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In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
A major literary debut that explores class, culture, power, and desire among the ruling and servant classes of Pakistan.
In the spirit of Joyce's Dubliners and Turgenev's A Sportsman's Sketches, Daniyal Mueenuddin's collection of linked stories illuminates a place and a people through an examination of the entwined lives of landowners and their retainers on the Gurmani family farm in the countryside outside of Lahore, Pakistan. An aging feudal landlord's household staff, the villagers who depend on his favor, and a network of relations near and far who have sought their fortune in the cities confront the advantages and constraints of station, the dissolution of old ways, and the shock of change.
Mueenuddin bares—at times humorously, at times tragically—the complexities of Pakistani class and culture and presents a vivid picture of a time and a place, of the old powers and the new, as the Pakistani feudal order is undermined and transformed.
Nawabdin Electrician
Saleema
Provide, Provide
About a Burning Girl
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
Our Lady of Paris
Lily
A Spoiled Man
In the spirit of Joyce's Dubliners and Turgenev's A Sportsman's Sketches, Daniyal Mueenuddin's collection of linked stories illuminates a place and a people through an examination of the entwined lives of landowners and their retainers on the Gurmani family farm in the countryside outside of Lahore, Pakistan. An aging feudal landlord's household staff, the villagers who depend on his favor, and a network of relations near and far who have sought their fortune in the cities confront the advantages and constraints of station, the dissolution of old ways, and the shock of change.
Mueenuddin bares—at times humorously, at times tragically—the complexities of Pakistani class and culture and presents a vivid picture of a time and a place, of the old powers and the new, as the Pakistani feudal order is undermined and transformed.
Nawabdin Electrician
Saleema
Provide, Provide
About a Burning Girl
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
Our Lady of Paris
Lily
A Spoiled Man
247 pages, Hardcover
First published January 5, 2009
416 people are currently reading
9738 people want to read
About the author
Daniyal Mueenuddin
9 books187 followersDaniyal Mueenuddin was brought up in Lahore, Pakistan and Elroy, Wisconsin. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Yale Law School, his stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Zoetrope, and The Best American Short Stories 2008, selected by Salman Rushdie. For a number of years he practiced law in New York. He now lives on a farm in Pakistan's southern Punjab.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 966 reviews
June 22, 2023
Daniyal Mueenuddin - image from Bidoun.Org
Mueenuddin has put together a collection of stories that offers a less than flattering portrait of Pakistan. But while the social structures that come under his gaze are less than ideal, his writing is top notch, his ability to create memorable and accessible characters is superb. The organizing methodology here is that each of the stories connects with K.K. Harouni, patriarch of a family in a declining landed class. He is almost an innocent, not noticing that his servants are taking extreme, and criminal advantage of him. Were he to say he was “shocked, shocked” to learn that his servants were stealing from him he would be saying it honestly. Yet corruption is ubiquitous in this world.
Who in Mueenuddin’s Pakistan is able to get beyond their gender roles and sclerotic class structure? In Our Lady of Paris, the young, American-educated Sohail tries to do so, in a way, by marrying an American, but her conservative mother puts the kibosh on that. He later marries another American, but once married, she pretty much goes native, so represents an infusion of DNA rather than actual change. In Lily, the character of the title was and remains a spoiled urban child. In A Spoiled Man, the elderly Rezak, who is ultimately content with his place, is abused when, at least in his own mind, he aspires to something more. Women have to sleep with higher-level servants in households in order to get by. But even when they corral a member of a higher class, it ultimately ends badly for them. Corruption is rampant. In Provide, Provide a trusted servant is really a serpent. In A Spoiled Man we learn of a business that the police engage in outside their legal duties. Mueenuddin’s Pakistan is firmly rooted in its feudal past and those who would attempt to become bridges to the future fare poorly.
While the stories here would certainly go a long way to influencing one to cancel any relocation plans, they are tales beautifully told, with engaging, rounded characters. Through their eyes we get to know a bit of what the country is all about. The American, Helen, commenting on her fiancée, Sohail, notes that he is nicer in America, “It is easier to be gentle in a place where there’s order.” As chaos spread like a malignancy in today’s Pakistan, one might expect a dearth of gentility for quite some time to come. But at least one writer is attempting to create some order and beauty from the mess.
This interview is absolutely amazing for letting you in on a lot of what lies behind the stories
Bidoun - Daniyal Mueenuddin - Stranded gentry by Elizabeth Rubin
September 22, 2020
Perhaps it's not the best idea to learn contemporary sociology from fictional short stories, but it's not a bad place to start if the stories are as good as these. Twentieth- (and early-21st) century Pakistan is presented here through the eyes of the landowners and their peons. All levels of society (the 'middle' class is glancingly represented in the landowners' 'managers') work the system, some in order to survive, others to get as much as they can. The rich aren't necessarily getting richer, in some cases they are merely keeping up appearances, more important to them than actually working.
Memorable female characters, who use their youth and sex-appeal in similar ways, are the focus of some of the stories. Though the families they come from and the men they 'use' (and who use them) are different from each other, their stories are basically the same -- intentional, I'm sure. (As shown in "About a Burning Girl," the girl is the last thing any of the men are considering.) That said, I may end up remembering longer the older male characters: one who encounters bewildering, startling violence from another more desperate than he is and one who, after well-meaning types try to help him, experiences the same kind of violence from corrupt policemen.
Depicting a society where protocol and the family you come from means so much (though increasingly not as much as it used to), the author's use of recurring characters and their descendants is effective. Subtle metaphors point out that change is not only a struggle that comes with a cost; but that it is also frustratingly hard to achieve, if at all.
A sense of place is very strong in all the stories, including one set in France.
Memorable female characters, who use their youth and sex-appeal in similar ways, are the focus of some of the stories. Though the families they come from and the men they 'use' (and who use them) are different from each other, their stories are basically the same -- intentional, I'm sure. (As shown in "About a Burning Girl," the girl is the last thing any of the men are considering.) That said, I may end up remembering longer the older male characters: one who encounters bewildering, startling violence from another more desperate than he is and one who, after well-meaning types try to help him, experiences the same kind of violence from corrupt policemen.
Depicting a society where protocol and the family you come from means so much (though increasingly not as much as it used to), the author's use of recurring characters and their descendants is effective. Subtle metaphors point out that change is not only a struggle that comes with a cost; but that it is also frustratingly hard to achieve, if at all.
A sense of place is very strong in all the stories, including one set in France.
September 30, 2016
This collection of stories is insightful and by turns luminous and bleak. Mueenuddin takes the stories of a wide range of people, from poor servants to the landed rich, to form a cross section of Pakistani society, the common thread being their relationship to an old aristocratic land-owner and his family. It is full of poetic detail and Mueenuddin's characters are complex, fully realised and sympathetic, but the overall picture is of a divided society in which very few stories have happy endings. Considering the setting, the stories feel very secular, with very few overtly religious elements - it is much more about families, money, power and influence. I suspect that many of these stories would stand up well to multiple readings.
May 8, 2017
The first time I read this book a few years ago, I hated it with a passion. I found it (alternatively) boring, infuriating, condescending or cynical. “What did you just make me read?” I complained to my best friend, who loved this book and was in turn amused and horrified by my vehement dislike of it.
“Read it again!” she likes to say, whenever I hate a book she loves. Because we both have such similar taste in books, it takes a while for us to accept the reality of our conflicting opinions about the same novel. And even though time and experience has proven that rereading a horrible book rarely makes it any better for me, I thought I would give it a try anyway.
And the best I can now say about it is that I no longer hate it. It has progressed from an ‘Ugh, never again’ to a ‘meh, never again’, which seems like no big deal but in comparative terms shows huge progress.
A Tale of Eight Stories
She had been a famous beauty, from a prominent, cultured Lucknow family. Now at forty-five she knew everyone of a certain class in Karachi, went to dinners and to the polo and to all the fashionable weddings, flew often to Lahore and Islamabad, and summered in London.
There are eight loosely-connected stories within this anthology, each one entirely obsessed with either the filthy rich or the disgustingly poor. Apparently anyone earning a middle class income doesn’t exist in the Pakistan that Daniyal Mueenuddin knows.
Husna brought her shabby luggage to the house, a brown suitcase bulging and strapped. She had clothes and shoes, not much else, had arrived in a rickshaw - the facts soon communicated through the house by the snickering community of washermen, drivers, sweepers, household servants.
