
Kanza signed the book with,"May you find happiness within these pages!"and I could only ask, "Is it a happy book?" I knew the answer to my question before even asking,... perhaps before even having attended the event. The answer felt like it lies within the name itself, within the beautiful, melancholic cover photo itself.....
Kanza weaves an absorbing story, compelling us to look around us and identify the wolves within our society; sometimes finding that wolf within our very own gossip-mongering selves.
It may not be the happiest of tales but it does make us realize the worth of family,love and happiness. It makes us cherish the memories that inhabit our minds and souls, the memories that fill our years and the memories that make us who we are...
There are a few things I couldn't get myself entirely comfortable with, such as the setting, the plot etc... but I simply loved loved loved the flow so a thumbs up it is to Kanza and her book!
Thank You for writing this wonderful piece!
I'll not say that I found happiness within these pages, but I did learn to cherish the happiness in small things.
Kanza signed the book with,"May you find happiness within these pages!"and I could only ask, "Is it a happy book?" I knew the answer to my question before even asking,... perhaps before even having attended the event. The answer felt like it lies within the name itself, within the beautiful, melancholic cover photo itself.....
Kanza weaves an absorbing story, compelling us to look around us and identify the wolves within our society; sometimes finding that wolf within our very own gossip-mongering selves.
It may not be the happiest of tales but it does make us realize the worth of family,love and happiness. It makes us cherish the memories that inhabit our minds and souls, the memories that fill our years and the memories that make us who we are...
There are a few things I couldn't get myself entirely comfortable with, such as the setting, the plot etc... but I simply loved loved loved the flow so a thumbs up it is to Kanza and her book!
Thank You for writing this wonderful piece!
I'll not say that I found happiness within these pages, but I did learn to cherish the happiness in small things.
April 12, 2016
*May contain spoilers*
The curse of mediocre novels continue to haunt me. What the hell was this book supposed to be? It started off fine but man I really had to force myself to read through the dust part. None of the stories or characters or relationships made sense or connected to one another or the main story and the lead character.
So Mariam was so emotional and sponge like absorbing and feeling everyone's pain.. like when Karan lost the ashes of his dead father she couldn't forget the look on his face and was still upset about it years later but God forbid woman you understand your brother's pain who lost a friend in a terrorist attack.. a dead man's ashes ARE more important ofcourse!
Mariam was so frikkin irritating.. man who lives like this? I don't even understand what was so charming about her that man after man was falling for her. Her monologue was like reading some whiny person's twitter account. Philosophy after philosophy after philosophy.. yeah we know you can write well but how about a story that makes sense?
Have you seen the Bollywood movie Fiza? Yeah skip this book and watch that instead.. that one is a bit more entertaining.
The curse of mediocre novels continue to haunt me. What the hell was this book supposed to be? It started off fine but man I really had to force myself to read through the dust part. None of the stories or characters or relationships made sense or connected to one another or the main story and the lead character.
So Mariam was so emotional and sponge like absorbing and feeling everyone's pain.. like when Karan lost the ashes of his dead father she couldn't forget the look on his face and was still upset about it years later but God forbid woman you understand your brother's pain who lost a friend in a terrorist attack.. a dead man's ashes ARE more important ofcourse!
Mariam was so frikkin irritating.. man who lives like this? I don't even understand what was so charming about her that man after man was falling for her. Her monologue was like reading some whiny person's twitter account. Philosophy after philosophy after philosophy.. yeah we know you can write well but how about a story that makes sense?
Have you seen the Bollywood movie Fiza? Yeah skip this book and watch that instead.. that one is a bit more entertaining.
May 10, 2019
Amazing story from a brilliant new Pakistani writer. Just FYI, the pace of the books is slow as compare to ever popular young adult lit but that's right into according to the core of the story of this book. The plot of the story needs you to adsorb slowly by taking it all in by delving into the world of our protagonist "Maryam" and her journey from a village to metropolis. I guess the writer wants you to experience her mindset through the eyes of Maryam, and i think that can only be achieved by reading at slow deliberate pace and absorbing the whole experience. I must say that book does pick up the pace after few chapters and once you get involved into the lives of all the characters you will not put the book down. Book is highly recommended. 5/5 stars.
