Deconstructing Kamila Shamsie

This piece was first published in Dawn in 2012. I thought of it recently when I had to (figuratively speaking) put down the audiobook of her latest (and possibly most critically well-regarded) novel, Home Fire, mid stream. I thought back to how enthusiatic I have always been for a new novel from Ms Shamsie, and what led me to give on a book mid way (something that almost never happens with me).

I first ran into Kamila Shamsie (figuratively speaking) on amazon.com, while compiling a list of authors whose work I had not read as yet, but might be interested in. Subsequently, I picked up a copy of ‘Kartography’, unaware that she would soon be one of the leading lights of the new wave of Pakistani English Literature, a phrase stolen happily from our neighbours to the East.

The plagiarism of the phrase is quite deliberate; for the recent revival of English language fiction in the Homeland mirrors quite closely a similar one across the Wagah a few years ago, down to the fact that the most critically acclaimed authors said to be a part of this renaissance ply their trade from nearer Charing Cross, London than Charing Cross, Lahore.

In the intervening years, I have read all her novels. Part of my loyalty can probably be traced back to that first experience, a book which was a kind of love letter to the city I call home and which I read when a thousand miles away. And perhaps therein also lie some of the seeds of my more recent disappointments; for the Karachi of the characters that inhabited that novel is one that has not been reproduced in any of her other works with anywhere near the same authenticity.

The joke made by a stand-up comedian about a certain class of Karachiites’ universe being bounded by Shahrah-e-Faisal, with only emptiness beyond, may be a stereotype, but for someone who grew up in Nazimabad the description of the lanes and houses there (in her latest novel ‘Burnt Shadows’), particularly the interiors in terms of both people and structure, is not only cursory but also factually inaccurate in many cases.

It angers me almost, that someone who can write with such a piercing insight into the residents of one part of the city can be so lacking in research or insights a few short kilometres later.  Call me a pedant, but when the details of certain Islamic rituals are entirely false (artistic license or not), or certain ethnic tensions are being evoked in a year when they were yet to bubble up to the surface, in a time and a place that I knew personally, that does mar my reading experience.

As do characters using words that their backgrounds do not justify, or being clever in a way that is untrue to their fictional back story but an irresistible piece of alliteration in the prose; faults that are minor, I know, but an unlettered man opening a restaurant called “The Garrulous Gourmet” is far-fetched to say the least, and detracts from her great strengths as a storyteller.

I sense a ‘and yet…’ approaching.  Here it comes: And yet, I cannot think of any other writer who has twice in different novels touched me on as visceral a level as the works of this particular author. There is something in how she strings her words together that touches me deep in my emotional core, to the point where I have had to put down ‘Burnt Shadows’ while reading it in public, and compose myself before moving on, lest I make a spectacle of myself.

There is nothing in her writing style that would seem remarkable to the reader; quite the opposite, in fact. When she makes an effort to use words cleverly, each of them drops with an almighty clang. And when she forgets about the wordplay and just tells a story, it all flows so naturally that the pages fly by in an effortless flow of the tale. Think Arundhati Roy’s fiction compared to her essays. Yes, the difference really is that stark.

If only she would spend more time in spelling out her dénouements. In fact, almost all of the most dramatic passages in her books seem to rush breathlessly by in a flurry of words hastily bolted together. It is almost as if those tumultuous episodes are too emotionally draining for the authoress to spend any more time in than she absolutely must. This may well be the case, but at first read, events can pass by in a bit of a blur, which is unfair to the story being told.

As I read back this piece, I realise that most of it is taken up by criticism, although I set out to write about how the minor irritants do not detract from the overall pleasure of reading a book written by Ms. Shamsie. And they don’t, while you are in the moment. Unfortunately for me, the pleasure of reading an effortlessly-written episode, or a good story, well told, are not what stays with me, but rather, the sparse moments of discord; like the false notes in an otherwise well-played tune, they linger on.

Or maybe I am just a pedant with a penchant for over-analysis.