But ok fine. Accusing an author of writing about either the rich or the poor only is a ridiculous argument to have, because millions of writers all over the world choose to write about a specific class of wealth and we don’t bash them over the head with it. So this problem has more to do with the fact that Pakistanis don’t have enough books talking about themselves in all shapes and sizes than with Mueenuddin’s writing.
Within the stories, all our characters have either a very close or a distant, passing relationship to a singular man, K. K. Harouni, a feudal landowner slowly losing power as the times change. The stories revolve around a network of his relatives, employees or servants.
“If I ran away to the South Pole some Pakistani businessman would one day crawl into my igloo and ask if I was the cousin of K.K. Harouni.”
In the first story ‘Nawabdin Electrician’ (published in New Yorker, Best American Short Stories 2008), Harouni’s electrician in his village has a violent encounter with a thief who tries to steal his bike; the second entry ‘Saleema’ tells the story of a young maid in Harouni’s household who seeks protection by seducing older servants, until she falls in love with the valet, who eventually chooses his family above her.
Holding the gun away at arm’s length, he fired five more times, one two three four five, with Nawab looking up into his face, unbelieving, seeing the repeated flame in the revolver’s mouth.
‘Provide, provide’ (published in Granta) tells us about how Jaglani, a domineering man who takes care of Harouni’s farms while also fattening his own pockets, falls in love with a servant girl. ‘About a Burning Girl’ tells the story through the eyes of a casually immoral man of a robbery gone wrong and how a favoured servant is saved.
He feared Zainab, strangely enough, although he had made a career of fearing no one and of thereby dominating this lawless area. Sometimes he thought that it would be a relief to be rid of her, and yet his love kept increasing.
The titular story ‘In other Rooms, Other Wonders’(published in New Yorker) takes us to Harouni’s own bedside where we read about his affair with a young girl from a lower social class, and her eventual fall from grace. ‘Our Lady of Paris’ shows a young American girl falling in love with a Pakistani guy, and finding herself at odds with her complicated eventual-mother-in-law.
For a moment Husna and K.K. looked at each other… for the first time he thought of her as a grown-up, as a woman; and for the first time she thought of him as a lover, sick and possibly dying.
The last two stories tackle two completely different classes of wealth. In ‘Lily’ a spoiled party girl tries to let go of her past through marriage but ends up with the stark realization that she is incapable of changing. ‘A Spoiled Man’ tells the story of a poor man who lives alone until his marriage to a simple girl, whose eventual disappearance leads to a lot of pain and eventual death for him.
As a whole, the collection is random and disjointed and not much fun to read. And even though in some places it provides points to ponder away, those come too rarely or are too weakly written to do the whole collection justice.
In Other Rooms, Other Yawn-Inducing People
A major problem in this collection was my lack of connection with any single character. I could not have cared less about what happened to any of them in any of the stories. Literally could not have.
“I was born into a comfortably well-off family. All my life I’ve been lucky, my business succeeded, I’ve had no tragedies, my wife and I are happy, we have a wonderful son. The one thing I’ve missed, I sometimes feel, is the sensation of being absolutely free, to do exactly what I like, to go where I like, to act as I like.”
Even when something relatable comes along, it’s cloaked within drama that verges on the boring or the petty. The privileged whine within their little perfect bubbles while the poor are caricatures, either corrupt and seedy, or else content and naive. There is no complexity to either class.
Jaglani had lived an opportunistic life, seizing power wherever he saw it available and unguarded, and therefore he had not developed sentimental attachments to the tokens of his power, land, possessions, or even men.
Worse still, there is a sense of falsification; Mueenuddin’s position of privilege and wealth is obvious when he writes about the lower class, who apparently know no love and have no ties of loyalty, who form no proper friendships and have no sense of family. The poor in this book seem to be what rich people imagine poor people to be like; they are an imitation of a rich man’s view from a distant, and do a disservice to those whom he writes about.
“I was brought up with slaps and harsh words. We had nothing, we were poor. My father sold vegetables from a cart, but when he began smoking heroin he sold everything, the cart, his bicycle, the radio, even the dishes in the kitchen.”
The Sometimes Good, Not All Bad Cultural Commentary
The one thing that’s done well are the conversations Mueenuddin has with the reader about the times, the culture, the ambience he produces.
She would even have sought a place in the demimonde of singers and film actresses, bright and dangerous creatures from poor backgrounds, but she had neither talent nor beauty.
This sort of throwback to the times of the rise of the cinema in the country, and the era of the actresses who came from poor backgrounds and made their claim to fame through the silver screen, this roots the stories within the times they are set in.
Mueenuddin also uses the story format to his benefit when he is describing the inescapable gap between the lives of the rich and the poor. Even though most of the criticism against his book rests on the author’s decided ignorance of the lives of the middle class, he shows the class divide between those whom he chooses to show really well.
The old man did not merely lack interest in the affairs of the servants - he was not conscious that they had lives outside his purview.
He also threads corruption very casually into his stories, another point I found myself debating about. On the one hand, is there no one who is morally ambiguous but tilting towards the good? But on the other, is this really a reflection of the times we had back then? Mueenuddin certainly seems to think so.
One of my small indulgences, now that I am a member of the judiciary,is to allow myself airs with people who need favors from me. I gave him my hand with a loose wrist, as if expecting him to kiss it, and stood on one cocked heel.
The Recommendation
This book won, was nominated for or was a finalist of a ridiculous number of really famous awards: Pulitzer, Commonwealth, LA Times Book Prize, so on and so forth. And the only thing I have to say to that is: why?
Throughout this book I kept feeling like I should love it because so many people seem to love it but at every page the dominating feeling was an overwhelming nope. There is a lot of telling, too much history too quickly, excessive background description instead of letting the narrative tell the story, and an overall sense of rambling. Basically, it’s not worth the hype. If you're a non-Pakistani reader, take it with a grain of salt. If you're a Pakistani reader, I’d say give this one a miss.
***
I talk about Pakistani Fiction and would love to talk to people who like to talk about fiction (Pakistani and otherwise, take your pick.) To read this complete review, check out more reviews or just contact me so you can talk about books, check out my Blog or follow me on Twitter!
“Read it again!” she likes to say, whenever I hate a book she loves. Because we both have such similar taste in books, it takes a while for us to accept the reality of our conflicting opinions about the same novel. And even though time and experience has proven that rereading a horrible book rarely makes it any better for me, I thought I would give it a try anyway.
And the best I can now say about it is that I no longer hate it. It has progressed from an ‘Ugh, never again’ to a ‘meh, never again’, which seems like no big deal but in comparative terms shows huge progress.
A Tale of Eight Stories
She had been a famous beauty, from a prominent, cultured Lucknow family. Now at forty-five she knew everyone of a certain class in Karachi, went to dinners and to the polo and to all the fashionable weddings, flew often to Lahore and Islamabad, and summered in London.
There are eight loosely-connected stories within this anthology, each one entirely obsessed with either the filthy rich or the disgustingly poor. Apparently anyone earning a middle class income doesn’t exist in the Pakistan that Daniyal Mueenuddin knows.
Husna brought her shabby luggage to the house, a brown suitcase bulging and strapped. She had clothes and shoes, not much else, had arrived in a rickshaw - the facts soon communicated through the house by the snickering community of washermen, drivers, sweepers, household servants.
But ok fine. Accusing an author of writing about either the rich or the poor only is a ridiculous argument to have, because millions of writers all over the world choose to write about a specific class of wealth and we don’t bash them over the head with it. So this problem has more to do with the fact that Pakistanis don’t have enough books talking about themselves in all shapes and sizes than with Mueenuddin’s writing.
Within the stories, all our characters have either a very close or a distant, passing relationship to a singular man, K. K. Harouni, a feudal landowner slowly losing power as the times change. The stories revolve around a network of his relatives, employees or servants.
“If I ran away to the South Pole some Pakistani businessman would one day crawl into my igloo and ask if I was the cousin of K.K. Harouni.”
In the first story ‘Nawabdin Electrician’ (published in New Yorker, Best American Short Stories 2008), Harouni’s electrician in his village has a violent encounter with a thief who tries to steal his bike; the second entry ‘Saleema’ tells the story of a young maid in Harouni’s household who seeks protection by seducing older servants, until she falls in love with the valet, who eventually chooses his family above her.