December 26, 2015
There are no plans, just people fooling themselves by attempting to design their fates and futures. It makes them feel invincible, even if it’s for a transient period of time.”
Ashes, Wine and Dust is an excruciatingly beautiful read with strong characters that are often difficult to find in a debut novel. The story is gripping and engulfed in an exuberant tone of despair and desolation of the protagonist. The only disappointment I had was the melancholic note on which the novel ended, I would've loved a rather brighter end to the female protagonist's misery. All in all, a beautiful debut novel and a must read for each and every person.
Ashes, Wine and Dust is an excruciatingly beautiful read with strong characters that are often difficult to find in a debut novel. The story is gripping and engulfed in an exuberant tone of despair and desolation of the protagonist. The only disappointment I had was the melancholic note on which the novel ended, I would've loved a rather brighter end to the female protagonist's misery. All in all, a beautiful debut novel and a must read for each and every person.
July 7, 2020
A stunning debut by a young South Asian author. Javed grips Lahore in the palm of her hand. The childhood reveries resonated with my own childhood. A novel written for a South Asian audience by a South Asian author, not pandering to the West in any way. Even the "Wine" section of the novel which encapsulates a foreign setting (Washington D.C.), Javed retains the subcontinental sensibility.
The language is a mix of lyrical and crisp. The characters are well-rounded and sharp. Much recommended.
The language is a mix of lyrical and crisp. The characters are well-rounded and sharp. Much recommended.
March 9, 2017
This happened to be my first book by a Pakistani author and it took me years back in time. The story is hauntingly engrossing and the characters are mostly ones you can relate to. The slow pace of life, the inequalities, the deceptions, the relatives, religion, they all capture the mind through out the book. The book took me back in time, I almost imagined all the characters in the book and lived with them the entire time I was reading it. Its beautifully written. Great book.
July 14, 2019
“Ashes Wine & Dust” by @kanza_j
Very few novels have the ability to grasp reader’s mind and touch their soul. This is a debut novel of Pakistani author Kanza Javed and I must say that she had brilliantly portrayed every character, and storyline is really really out class. It takes you somewhere in your past and you start feeling like a part of the story.
I have read this novel in 2017 and I want to read it again and again.
The Novel begins in 1994 with main character “Mariam” who narrates her life story while living her childhood in Lahore. Mariam used to visits her grandparents in a village and loved to enjoy village life with her dada and dadi. Her relationship with grandparents was filled with pure love and care and then their deaths brought great affliction and discomfort in Mariam’s life. Author called this part “Ashes” because every creature in the end has to die and become part of the soil. “We have come from dust and to dust we shall return”. Then in her young age, with so many beautiful memories of childhood spent with her beloved dada dadi, Mariam goes to abroad for higher studies in 2008 and here is the beginning of the part “Wine”. She finds this expat life totally different from village life. The fast and modern lifestyle in US has no charm in comparison with simple, happy and innocent life of her grandparent’s village. “The past offers you nothing but pain, someday you will understand this, Mariam baji. It has nothing new to say, or offer. When it knocks, you must not let it enter. ”
And the climax ends in 2010, when she lost her dearest brother in a terror attack in Lahore and eventually everything in her life becomes “Dust”. To all those terrifying things that we must leave behind in order to move forward,” “To all those mistakes, wrong turns, and bad people, and all that and those we have lost.” The character of Marium is simple, quiet, loyal and always lost in past and she likes to talk about blood relations, childhood and grandparents.
The novel comprised of three parts as Ashes, Wine and Dust and it is worth reading. I enjoyed every bit of it.
Very few novels have the ability to grasp reader’s mind and touch their soul. This is a debut novel of Pakistani author Kanza Javed and I must say that she had brilliantly portrayed every character, and storyline is really really out class. It takes you somewhere in your past and you start feeling like a part of the story.
I have read this novel in 2017 and I want to read it again and again.
