The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

Mirages of the Mind
by Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi
translated from the Urdu by Matt Reek and Aftab Ahmad
India



Basharat and his family are Indian Muslims who have relocated to Pakistan, but who remain deeply steeped in the nostalgia of pre-Partition life in India. Through Mirages of the Mind’s absurd anecdotes and unforgettable biographical sketches — which hide the deeper unease and sorrow of the family’s journey from Kanpur to Karachi — Basharet emerges as a wise fool, and the host of this unique sketch comedy. From humorous scenes in colonial north India, to the heartbreak and homesickness of post-colonial life in Pakistan, Mirages of the Mind forms an authentic portrait of life among South Asia’s Urdu speakers, rendered beautifully into English by Matt Reeck and Aftab Ahmad.

-Written in 1990, Yousufi’s Mirages of the Mind describes with acuity the changed ambience of India after the Partition, We, twenty-five years after the novel’s release, having witnessed the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the rising military violence in Kashmir, the 2002 genocide in Gujarat, the innumerable fake encounter cases, the victory and rise of Hindutva politics, and the very recent execution of Yakub Memon (to name a few incidents) know that Yousufi’s understanding of the Indian situation was nothing but prescient. ~Saudamini Deo in Words without Borders

-Mirages of the Mind is nothing like any sort of traditional novel, yet there’s no question that it is a larger, cohesive whole — just that instead of slowly building up a larger picture-portrait, Yousufi leaps all across his canvas, pointing here and then there and then adding a bit more about this or that corner. It makes for a work that can be exhaustingly anecdotal — but readers open to the experience can have a lot of fun with this. This is a very funny work, but there’s also more to it than just the humor. ~M.A. Orthofer in The Complete Reivew

I'm a bit sad that this one didn't make the shortlist. I started it over the weekend, and I've been having a great time with it. It's funny and powerful, a combination that reminds me of a couple of my favorite books of the last decade, Wiesław Myśliwski's Stone Upon Stone and A Treatise on Shelling Beans. I haven't finished it yet, but I'd still recommend it to all of you.

Interesting - although have to say I was a little bemused when Stone upon Stone won the BTBA ahead of novels like Zone, Leeches and Fiasco Wasn't that taken with it, so if that's the reference point I may pass on this one!

I did like Zone and Fiasco, but Stone Upon Stone really worked for me. I don't want to put you off this one, though, by that comparison. I guess a better way to express the similarity is just in the voice. Here we have a fun narrator with a unique vision of the world, expressing some pretty awful stuff. As for structure and the like, this one is not like Stone Upon Stone at all :-) .

Trevor wrote: "I did like Zone and Fiasco, but Stone Upon Stone really worked for me. I don't want to put you off this one, though, by that comparison. I guess a better way to express the similarity is just in th..."

Thanks, it was a slightly Tongue in Cheek reply and I did like Stone Upon Stone, just not that much.

I'm still enjoying this one, though I'm far from finished and it has become a bit more labor-intensive. Still, I'm surprised it didn't make the shortlist.

I've thought of some other reasons I think of Stone Upon Stone when sitting to read this one. Mirages of the Mind has as its backdrop a significant political event with ramifications on the domestic lives of its characters; in this case, it's the partition of India in 1947. That said, I don't think the book has really mentioned the Partition itself. It is very interested in the characters' quirks and inner lives, their regrets, their displaced desires, etc. And all with a dark comedy that really settles nicely.

I think this one will take me a while to finish, but I hope it doesn't get forgotten by others just because it wasn't shortlisted.