Holding the gun away at arm’s length, he fired five more times, one two three four five, with Nawab looking up into his face, unbelieving, seeing the repeated flame in the revolver’s mouth.
‘Provide, provide’ (published in Granta) tells us about how Jaglani, a domineering man who takes care of Harouni’s farms while also fattening his own pockets, falls in love with a servant girl. ‘About a Burning Girl’ tells the story through the eyes of a casually immoral man of a robbery gone wrong and how a favoured servant is saved.
He feared Zainab, strangely enough, although he had made a career of fearing no one and of thereby dominating this lawless area. Sometimes he thought that it would be a relief to be rid of her, and yet his love kept increasing.
The titular story ‘In other Rooms, Other Wonders’(published in New Yorker) takes us to Harouni’s own bedside where we read about his affair with a young girl from a lower social class, and her eventual fall from grace. ‘Our Lady of Paris’ shows a young American girl falling in love with a Pakistani guy, and finding herself at odds with her complicated eventual-mother-in-law.
For a moment Husna and K.K. looked at each other… for the first time he thought of her as a grown-up, as a woman; and for the first time she thought of him as a lover, sick and possibly dying.
The last two stories tackle two completely different classes of wealth. In ‘Lily’ a spoiled party girl tries to let go of her past through marriage but ends up with the stark realization that she is incapable of changing. ‘A Spoiled Man’ tells the story of a poor man who lives alone until his marriage to a simple girl, whose eventual disappearance leads to a lot of pain and eventual death for him.
As a whole, the collection is random and disjointed and not much fun to read. And even though in some places it provides points to ponder away, those come too rarely or are too weakly written to do the whole collection justice.
In Other Rooms, Other Yawn-Inducing People
A major problem in this collection was my lack of connection with any single character. I could not have cared less about what happened to any of them in any of the stories. Literally could not have.
“I was born into a comfortably well-off family. All my life I’ve been lucky, my business succeeded, I’ve had no tragedies, my wife and I are happy, we have a wonderful son. The one thing I’ve missed, I sometimes feel, is the sensation of being absolutely free, to do exactly what I like, to go where I like, to act as I like.”
Even when something relatable comes along, it’s cloaked within drama that verges on the boring or the petty. The privileged whine within their little perfect bubbles while the poor are caricatures, either corrupt and seedy, or else content and naive. There is no complexity to either class.
Jaglani had lived an opportunistic life, seizing power wherever he saw it available and unguarded, and therefore he had not developed sentimental attachments to the tokens of his power, land, possessions, or even men.
Worse still, there is a sense of falsification; Mueenuddin’s position of privilege and wealth is obvious when he writes about the lower class, who apparently know no love and have no ties of loyalty, who form no proper friendships and have no sense of family. The poor in this book seem to be what rich people imagine poor people to be like; they are an imitation of a rich man’s view from a distant, and do a disservice to those whom he writes about.
“I was brought up with slaps and harsh words. We had nothing, we were poor. My father sold vegetables from a cart, but when he began smoking heroin he sold everything, the cart, his bicycle, the radio, even the dishes in the kitchen.”
The Sometimes Good, Not All Bad Cultural Commentary
The one thing that’s done well are the conversations Mueenuddin has with the reader about the times, the culture, the ambience he produces.
She would even have sought a place in the demimonde of singers and film actresses, bright and dangerous creatures from poor backgrounds, but she had neither talent nor beauty.
This sort of throwback to the times of the rise of the cinema in the country, and the era of the actresses who came from poor backgrounds and made their claim to fame through the silver screen, this roots the stories within the times they are set in.
Mueenuddin also uses the story format to his benefit when he is describing the inescapable gap between the lives of the rich and the poor. Even though most of the criticism against his book rests on the author’s decided ignorance of the lives of the middle class, he shows the class divide between those whom he chooses to show really well.
The old man did not merely lack interest in the affairs of the servants - he was not conscious that they had lives outside his purview.
He also threads corruption very casually into his stories, another point I found myself debating about. On the one hand, is there no one who is morally ambiguous but tilting towards the good? But on the other, is this really a reflection of the times we had back then? Mueenuddin certainly seems to think so.
One of my small indulgences, now that I am a member of the judiciary,is to allow myself airs with people who need favors from me. I gave him my hand with a loose wrist, as if expecting him to kiss it, and stood on one cocked heel.
The Recommendation
This book won, was nominated for or was a finalist of a ridiculous number of really famous awards: Pulitzer, Commonwealth, LA Times Book Prize, so on and so forth. And the only thing I have to say to that is: why?
Throughout this book I kept feeling like I should love it because so many people seem to love it but at every page the dominating feeling was an overwhelming nope. There is a lot of telling, too much history too quickly, excessive background description instead of letting the narrative tell the story, and an overall sense of rambling. Basically, it’s not worth the hype. If you're a non-Pakistani reader, take it with a grain of salt. If you're a Pakistani reader, I’d say give this one a miss.
***
I talk about Pakistani Fiction and would love to talk to people who like to talk about fiction (Pakistani and otherwise, take your pick.) To read this complete review, check out more reviews or just contact me so you can talk about books, check out my Blog or follow me on Twitter!
May 15, 2012
Overrated, pretentious twaddle. I am surprised at the amount of positive reviews this short story collection seems to be receiving, with some over-enthusiastic reviewers comparing Mueenuddin's prose to that of Salman Rushdie, which I find very hilarious. Rushdie's prose is complex, lyrical and iridescent, whereas Mueenuddin's prose is restrained (in a bad way) and the sentences irregular and pointy that it stings your eyes to read them. The dialogue could be best described as theatrical and confusing, I kept thinking who on the earth talks like that in Pakistan? I concede that few descriptive passages does evoke a sense of 'rural Pakistan', but it is is hardly worth praising when you consider the flimsy plots, repetitive themes and unconvincing characters.
The stories are obviously targeted for western audience, perhaps with the intention of portraying an 'exotic' image of Pakistan, miles away from the violent and fundamentalist image that western media seem to purport. Well, it doesn't do a very good job of it. Almost every character is devoid of any scruples. There are sordid old men perving after younger women and one might actually sympathise with the women for being so dependent on men, yet they are equally as bad as men, actively manipulating and seducing them, not caring that they might be cheating on their husbands. Basically, it is shown that for a woman to gain stability or climb the social ladder in such a patriarchal society, all they have to do is open their legs to any man who can provide them with these assurances, which is a very bleak outlook for Pakistani women.
The role of religion is blatantly ignored. In fact, Islam is hardly mentioned when it forms such a huge part of people's public and private life. Most of the stories are concerned with a land-owning feudal family and the peasants who work for them - the elites and the poor, who tend to be the least religious of all people. It's the middle classes - millions of them residing in city flats or suburbia, who are the most religious, economically independent and do not owe any allegiance to a moronic feudal lord, but are found to be conveniently ignored by Mueenuddin, which is disappointing.
In short, I hate this book and would not recommend!
The stories are obviously targeted for western audience, perhaps with the intention of portraying an 'exotic' image of Pakistan, miles away from the violent and fundamentalist image that western media seem to purport. Well, it doesn't do a very good job of it. Almost every character is devoid of any scruples. There are sordid old men perving after younger women and one might actually sympathise with the women for being so dependent on men, yet they are equally as bad as men, actively manipulating and seducing them, not caring that they might be cheating on their husbands. Basically, it is shown that for a woman to gain stability or climb the social ladder in such a patriarchal society, all they have to do is open their legs to any man who can provide them with these assurances, which is a very bleak outlook for Pakistani women.
The role of religion is blatantly ignored. In fact, Islam is hardly mentioned when it forms such a huge part of people's public and private life. Most of the stories are concerned with a land-owning feudal family and the peasants who work for them - the elites and the poor, who tend to be the least religious of all people. It's the middle classes - millions of them residing in city flats or suburbia, who are the most religious, economically independent and do not owe any allegiance to a moronic feudal lord, but are found to be conveniently ignored by Mueenuddin, which is disappointing.
In short, I hate this book and would not recommend!
October 12, 2021
I was unimpressed with this Pulitzer runner-up collection of short stories primarily about Pakistan. It was sort of a lesser-well written Rohinton Mistry kind of atmosphere, but I didn't feel the writing was all that poetic. The stories got a little better towards the end, but I just could never build up much sympathy for the protagonists. I know that this book made Mueenuddin famous, but I personally didn't see it as such a fabulous collection as all that.