The Novel begins in 1994 with main character “Mariam” who narrates her life story while living her childhood in Lahore. Mariam used to visits her grandparents in a village and loved to enjoy village life with her dada and dadi. Her relationship with grandparents was filled with pure love and care and then their deaths brought great affliction and discomfort in Mariam’s life. Author called this part “Ashes” because every creature in the end has to die and become part of the soil. “We have come from dust and to dust we shall return”. Then in her young age, with so many beautiful memories of childhood spent with her beloved dada dadi, Mariam goes to abroad for higher studies in 2008 and here is the beginning of the part “Wine”. She finds this expat life totally different from village life. The fast and modern lifestyle in US has no charm in comparison with simple, happy and innocent life of her grandparent’s village. “The past offers you nothing but pain, someday you will understand this, Mariam baji. It has nothing new to say, or offer. When it knocks, you must not let it enter. ”
And the climax ends in 2010, when she lost her dearest brother in a terror attack in Lahore and eventually everything in her life becomes “Dust”. To all those terrifying things that we must leave behind in order to move forward,” “To all those mistakes, wrong turns, and bad people, and all that and those we have lost.” The character of Marium is simple, quiet, loyal and always lost in past and she likes to talk about blood relations, childhood and grandparents.
The novel comprised of three parts as Ashes, Wine and Dust and it is worth reading. I enjoyed every bit of it.
March 5, 2016
"There's just a thin blurry line that separates the innocent world of children from the maddening world of adults. We always forget that. We, the adults, are responsible for this, for this confusion and mess."
It is rare for people to capture the memories of childhood with every bit of detail and cling to it for the rest of their lives while others barely reminisce it and follow the code book of the new world they become obsessed with. Kanza Javed chose to show the former for her character Mariam in this heart warming yet gripping novel.
The novel takes its readers on a journey inside the mind of Mariam where she has incapsulated every last bit of detail about her grandparents, the village they lived in, the people they lived with and the neighbors they dealt with. It shows how even after leaving her home city, her mind fails to settle on the things beyond it. She is tested by her city Lahore in terms of parents, sisters, her beloved brother and strangers.
Ashes, Wine & Dust explore the three chapters of Mariam's life. 'Ashes' show her time as an 8 year old with barely any responsibilities to endure but many memories to capture. 'Wine' explains her life abroad with much to take care of. 'Dust' brings her back to the city which once belonged to her.
Ashes, wine and dust is truly an exceptional book. I don't think i'll ever be able to recommend someone a book that is not Ashes,Wine & Dust.
It is rare for people to capture the memories of childhood with every bit of detail and cling to it for the rest of their lives while others barely reminisce it and follow the code book of the new world they become obsessed with. Kanza Javed chose to show the former for her character Mariam in this heart warming yet gripping novel.
The novel takes its readers on a journey inside the mind of Mariam where she has incapsulated every last bit of detail about her grandparents, the village they lived in, the people they lived with and the neighbors they dealt with. It shows how even after leaving her home city, her mind fails to settle on the things beyond it. She is tested by her city Lahore in terms of parents, sisters, her beloved brother and strangers.
Ashes, Wine & Dust explore the three chapters of Mariam's life. 'Ashes' show her time as an 8 year old with barely any responsibilities to endure but many memories to capture. 'Wine' explains her life abroad with much to take care of. 'Dust' brings her back to the city which once belonged to her.
Ashes, wine and dust is truly an exceptional book. I don't think i'll ever be able to recommend someone a book that is not Ashes,Wine & Dust.
July 5, 2020
Beautifully written and crafted.... love the quotes! Its amazing that the writer was so young yet the book is so composed and full of life lessons!
May 26, 2019
Discipline the desire to leave the book unfinished, what you get at the end is not very fulfilling either- less engaging tale. There are chunks of brilliance and worth-underlining-lines spread throughout the novel, but a collective impression that it leaves is of a drab and ancillary narrative. The major part of the plot appears a C class detective novel, where the protagonist, Mariam, is in search of her lost brother Abdullah, and rest of the novel revolves around memories of her grandfather. Freedom and defiance were the commonalities that connected Mariam and dada. Mariam is a somnolent character, in love with graveyards and railway stations, hardly showing any affectionate emotions. Three men Rizwan, Richard and Adnan fell for her, but she remained indifferent to them!?