August 14, 2020
The eight loosely interconnected stories revolve around K.K. Harouni - a rich Pakistani landowner - and a network of his servants, employees, relatives and opportunists. In "Saleema" a young maid seeks patronage in Harouni's household in the beds of older, more influential servants, until she falls in love and is later discarded by the man who must honor his first family. "Nawabdin Electrician" is a story of Harouni's electrician, Nawab, who confronts a violent assailant in order to protect his most valuable asset - a motorbike - the only thing which helps him support his huge family. "Lily" is the chronicle of a party girl's attempt to cleanse her life by becoming a wife of a decent wealthy man, which fails as she realizes he is too good for her and she is incapable of change.
As a whole the collection provides a vivid picture of Pakistan, with its sharp rift between classes, complex relationships between servants and masters, government corruption, and dependent position of women who are always vulnerable without the protection of family and marriage ties.
As a whole the collection provides a vivid picture of Pakistan, with its sharp rift between classes, complex relationships between servants and masters, government corruption, and dependent position of women who are always vulnerable without the protection of family and marriage ties.
March 12, 2009
Good Read. Clear, easy to follow, and very well written. Only one small problem - and maybe this is a problem that only applies to me - I felt like I was reading a book by Jhumpa Lahiri, or Anita Desai, or even Salman Rushdie. It seems, to me, that many authors from the far east are feeding off of each others literary techniques... What is it about brown authors using the same style of writing? The same extended metaphor that goes on for pages. The flowery language that's used to describe every tiny detail. I know many people appreciate this writing style, but I'm a little tired of it. I was looking forward to something original - hey a book by a Pakistani author, about Pakistan! Finally. What I got - a book about Pakistan, yes, but it could have just as easily been set in India. And yes, to many the difference is insignificant and for the most part undetectable, but not to me. Our histories are intertwined, but our cultures and very different.
Unfortunately I went into this book thinking Mueenuddin would write about the Pakistani society I was brought up in - that was probably my fault and I should not go into books assuming such things. While he does write about the disparities between upper echelon of Pakistani society and dirt poor lower class he glosses over a very large part of the Pakistani middle class/upper middle class and in doing so almost reinforces the social stratification in Pakistani society. I'm not blaming Mueenuddin for causing this disparity, but by not writing about those Pakistanis who dwell in Karachi and Islamabad and choose to abstain from alcohol/sex/other so called "vices" I think his work remains somewhat superficial. This subgroup is actually incredibly significant as it basically represents how religion, politics, culture, tradition, and the push for modernity clash. Maybe I'm overly critical, and again, I'm not blaming the author - he probably grew up in the world of politicians and the Pakistani elite and had domestic help of his own, and therefore all he knew. And maybe all he was trying to do was create a social commentary illustrating the disconnect between two specific social classes in Pakistan. Who knows. Maybe I just need to write a book about the Pakistanis that I am used to dealing with...
Regardless, I would still recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed short stories and learning about different cultures.
Unfortunately I went into this book thinking Mueenuddin would write about the Pakistani society I was brought up in - that was probably my fault and I should not go into books assuming such things. While he does write about the disparities between upper echelon of Pakistani society and dirt poor lower class he glosses over a very large part of the Pakistani middle class/upper middle class and in doing so almost reinforces the social stratification in Pakistani society. I'm not blaming Mueenuddin for causing this disparity, but by not writing about those Pakistanis who dwell in Karachi and Islamabad and choose to abstain from alcohol/sex/other so called "vices" I think his work remains somewhat superficial. This subgroup is actually incredibly significant as it basically represents how religion, politics, culture, tradition, and the push for modernity clash. Maybe I'm overly critical, and again, I'm not blaming the author - he probably grew up in the world of politicians and the Pakistani elite and had domestic help of his own, and therefore all he knew. And maybe all he was trying to do was create a social commentary illustrating the disconnect between two specific social classes in Pakistan. Who knows. Maybe I just need to write a book about the Pakistanis that I am used to dealing with...
Regardless, I would still recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed short stories and learning about different cultures.
March 12, 2011
You've never read anything like this slim volume of eight interconnected short stories about life in modern Pakistan. I can almost guarantee it. Rescued from obscurity by its 2009 National Book Award nomination, Daniyal Mueenuddin's In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is a blend of portraits of Pakistani people, both rich and poor. The effect is a holistic image of everyday life in a country stuck in an seemingly endless loop of feudalism and class struggle.
Mueenuddin, who was born to a Pakistani father and American mother, spent seven years after college at Dartmouth trying to untangle the twisted network of kickbacks, favors, and below-the-level law enforcement at his father's farm in Pakistan. This experience — the basis for these stories — seems to have jaded Muennuddin a bit, as evidenced by a theme-setting Punjabi proverb included at the beginning of the book: "Three things for which we kill — Land, women and gold."
The strength of the book, no doubt due to Mueenuddin's dual nationality, is how these stories cross the cultural divide. When a story focuses on the servant class, American readers have no trouble understanding these Pakistanis, their lot in life and their struggle to rise. That's true even if you're revolted by the male-dominated society and poor treatment of women. When these characters do bad things — like commit adultery, or steal from their bosses — it's still not hard to comprehend why. Sometimes there is no other choice. Sometimes it's a calculated strategy to try to move up.
In one story, a young woman, whose previously rich family has fallen on tough times, believes herself to be entitled to wealth and comfort. So she seduces the rich landowner Harouni (who is the common denominator in all the stories), takes him as her lover, and takes advantage of his generosity. However, when he dies, Harouni's scornful family turns her out completely. Now, her poverty is accompanied by even more shame. Similarly, in one heartbreaking story, a woman finally turns her life around by working hard as a servant at the rich landowner's house, only to wind up back on the streets as a heroin-addicted prostitute when Harouni dies.
So, the idea seems to be that if you're among the lower class, even if you adapt to the system, your margins still are rather thin. Your entire life and well-being is dependent on the whims and fate of your landowning boss. My favorite passage in the book sums up the dependency of servants on their masters. It is also emblematic of Mueenuddin's beautiful, elegant prose: "Gone, and they the servants would never find another berth like this one, the gravity of the house, the gentleness of the master, the vast damp rooms, the slow lugubrious pace, the order within disorder."
Several stories also focus on the upper class. The longest story in the collection, for instance, is about a rich Paris Hilton-like character who spends all her time partying, ordering servants around and living off her parents' wealth. Another story focuses on the son of a rich landowner, who is dating an American girl. These stories are okay, but don't match the pathos and poignancy of the stories about the servants.
Mueenuddin's writing and storytelling reach their pinnacle in the last story of the collection, my favorite. An old man, who has worked hard his whole life, finally catches a break when he's hired on as gardener at one of Harouni's farms. Newly wealthy (in relative terms), he hopes to sire a son, so he takes a deal to marry a mentally challenged girl, believing it to be his only chance to carry forth his name. The "simple" girl, though, promptly runs away. When he reports this to the police, he is beaten and accused of killing her. So even when things begin to look up for the poor man, the system beats him back down. It's the sad reality for life in the lower class in Pakistan, and these stories illuminate that brilliantly. This is an important book, and highly, highly recommended!
Mueenuddin, who was born to a Pakistani father and American mother, spent seven years after college at Dartmouth trying to untangle the twisted network of kickbacks, favors, and below-the-level law enforcement at his father's farm in Pakistan. This experience — the basis for these stories — seems to have jaded Muennuddin a bit, as evidenced by a theme-setting Punjabi proverb included at the beginning of the book: "Three things for which we kill — Land, women and gold."
The strength of the book, no doubt due to Mueenuddin's dual nationality, is how these stories cross the cultural divide. When a story focuses on the servant class, American readers have no trouble understanding these Pakistanis, their lot in life and their struggle to rise. That's true even if you're revolted by the male-dominated society and poor treatment of women. When these characters do bad things — like commit adultery, or steal from their bosses — it's still not hard to comprehend why. Sometimes there is no other choice. Sometimes it's a calculated strategy to try to move up.