“Why are you so guarded, Mariam? Why do you make it so hard to love you?” (172)
The book touches upon quite a few themes, but none is developed thoroughly. It is a novels of loss, love, brother-sister bondage, of relationships (Marium and Dada relationship, Marium and Abdullah relationship, Marium and Adnan relationship, Marium and Richard relationship, Marium and Hindu boy Karan relationship), Hindu-Muslim harmony (Dada Askar Ameen loved Prakriti and Marium loved Karan), novel of pain, deaths and funerals, terror and bombs, ghosts & spirits, memories, traumas, village life, children’s world, funerals, freedom, diaspora angst, transitioning in America, Quran and power of faith, role of spiritual healers/Pirs , Pakistani minorities—however, the overall motive of the novel that could help it enlisted in some category of literary productions, is unclear. The irony is, on one hand this is a novel of relationships, and on the other Mariam’s relatives are called “wolves” throughout. Similar contradictions exist at other places too.
You expect a story authored by a female, with a female protagonist to have somewhat female friendly candor, if not feminist. To our surprise there are discernible, anti-feminist dialogues and situations. For example, Dadi had certain notions of beauty in her head. On top of that she glorified ‘beauty’ and appearance as something higher than the inner-self of a female individual. Talking to Anika, the elder sister of Mariam, grandmother boasts, “You have never seen the photos of my youth, have you? Skin, so flawless and hair so immaculate. My sisters were a work of art, too. It’s a shame these things are gradually dying. Women should be like ornaments, fragile and beautiful” (15). Should she be given the leverage of her age? Why these ideas were not combated by the author? What version, if any, of female freedom is this? The concern for beauty is also visible in other characters, for example Marium describes her twin sisters as follow: “They were taller for their age, slender and fair—in short, every South Asian boy’s fantasy. Anika and I, on the other hand, possessed ordinary looks and “wheatish” complexion – a term coined by our mother for our beige skin colour” (21). Anika despite knowing that her future husband likes someone else, married him to please her parents. Anika’s unhappy engagement, marriage and divorce is not a sort of message one would want to portray through contemporary writings by young women from this part of the world.
Anika’s mother: “He will admire you after marriage. After all, it is your duty to win over your husband’s heart.” (108)
There are a few moments of feminist success too. For instance, Hamida says- “Sometimes loving a man is like loving a cat. You can never be loved back…When I married him, I knew he was like a cabbage, lots of layers. I was ready to unfold. Other than the constant curiosity, there was prevalent fear that behind the veil if the last layer slept a monster ready to pounce on me”(55). At another place, “A man’s mind works in miraculous ways. It goes far beyond the perceptions of a woman. You can never know anyone entirely; not your close friend, not even the person you wake up next to very single morning” (174). But the question rises again, is man-hating, a justifiable feminist facet we want to bring forth?
On writing and diction: There is no identifiable conflict in the story against which the protagonist Marium may seem to be working. Quite a bit uncertainty, rather absurdity prevails, which does not appear to be a narrative technique, instead a narrative flaw. It’s not a unique plot, even as a naïve reader, I can maybe suggest a few diversions that could have made the story ore interesting and meaningful. I found clichéd parts, typos, very frequent switching of settings, incoherence between title and content, undeveloped ideas, inappropriate philosophizing, first and third person narratives switches, limited variation in expression, lack of sharpness in prose, vague chapter division, series of scattered stories lacking the binding force and plot dragged with unnecessary details. Symbolic value has to be forced upon certain events to keep yourself interested in the details of happenings. Otherwise, the narrative arc is missing or not so well crafted. There are places where the writer seems to be worried about incomprehension of non-Eastern reader and explains self-explanatory terminologies and concepts. For example, “wheatish complexion – a term coined by our mother for our beige skin colour”. Now ‘wheatish’ is not an expression the readers from our part of the world, will not be familiar with.
I was excited to see a novel by a Pakistani female author set in Lahore, but sadly Lahore was less visible than my liking, did not leave an authentic feel; it lacked richness. This can be justified by saying that Lahore was not a motif of the work, yet fairly inclusive depiction of what the geography of Lahore has to offer would have generated a reason to get hooked to the work.
Quotes:
“we must not abandon the people we love so easily, even after we lose them, even after they perish. We must always find love within us for all beings, for the frailest bird, the smallest insect and even the dead. We must never lose the warmth” (xii)
“Pain takes time to soften. People recover differently. Some change cities, some fall in love, some start writing.” (20)
“We have to leave some things behind so that we can make room for more. Some memories have to be abandoned so that we can build some new ones.” (73)
“There are two kinds of children, one, who choose to remain stuck with their parent’s identity and the later second, who are lever enough to find their own. But it was often the latter that suffered.” (95)
“if you won’t open up and learn to trust people, you will miss on some of the greatest things in life” (106)
“I guess we find heroes in the most ordinary people. We don’t know why we love them but we do” (106)
“How can you trust yourself with your own thoughts, your own understanding? Can we ever figure out things when we are on our own? We need people, we need friends” (166)
“Pain somehow becomes easier to swallow, when you have someone to blame for it” (275)
“We are created for a special purpose, that each of us has an aim. Some have stories to tell, some have lovers to find, others have trains to catch and some keep on walking till the sky ends” (337)
“Why are you so guarded, Mariam? Why do you make it so hard to love you?” (172)
The book touches upon quite a few themes, but none is developed thoroughly. It is a novels of loss, love, brother-sister bondage, of relationships (Marium and Dada relationship, Marium and Abdullah relationship, Marium and Adnan relationship, Marium and Richard relationship, Marium and Hindu boy Karan relationship), Hindu-Muslim harmony (Dada Askar Ameen loved Prakriti and Marium loved Karan), novel of pain, deaths and funerals, terror and bombs, ghosts & spirits, memories, traumas, village life, children’s world, funerals, freedom, diaspora angst, transitioning in America, Quran and power of faith, role of spiritual healers/Pirs , Pakistani minorities—however, the overall motive of the novel that could help it enlisted in some category of literary productions, is unclear. The irony is, on one hand this is a novel of relationships, and on the other Mariam’s relatives are called “wolves” throughout. Similar contradictions exist at other places too.
You expect a story authored by a female, with a female protagonist to have somewhat female friendly candor, if not feminist. To our surprise there are discernible, anti-feminist dialogues and situations. For example, Dadi had certain notions of beauty in her head. On top of that she glorified ‘beauty’ and appearance as something higher than the inner-self of a female individual. Talking to Anika, the elder sister of Mariam, grandmother boasts, “You have never seen the photos of my youth, have you? Skin, so flawless and hair so immaculate. My sisters were a work of art, too. It’s a shame these things are gradually dying. Women should be like ornaments, fragile and beautiful” (15). Should she be given the leverage of her age? Why these ideas were not combated by the author? What version, if any, of female freedom is this? The concern for beauty is also visible in other characters, for example Marium describes her twin sisters as follow: “They were taller for their age, slender and fair—in short, every South Asian boy’s fantasy. Anika and I, on the other hand, possessed ordinary looks and “wheatish” complexion – a term coined by our mother for our beige skin colour” (21). Anika despite knowing that her future husband likes someone else, married him to please her parents. Anika’s unhappy engagement, marriage and divorce is not a sort of message one would want to portray through contemporary writings by young women from this part of the world.
Anika’s mother: “He will admire you after marriage. After all, it is your duty to win over your husband’s heart.” (108)
There are a few moments of feminist success too. For instance, Hamida says- “Sometimes loving a man is like loving a cat. You can never be loved back…When I married him, I knew he was like a cabbage, lots of layers. I was ready to unfold. Other than the constant curiosity, there was prevalent fear that behind the veil if the last layer slept a monster ready to pounce on me”(55). At another place, “A man’s mind works in miraculous ways. It goes far beyond the perceptions of a woman. You can never know anyone entirely; not your close friend, not even the person you wake up next to very single morning” (174). But the question rises again, is man-hating, a justifiable feminist facet we want to bring forth?