In one story, a young woman, whose previously rich family has fallen on tough times, believes herself to be entitled to wealth and comfort. So she seduces the rich landowner Harouni (who is the common denominator in all the stories), takes him as her lover, and takes advantage of his generosity. However, when he dies, Harouni's scornful family turns her out completely. Now, her poverty is accompanied by even more shame. Similarly, in one heartbreaking story, a woman finally turns her life around by working hard as a servant at the rich landowner's house, only to wind up back on the streets as a heroin-addicted prostitute when Harouni dies.
So, the idea seems to be that if you're among the lower class, even if you adapt to the system, your margins still are rather thin. Your entire life and well-being is dependent on the whims and fate of your landowning boss. My favorite passage in the book sums up the dependency of servants on their masters. It is also emblematic of Mueenuddin's beautiful, elegant prose: "Gone, and they the servants would never find another berth like this one, the gravity of the house, the gentleness of the master, the vast damp rooms, the slow lugubrious pace, the order within disorder."
Several stories also focus on the upper class. The longest story in the collection, for instance, is about a rich Paris Hilton-like character who spends all her time partying, ordering servants around and living off her parents' wealth. Another story focuses on the son of a rich landowner, who is dating an American girl. These stories are okay, but don't match the pathos and poignancy of the stories about the servants.
Mueenuddin's writing and storytelling reach their pinnacle in the last story of the collection, my favorite. An old man, who has worked hard his whole life, finally catches a break when he's hired on as gardener at one of Harouni's farms. Newly wealthy (in relative terms), he hopes to sire a son, so he takes a deal to marry a mentally challenged girl, believing it to be his only chance to carry forth his name. The "simple" girl, though, promptly runs away. When he reports this to the police, he is beaten and accused of killing her. So even when things begin to look up for the poor man, the system beats him back down. It's the sad reality for life in the lower class in Pakistan, and these stories illuminate that brilliantly. This is an important book, and highly, highly recommended!
August 18, 2016
I'm quite ambiguous about this book. Stylistically, I liked it. The stories engaged me and I found them easy to read. But I kept wondering if they were truly representing life in Pakistan.
The eight stories concern the rich and the poor. In many instances, we see the interaction between the two classes and the poor seem to always get screwed in some fashion. The most likeable characters for me were the two American women - one who initially thought she wanted to marry the pleasant, young, rich Pakistani guy and one who actually did marry him - perhaps because I could relate to them. I know nothing about Pakistan and I hope these stories do not represent what the country is like. If so, then it seems that without power, money, and connections, one is in for a pretty miserable existence.
I purchased this paperback in 2010 on sale. It has set on my shelf undisturbed for six years. I finally read it as it is one of the September selections for one of my Goodreads groups. I look forward to discussing it with that group and may adjust my review after that discussion!
The eight stories concern the rich and the poor. In many instances, we see the interaction between the two classes and the poor seem to always get screwed in some fashion. The most likeable characters for me were the two American women - one who initially thought she wanted to marry the pleasant, young, rich Pakistani guy and one who actually did marry him - perhaps because I could relate to them. I know nothing about Pakistan and I hope these stories do not represent what the country is like. If so, then it seems that without power, money, and connections, one is in for a pretty miserable existence.
I purchased this paperback in 2010 on sale. It has set on my shelf undisturbed for six years. I finally read it as it is one of the September selections for one of my Goodreads groups. I look forward to discussing it with that group and may adjust my review after that discussion!
September 8, 2024
A collection of short stories which are inter-related.
Canvas: Post independence Pakistan village. Around 90s.
Pivot point in all the stories is K. K. Harouni, a feudal landlord, with each story focusing on his electrician, farmer, valet, maid and family members.
Stories are non linear. Most of them deal with social power, illicit relations, decisions and favours granted governed by lust.
Overall:
Neither the incidents, nor the writing style impressed me much. If you like this collection, do try out writings by Manto which are pretty evocative.
Canvas: Post independence Pakistan village. Around 90s.
Pivot point in all the stories is K. K. Harouni, a feudal landlord, with each story focusing on his electrician, farmer, valet, maid and family members.
Stories are non linear. Most of them deal with social power, illicit relations, decisions and favours granted governed by lust.
Overall:
Neither the incidents, nor the writing style impressed me much. If you like this collection, do try out writings by Manto which are pretty evocative.
April 17, 2011
Normally the glowing endorsements on the back and inside cover of every publication should be taken in the same spirit as any other kind of advertising-speak. It's sometimes entertaining to see how many synonyms can be found for engrossing, but since just about every piece of fiction is described as captivating/mesmerising/enrapturing/ those words become flat and meaningless. So what can I say? To add to my troubles, as someone who has the conceit to post reviews of books I've read I also have the conceit to expect myself to say something original. But here I am, sorely tempted to pinch all those words from the blurb, because in this case they are all so true.
These are glowing jewels of stories, written in graceful and steady prose. They reveal to us a world where life is not so much cheap as precarious, teetering on the edge of a precipice, where everything can be swept away by an arbitrary act of kindness or violence. For this is perhaps the most disturbing message of these moving stories: even when man intends only good, evil can follow. But the characters are not vicious, even the wealthy who believe they are philanthropists and yet leave havoc in their wake, they are not vicious. The stories are all told with such tenderness, such gentleness that every figure is given human dignity, no matter where he stands in the order of things, whether he is a victim of feudal structures or the beneficiary of privilege.
Fiction can teach us a lot. I recently read an informative piece of journalism that reported on the reasons why, in a healthy emerging economy such as now prevails in India, children can still die of starvation. Government measures to provide cheap staple food for the poor, free high protein nourishment for their children and work creation schemes for their parents are doomed to fail where corruption takes the largest share. Mueenuddin writes not of India but of Pakistan: he paints the lowest and the highest social classes, and also gives us a glimpse of a tiny middle class that has to fight for survival. The people in his stories are both individuals and at the same time representatives of a historical development. And we learn how a society that is based on patronage and favour works.
These are glowing jewels of stories, written in graceful and steady prose. They reveal to us a world where life is not so much cheap as precarious, teetering on the edge of a precipice, where everything can be swept away by an arbitrary act of kindness or violence. For this is perhaps the most disturbing message of these moving stories: even when man intends only good, evil can follow. But the characters are not vicious, even the wealthy who believe they are philanthropists and yet leave havoc in their wake, they are not vicious. The stories are all told with such tenderness, such gentleness that every figure is given human dignity, no matter where he stands in the order of things, whether he is a victim of feudal structures or the beneficiary of privilege.
Fiction can teach us a lot. I recently read an informative piece of journalism that reported on the reasons why, in a healthy emerging economy such as now prevails in India, children can still die of starvation. Government measures to provide cheap staple food for the poor, free high protein nourishment for their children and work creation schemes for their parents are doomed to fail where corruption takes the largest share. Mueenuddin writes not of India but of Pakistan: he paints the lowest and the highest social classes, and also gives us a glimpse of a tiny middle class that has to fight for survival. The people in his stories are both individuals and at the same time representatives of a historical development. And we learn how a society that is based on patronage and favour works.
February 8, 2016
Most of these stories are not stories. Stories have a beginning, middle, and end. They are propelled by characterization, suspense, plot, and insights. Some of the stories, most notably Our Lady of Paris, seem to be pastiches of thoughts strung together.
Yes, the author knows what he's talking about. As a member of the Pakistani jet set, the son of an American mother and a Pakistani father, and a graduate of Dartmouth and Yale, he is well-qualified to write about the gossipy failings and foibles of the international leisure class. But how does this group differ from other groups of similar wealth and privilege as a result of their religion, background, or geographic origin?
Yes, the author knows what he's talking about. As a member of the Pakistani jet set, the son of an American mother and a Pakistani father, and a graduate of Dartmouth and Yale, he is well-qualified to write about the gossipy failings and foibles of the international leisure class. But how does this group differ from other groups of similar wealth and privilege as a result of their religion, background, or geographic origin?
Read
March 28, 20242.75(?)/5
I don't really know.
I enjoyed the first two stories and I appreciated the messaging behind the book. But perhaps because I didn't have enough prior understanding of the themes and discussions focused on in this book the finer sentiments and points went over my head. Another thing is that this is not the type of book I would usually read so maybe I'm just inexperienced in engaging with this style of writing.
I'm not really a fan of these kinds of short stories, while I understand the point was to showcase the everyday lives and experiences of the people in that story, it just felt a little too abrupt for me. I'd finally be getting into the flow of the story and then it would end. The characters felt dull and emotionless. The stories also dragged a little, there was a lot of description and relatively less conversation, the conversations taking place often felt quick and hasty in a way that works perhaps in a film because you can also see what's going on but for a book I feel like it just left me confused as the interactions didn't fully mirror how a real conversation would have taken place.
Maybe again, I didn't engage with the stories properly and wasn't able to connect with the below-surface messaging but for my first read, it was a little boring, confusing and dull. I do want to reread this one day though, so we'll see if my thoughts differ then :)
I don't really know.
I enjoyed the first two stories and I appreciated the messaging behind the book. But perhaps because I didn't have enough prior understanding of the themes and discussions focused on in this book the finer sentiments and points went over my head. Another thing is that this is not the type of book I would usually read so maybe I'm just inexperienced in engaging with this style of writing.
I'm not really a fan of these kinds of short stories, while I understand the point was to showcase the everyday lives and experiences of the people in that story, it just felt a little too abrupt for me. I'd finally be getting into the flow of the story and then it would end. The characters felt dull and emotionless. The stories also dragged a little, there was a lot of description and relatively less conversation, the conversations taking place often felt quick and hasty in a way that works perhaps in a film because you can also see what's going on but for a book I feel like it just left me confused as the interactions didn't fully mirror how a real conversation would have taken place.
Maybe again, I didn't engage with the stories properly and wasn't able to connect with the below-surface messaging but for my first read, it was a little boring, confusing and dull. I do want to reread this one day though, so we'll see if my thoughts differ then :)
January 1, 2018
This is one of the best set of short stories I have read. Well crafted and very readable.
Pakistan is portrayed rather bleakly. The rich seem either corrupt, lazy or greedy. Inherited wealth seem to be either squandered or milked by sycophants. The poor are really poor. All people seem to be looking for a way to make easy money. There are a lot of traditions, meanness and small mindedness.
The characters come from different classes, ages, sexes, fortunes. They are well constructed and generally pretty sad.
Each story is complete and there are few typical short stories surprised endings. Each ending was like coming to the end in a novel.
Pakistan is portrayed rather bleakly. The rich seem either corrupt, lazy or greedy. Inherited wealth seem to be either squandered or milked by sycophants. The poor are really poor. All people seem to be looking for a way to make easy money. There are a lot of traditions, meanness and small mindedness.
The characters come from different classes, ages, sexes, fortunes. They are well constructed and generally pretty sad.
Each story is complete and there are few typical short stories surprised endings. Each ending was like coming to the end in a novel.
January 15, 2014
I am in love. Unbelievable book, this. The characters will stay with me for a long time. And such an interesting format.
I was so sorry to finish the book and leave the world woven within.
I was so sorry to finish the book and leave the world woven within.
June 3, 2010
I've been lazy lately about writing reviews, but I feel like I need to write about this book just to think it through. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is a collection of short stories about Pakistan that center around an old feudal landowner - a kind of dying class in Pakistan, it seems - and the many people tied to him. The stories stand independently, some short and some very long, but they have overlapping characters who may appear for one sentence in one story and then reappear a few stories later as main protagonists. It's fun tracking these characters, digging back to where you've seen them before, suddenly realizing that the foolish son in one story is the brilliant man in another.
Despite the fact that these are short stories, I never felt that Mueenuddin was rushing to get to his point. There's a tremendous amount of detail and care taken with each story, as if Mueenuddin really believed his characters' lives depended on what he wrote. And the details never felt to me like a burden, never felt like someone was trying to teach me a lesson about modern Pakistan. There's a rhythm to them that's almost hypnotic, and before you know it you're at the end of the story. And - something I often don't find in short stories - you actually feel like you've reached a real end, like you've been told all you need to know.
Many of the stories are sad, even disturbing. At one point one of the characters says, "It's as difficult to have a meaningful life with a lot of money as without." And Mueenuddin never trivializes the rich, in the same way that he never patronizes the poor. But he's clear that while the rich struggle to have a meaningful life, the poor struggle to have any life at all. There is a repeated acknowledgment that if you're poor you're at the mercy of fate, and fate is not usually kind. And if you're a poor woman, you're doubly screwed.
And about that. I'm not quite sure what I think about the women in these stories. Sometimes I felt that Mueenuddin just didn't understand females, other times he seemed spot on ("They were feminine in their perceptions, could follow her braided impulses and desires...her instinct when confronted with two choices to reach for both.") So I don't know. What made me uncomfortable was that so many of the women seemed to be constantly scheming, trying to catch men, trap and trick them. But I suppose the men in these stories in their own way were doing the same. Because I think in the Pakistan that Meenuddin writes about, change is coming from the outside, chaotically, without any sort of order or plan. So everyone is trying to grasp for whatever is within reach, trying to survive the transformation. And some people pull themselves up, and some people fall through the cracks.
Despite the fact that these are short stories, I never felt that Mueenuddin was rushing to get to his point. There's a tremendous amount of detail and care taken with each story, as if Mueenuddin really believed his characters' lives depended on what he wrote. And the details never felt to me like a burden, never felt like someone was trying to teach me a lesson about modern Pakistan. There's a rhythm to them that's almost hypnotic, and before you know it you're at the end of the story. And - something I often don't find in short stories - you actually feel like you've reached a real end, like you've been told all you need to know.
Many of the stories are sad, even disturbing. At one point one of the characters says, "It's as difficult to have a meaningful life with a lot of money as without." And Mueenuddin never trivializes the rich, in the same way that he never patronizes the poor. But he's clear that while the rich struggle to have a meaningful life, the poor struggle to have any life at all. There is a repeated acknowledgment that if you're poor you're at the mercy of fate, and fate is not usually kind. And if you're a poor woman, you're doubly screwed.
And about that. I'm not quite sure what I think about the women in these stories. Sometimes I felt that Mueenuddin just didn't understand females, other times he seemed spot on ("They were feminine in their perceptions, could follow her braided impulses and desires...her instinct when confronted with two choices to reach for both.") So I don't know. What made me uncomfortable was that so many of the women seemed to be constantly scheming, trying to catch men, trap and trick them. But I suppose the men in these stories in their own way were doing the same. Because I think in the Pakistan that Meenuddin writes about, change is coming from the outside, chaotically, without any sort of order or plan. So everyone is trying to grasp for whatever is within reach, trying to survive the transformation. And some people pull themselves up, and some people fall through the cracks.
May 22, 2011
I picked up this book as it has had good reviews from writers I respect - like William Dalrymple and Salman Rushdie. It has been a long time since I read a book by a Pakistani writer. Even this author, is a Pakistani-American rather than a native Pakistani. It is collection of loosely-connected short stories, the connection being a rich landowner/industrialist in Punjab called K.K.Harouni. Two stories are set amongst the upper class members of the Harouni family and the rest are about lowly-paid employees in the extended household of the Harouni family. It is about landowners, their accountants, the young servant maids, cooks and the privileged children of the Harounis who live in far-off Paris or New York.
Honestly, the book paints a bleak and gloomy picture of Pakistani society as seen through the Harounis. I can't remember a single character who was cheerful and hopeful in spite of his conditions of living, rich or poor. The rich come off as unfeeling, selfish people, exploiting the men and women in their service. The poor women plot and scheme to become the mistresses of the powerful and better their living condition by offering sex in return. The going is good for them as long as the rich man 'keeps' them. But they all end up on the losing side eventually as the men they sleep with are often old and die away. Once they die, the household elite simply see the women as 'cheap whores' and banish them from service returning them to their former misery. The other poor men in their service for decades end up being exploited by the corrupt police force,
Apart from the Harounis, the one common thread in the stories is one of pessimism, as far as my reading goes. I often wonder about books written by expatriate authors about their homelands. Partially, they seem to write for the 'foreign' audience because all this stuff would be exotic and more interesting for them. I doubt if a liberal Pakistani would be enamored by this book and its message. Even for an Indian like me, the setting and tenor of the social relations is quite familiar but I would believe that there is more to Pakistan than such gloom and heartlessness. It is depressing to read story after story that paints mostly the joylessness, inhumanity and the dark side of human beings.
It is a puzzle to me as to the number of positive reviews that the book has had. I wonder what I may have missed. It is possible that I am being less objective than others because of my roots in the subcontinent. But I feel the stories say as much about the author himself as it does about contemporary Pakistan. I would recommend it for reading to non-Pakistanis as a window into Pakistan but not necessarily a complete window.