On writing and diction: There is no identifiable conflict in the story against which the protagonist Marium may seem to be working. Quite a bit uncertainty, rather absurdity prevails, which does not appear to be a narrative technique, instead a narrative flaw. It’s not a unique plot, even as a naïve reader, I can maybe suggest a few diversions that could have made the story ore interesting and meaningful. I found clichéd parts, typos, very frequent switching of settings, incoherence between title and content, undeveloped ideas, inappropriate philosophizing, first and third person narratives switches, limited variation in expression, lack of sharpness in prose, vague chapter division, series of scattered stories lacking the binding force and plot dragged with unnecessary details. Symbolic value has to be forced upon certain events to keep yourself interested in the details of happenings. Otherwise, the narrative arc is missing or not so well crafted. There are places where the writer seems to be worried about incomprehension of non-Eastern reader and explains self-explanatory terminologies and concepts. For example, “wheatish complexion – a term coined by our mother for our beige skin colour”. Now ‘wheatish’ is not an expression the readers from our part of the world, will not be familiar with.
I was excited to see a novel by a Pakistani female author set in Lahore, but sadly Lahore was less visible than my liking, did not leave an authentic feel; it lacked richness. This can be justified by saying that Lahore was not a motif of the work, yet fairly inclusive depiction of what the geography of Lahore has to offer would have generated a reason to get hooked to the work.
Quotes:
“we must not abandon the people we love so easily, even after we lose them, even after they perish. We must always find love within us for all beings, for the frailest bird, the smallest insect and even the dead. We must never lose the warmth” (xii)
“Pain takes time to soften. People recover differently. Some change cities, some fall in love, some start writing.” (20)
“We have to leave some things behind so that we can make room for more. Some memories have to be abandoned so that we can build some new ones.” (73)
“There are two kinds of children, one, who choose to remain stuck with their parent’s identity and the later second, who are lever enough to find their own. But it was often the latter that suffered.” (95)
“if you won’t open up and learn to trust people, you will miss on some of the greatest things in life” (106)
“I guess we find heroes in the most ordinary people. We don’t know why we love them but we do” (106)
“How can you trust yourself with your own thoughts, your own understanding? Can we ever figure out things when we are on our own? We need people, we need friends” (166)
“Pain somehow becomes easier to swallow, when you have someone to blame for it” (275)
“We are created for a special purpose, that each of us has an aim. Some have stories to tell, some have lovers to find, others have trains to catch and some keep on walking till the sky ends” (337)
February 26, 2019
Incredibly moving, a powerful debut novel. First novels tend to disappoint but what a breathtaking story! The book works on the theme of loss, memory, trauma, terrorism, family and womanhood.
April 1, 2021
I discovered this writer through her short stories, "It Will Follow You Home" and "Rani". I was so touched by the vivid characterization and themes that I had to read her debut novel. And as expected, I was overwhelmed. The novel captures the essence of each character, complex or flat. it is the voice of Lahore, a rapidly changing city. Kanza writes in her short story, "It Will Follow You Home" lines which even echoed in this book:
"Lahore is a delicious city. A mottled mess of vanishing history and new regimes. Lahore becomes ominous when you are in Morgantown. Lahore becomes a quiet mirage, an odd spectacle hung in time that only moves how you want it to move. It only moves when you want it to move. It does not speak to you or wail for you, yet you write only about Lahore."
The tone of the novel is melancholic, poetic and nostalgic and the narrator Mariam is introspective and willful. The book plays on the themes of inextricable yet fragile familial bonds, generational trauma, gender roles, courage and it paints Pakistani sensibility without pandering to a Western audience. The characters move, self-discover, fall apart, transition and evolve as we reach the "Dust" part of the novel. Some find closure, some continuing seeking closure as the books closes.
Kanza's writings are brave and the narrative is often, unflinching. Quiet yet loud. Kanza, if you read this. Please keep writing.
"Lahore is a delicious city. A mottled mess of vanishing history and new regimes. Lahore becomes ominous when you are in Morgantown. Lahore becomes a quiet mirage, an odd spectacle hung in time that only moves how you want it to move. It only moves when you want it to move. It does not speak to you or wail for you, yet you write only about Lahore."
The tone of the novel is melancholic, poetic and nostalgic and the narrator Mariam is introspective and willful. The book plays on the themes of inextricable yet fragile familial bonds, generational trauma, gender roles, courage and it paints Pakistani sensibility without pandering to a Western audience. The characters move, self-discover, fall apart, transition and evolve as we reach the "Dust" part of the novel. Some find closure, some continuing seeking closure as the books closes.
Kanza's writings are brave and the narrative is often, unflinching. Quiet yet loud. Kanza, if you read this. Please keep writing.
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