Honestly, the book paints a bleak and gloomy picture of Pakistani society as seen through the Harounis. I can't remember a single character who was cheerful and hopeful in spite of his conditions of living, rich or poor. The rich come off as unfeeling, selfish people, exploiting the men and women in their service. The poor women plot and scheme to become the mistresses of the powerful and better their living condition by offering sex in return. The going is good for them as long as the rich man 'keeps' them. But they all end up on the losing side eventually as the men they sleep with are often old and die away. Once they die, the household elite simply see the women as 'cheap whores' and banish them from service returning them to their former misery. The other poor men in their service for decades end up being exploited by the corrupt police force,
Apart from the Harounis, the one common thread in the stories is one of pessimism, as far as my reading goes. I often wonder about books written by expatriate authors about their homelands. Partially, they seem to write for the 'foreign' audience because all this stuff would be exotic and more interesting for them. I doubt if a liberal Pakistani would be enamored by this book and its message. Even for an Indian like me, the setting and tenor of the social relations is quite familiar but I would believe that there is more to Pakistan than such gloom and heartlessness. It is depressing to read story after story that paints mostly the joylessness, inhumanity and the dark side of human beings.
It is a puzzle to me as to the number of positive reviews that the book has had. I wonder what I may have missed. It is possible that I am being less objective than others because of my roots in the subcontinent. But I feel the stories say as much about the author himself as it does about contemporary Pakistan. I would recommend it for reading to non-Pakistanis as a window into Pakistan but not necessarily a complete window.
February 21, 2010
Thwarted again...another highly praised volume of stories, named National Book Award finalist for 2009, defies my great expectations by crashing with the dullest of thuds. Daniyal Mueenuddin, a Pakistani American with the best of credentials, including a Yale Law degree, published works in the New Yorker and Granta, and extensive life experience among Midwestern Americans and rural Pakistanis, provides a compendium of stories loosely tied to the patriarchal figure of K. K. Harouni, a wealthy fictional figure of acclaim, authority, and artful corruption. Alas, I make him sound far more interesting than he is portrayed by an author who has little power of description of his homeland, whose characters are cardboard thin (grizzled, but wise peasants; conniving mistresses and servants; and arrogant, yet attractive and glib, elites), and whose dialogue sounds like it has been derived from mid-afternoon soap operas.
Strangely, the only story that conveys a strong sense of place is one that is centered in Paris. Of Pakistan, we see and feel nothing beyond it being warm, dusty, and often crowded. The author really did not have to return to his Pakistani roots to write these stories...and could well have stayed in Wisconsin. Nonetheless, he has been compared to Turgenev, Chekhov, Updike, Singer, and others. Yet, he fails to convey any aspect of the Pakistani experience and even in his comments seems confused about the nature of the social structure, which he describes as feudal rather than as an ossified economic and caste structure with remnants of a precapitalist system. Pakistan is not comparable to medieval Europe; feudalism is not a blanket term to be applied to a very different agricultural process with its resulting particular social organization of labor, which is specific to the region.
Aside from these issues, the stories are simply dull and unimaginative. To rephrase the old Lincoln adage:
you can fool all of the critics some of the time. Read the wonderful short stories of R. K. Narayan if you want to enjoy a splendid time on the Indian subcontinent.
Strangely, the only story that conveys a strong sense of place is one that is centered in Paris. Of Pakistan, we see and feel nothing beyond it being warm, dusty, and often crowded. The author really did not have to return to his Pakistani roots to write these stories...and could well have stayed in Wisconsin. Nonetheless, he has been compared to Turgenev, Chekhov, Updike, Singer, and others. Yet, he fails to convey any aspect of the Pakistani experience and even in his comments seems confused about the nature of the social structure, which he describes as feudal rather than as an ossified economic and caste structure with remnants of a precapitalist system. Pakistan is not comparable to medieval Europe; feudalism is not a blanket term to be applied to a very different agricultural process with its resulting particular social organization of labor, which is specific to the region.
Aside from these issues, the stories are simply dull and unimaginative. To rephrase the old Lincoln adage:
you can fool all of the critics some of the time. Read the wonderful short stories of R. K. Narayan if you want to enjoy a splendid time on the Indian subcontinent.
September 10, 2016
There's a wonderful fable-like quality to these stories glimpsing the interstices of Pakistan--spaces between the rich and the poor, the feudal land-owning class and the rising industrialists, the old and the young, the spiritual and the corporeal... The stories are loosely tied together by the wealthy K.K. Harouni and his large business empire which seems about to crumble with his impending death. Mueenuddin weaves a sincere sense of place, as well as a fascinating look at the dynamics between people.
July 14, 2014
Occasionally a book makes the reader realize how little they know of its subject matter. Such was my experience with “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders”. There is a plethora of literature from some Asian countries, particularly India, Japan, and China. But reading this book of connected stories set in post-partition Pakistan left me wondering. Especially wondering how many misconceptions I had of the country post-9/11. Placed in chronological order, the settings, lives and characters at first held close resemblance to India. I needed to adjust how I absorbed what I was reading. The way a situation was handled, the manner in which family members treated one another would put me off-balance.
In short, this was an eye-opening book. As always in a collection of stories, some were stronger than others. Overall, I felt Mueenuddin was more successful when focusing on male characters. However the plight of women, especially those attempting to become the wives, mistresses, and lovers of men of high status took center stage. And it is these women who remain in my mind. However, while reading, I was less absorbed by their narratives. I am still unsure if this was my own cultural barrier, whether I was bothered by their choices (of which several had few) or if the stories were less strong. I also felt the more historical narratives were more authentic than those of the modern women.
This is a personal reaction and I am sure other readers will disagree.
Mueenuddin has lived in America and includes marriages of Pakistanis with western emigrants/immigrants in his stories. I was unaware that this was not uncommon in the upper classes of Pakistan pre-911.
This would make a wonderful discussion book and I highly recommend it. Mueenuddin is a descriptive and detailed writer and makes Pakistan come to life.
In short, this was an eye-opening book. As always in a collection of stories, some were stronger than others. Overall, I felt Mueenuddin was more successful when focusing on male characters. However the plight of women, especially those attempting to become the wives, mistresses, and lovers of men of high status took center stage. And it is these women who remain in my mind. However, while reading, I was less absorbed by their narratives. I am still unsure if this was my own cultural barrier, whether I was bothered by their choices (of which several had few) or if the stories were less strong. I also felt the more historical narratives were more authentic than those of the modern women.
This is a personal reaction and I am sure other readers will disagree.
Mueenuddin has lived in America and includes marriages of Pakistanis with western emigrants/immigrants in his stories. I was unaware that this was not uncommon in the upper classes of Pakistan pre-911.
This would make a wonderful discussion book and I highly recommend it. Mueenuddin is a descriptive and detailed writer and makes Pakistan come to life.
July 4, 2012
World fiction is popular these days, and I love it as much as anyone (probably more than most), but in our enthusiasm for exotic settings, we shouldn't be blinded to the importance of strong plotting and characterization either. Unfortunately, this is a book that lacks those strengths.
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is a group of eight loosely-connected (and non-chronological) short stories set in Pakistan, about people all connected in one way or another with a wealthy Pakistani family. The connections are quite loose; not being a big fan of short stories, I was hoping the common threads would make the book read more like a novel, but it does not. On the other hand, the individual stories often are not particularly well-structed either. Some (like "Our Lady of Paris") read like chapters in a novel, without a clear beginning, middle or end--except that we don't see those characters again before or after.
The subject matter varies, but for the most part, the stories are either about lovers or about corruption, often combining the two. The three stories with male protagonists are primarily about corruption, and tend to be more unique and interesting (and also shorter). The five with female protagonists are about lovers, and feel rather stale; in fact, three are almost exactly the same story with different names, in which a poor woman finds a place in a well-off man's household, seduces whatever older man is available to give her advantage, then falls on her face when a death puts an end to the affair. By the third time I thought there would be some sort of twist, but there wasn't. Mueenuddin's female characters themselves tend to be flat and uninspired (though the wealthy ones have a bit more complexity). The men are more passable, and probably should have had more starring roles. Even so, perhaps one reason this wasn't a novel is that no one in it, of either gender, seems interesting enough to star in a longer work.
For the most part the book does do a good job at bringing its setting to life. The writing style is competent and evocative, with good use of sensory language, and its greatest strength is that it does open a window into its culture. But the diversity of viewpoints tends to highlight what's missing: where is the middle class? the urban poor? Where is religion? One can't expect everything in such a short book, and I can forgive the author for writing what he knows--but I do expect compelling characters and plots from any book, and in that regard it was a disappointment.
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is a group of eight loosely-connected (and non-chronological) short stories set in Pakistan, about people all connected in one way or another with a wealthy Pakistani family. The connections are quite loose; not being a big fan of short stories, I was hoping the common threads would make the book read more like a novel, but it does not. On the other hand, the individual stories often are not particularly well-structed either. Some (like "Our Lady of Paris") read like chapters in a novel, without a clear beginning, middle or end--except that we don't see those characters again before or after.
The subject matter varies, but for the most part, the stories are either about lovers or about corruption, often combining the two. The three stories with male protagonists are primarily about corruption, and tend to be more unique and interesting (and also shorter). The five with female protagonists are about lovers, and feel rather stale; in fact, three are almost exactly the same story with different names, in which a poor woman finds a place in a well-off man's household, seduces whatever older man is available to give her advantage, then falls on her face when a death puts an end to the affair. By the third time I thought there would be some sort of twist, but there wasn't. Mueenuddin's female characters themselves tend to be flat and uninspired (though the wealthy ones have a bit more complexity). The men are more passable, and probably should have had more starring roles. Even so, perhaps one reason this wasn't a novel is that no one in it, of either gender, seems interesting enough to star in a longer work.
For the most part the book does do a good job at bringing its setting to life. The writing style is competent and evocative, with good use of sensory language, and its greatest strength is that it does open a window into its culture. But the diversity of viewpoints tends to highlight what's missing: where is the middle class? the urban poor? Where is religion? One can't expect everything in such a short book, and I can forgive the author for writing what he knows--but I do expect compelling characters and plots from any book, and in that regard it was a disappointment.
October 29, 2023
I usually don't feature short story collections on the blog as I tend to fall into repetition.
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is a set of interlinked short stories all centring around the landlord K.K. Houraini. Be it his electrician, helper or a long lost partner. Even when he doesn't feature his influence is there.
These stories serve as snapshots of Pakistani life from the 70's - 90's. Working class, young adult, high class - all walks of life are observed. Some of the stories are funny others are tragic.
As always - not all the stories worked for me and ranged in quality. I did like how they were linked but they were a bit inconsistent.
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is a set of interlinked short stories all centring around the landlord K.K. Houraini. Be it his electrician, helper or a long lost partner. Even when he doesn't feature his influence is there.
These stories serve as snapshots of Pakistani life from the 70's - 90's. Working class, young adult, high class - all walks of life are observed. Some of the stories are funny others are tragic.
As always - not all the stories worked for me and ranged in quality. I did like how they were linked but they were a bit inconsistent.
June 8, 2012
Mueenuddin has given us 8 linked short stories about modern Pakistan as experienced by the landowner K. K. Harouni, members of his family, and others within his orbit, so that every stratum of that contemporary society seems to be touched. It's a portrait of a culture that is, to us, murky and complex. Understandably, strong characterizations need to be rooted in a work of such fertile scope, and Mueenuddin has succeeded with richly rounded people who are hopefully fatalistic, caring, and pragmatic. What they all seem to have in common is courage.
These stories are beautifully written and spooled out for the reader. I didn't, couldn't, however, fix on any particular traits which I thought made them thematically literary. Engagingly told stories of engaging people. What struck me the most, though I had an idea beforehand, was the vast economic differences between the classes in Pakistan. And that contentment is relative. The book didn't so much leave me breathless as looking at characters such as these and the way they live with the understanding that they'll continue to plod the same dusty roads for some time.
These stories are beautifully written and spooled out for the reader. I didn't, couldn't, however, fix on any particular traits which I thought made them thematically literary. Engagingly told stories of engaging people. What struck me the most, though I had an idea beforehand, was the vast economic differences between the classes in Pakistan. And that contentment is relative. The book didn't so much leave me breathless as looking at characters such as these and the way they live with the understanding that they'll continue to plod the same dusty roads for some time.
January 24, 2022
*3.5 stars
This set of short stories presented a part of Pakistani society I'm largely unfamiliar with on a personal level, so I found its contents rather fascinating.
This set of short stories presented a part of Pakistani society I'm largely unfamiliar with on a personal level, so I found its contents rather fascinating.
September 10, 2010
These eight marvelous short stories give the reader an idea of Pakistan's society at all levels. A common thread is a wealthy landowner named K.K. Harouni, and each of the stories describes Pakistan's complicated feudal system from the perspective of the characters-- Harouni's friends and acquaintances, his subordinates, and his relatives. Sadly, women and the poor suffer in this tiered society regardless of their class, and many have a sense of resignation that their circumstance and tragedies are their due. Even when they work or scheme to to rise above their beginnings or to improve their social mobility, the sense of predetermination and failure prevails. Materialism seems to be the motivating force for all, as the rich want to get richer or maintain their status, and the others' actions are driven by the desire to move upwards.
This is a powerful read. I have not been able to stop thinking about the stories since I finished it. Put it on your to-read book!
This is a powerful read. I have not been able to stop thinking about the stories since I finished it. Put it on your to-read book!
June 26, 2013
Absolutely loved all stories which are somewhat loosely connected. My favourite is Nawabdin electrician's though, his resoluteness and spartan lifestyle signifies the great Pakistani Punjabi stereotype. I also immensely enjoyed the interaction of the rich and affluent class with the ordinary as it is a game still played on a daily basis. Daniyal has indeed got a keen sense to empathise with the plight of the poor and the destitute. Can't wait for his next book.
August 4, 2017
Nice, rounded, fully realised stories... you do not feel cheated.
The interlinked narratives evoke the lives of peasants and landlords from multiple perspectives, generating a solid sense of place and character. Overall effect is better than a novel because the stories reduce the tediousness a novel can most-likely fall into.
Good stuff.
The interlinked narratives evoke the lives of peasants and landlords from multiple perspectives, generating a solid sense of place and character. Overall effect is better than a novel because the stories reduce the tediousness a novel can most-likely fall into.
Good stuff.
August 24, 2020
Not a huge fan of all the adultery and infidelity but it was a well written book nonetheless. The stories are engaging. There's variety, but it's undermined and "flattened" by the excessive use of sex in the narrative.
Loved how all the characters are connected through one character, though their stories never really crossover.
Loved how all the characters are connected through one character, though their stories never really crossover.
November 15, 2020
Mueenuddin’s dimpled and delicate explorations of the intricacies of life, love loss echo some of brilliant short story writers such as Chekhov, his style resembling a chisel quietly chipping away at the reader’s defenses as they slowly become ensconced in the world Mueenuddin weaves, enchanted by the lives of the the Pakistani characters, from humble, illiterate gardeners, to grandees of society, which Mueenuddin so brilliantly depicts.
The reader is able to develop a deep sense of empathy for the characters just inspite of but because of their flaws. Whether it be the desperate and duplicitous Saleema, whose short life is beset with minor tragedies which snowball into something inescapable, or the diffident yet oddly charming and charismatic K.K Hourani or Murad and Lily whose coupling and chemistry disguises the fundamental incompatibility in their outlooks and desires which begin to slowly unravel during the early days of their marriage, the reader feels slowly, imperceptibly draw in to the lives of the characters, small and insignificant as many of them are.
Mueenuddin is able to demonstrate the abilities of a true artist, not so much for the originality of his style or characterisation, but more for his ability to create something intangibly beautiful, something irrevocably powerful via a series of snapshots of the most ordinary of lives.
The reader is able to develop a deep sense of empathy for the characters just inspite of but because of their flaws. Whether it be the desperate and duplicitous Saleema, whose short life is beset with minor tragedies which snowball into something inescapable, or the diffident yet oddly charming and charismatic K.K Hourani or Murad and Lily whose coupling and chemistry disguises the fundamental incompatibility in their outlooks and desires which begin to slowly unravel during the early days of their marriage, the reader feels slowly, imperceptibly draw in to the lives of the characters, small and insignificant as many of them are.
Mueenuddin is able to demonstrate the abilities of a true artist, not so much for the originality of his style or characterisation, but more for his ability to create something intangibly beautiful, something irrevocably powerful via a series of snapshots of the most ordinary of lives.
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