Book Stop Corner

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



“Just above our terror, the stars painted this story in perfect silver calligraphy. And our souls, too often
abused by ignorance, covered our eyes with mercy.”



Bilal Tanweer, a Pakistani author, has penned a poignant tale of five different characters whose lives are devastated after a sudden bomb blast in Karachi and how terrorism fails to bring the peace that these characters are desperately looking for in a city tormented by violence, defected and biased political agendas and terrorism in his award-winning book, The Scatter Here Is Too Great.





Synopsis:

A vivid and intricate novel-in-stories, The Scatter Here Is Too Great explores the complicated lives of ordinary people whose fates unexpectedly converge after a deadly bomb blast at the Karachi train station: an old communist poet; his wealthy, middle-aged son; a young man caught in an unpleasant, dead-end job; a girl who spins engaging tales to conceal her heartbreak; and a grief-stricken writer, who struggles to make sense of this devastating tragedy.

Bilal Tanweer reveals the pain, loneliness, and longing of these characters and celebrates the power of the written word to heal lives and communities plagued by violence. Elegantly weaving together different voices into a striking portrait of a city and its people, The Scatter Here Is Too Great is a tale as vibrant and varied in its characters, passions, and idiosyncrasies as the city itself.


Five characters, nine stories, which are neither stories nor an interconnected bunch of tales, instead they are fragments of memories, feelings and realizations of five individuals whose lives are somehow affected by a bomb blast at a railway station in the city of Karachi. These characters might not have been directly affected by the blast, as they have either lost a long distance friend or an acquaintance or a family relative or simply by the mere sight of so many dead bodies. And somehow, some of the characters are connected by an invisible thread with some, thereby satisfying the readers to some extent. At one time, the readers will see an ex-communist, a crazy poet and a failed husband and a father while reciting one of his poems is getting mocked by the young passengers on the bus before being claimed by the deadly bomb blast, then in another, the readers will be introduced with a love-sick teenage girl narrating unreal fairy tales to her little brother, whose boyfriend has been claimed by that blast. Then, in another fragment, the readers will see another teenage boy stealing his mother's car to pick up his date amidst the sea of death and hate in the city affected by the blast, an ambulance driver is left paralyzed with the sight of so much death and blood thereby leaving him permanently affected. And in the last fragment, an author goes looking for his long-lost friend, whose life has been claimed by the blast, instead he realized so many things about his estranged father.

To be honest, the readers might feel a bit disconnected with the characters as they lack depth but the readers can easily comprehend with the pain, sufferings and the emotions of the characters thereby will be left deeply moved by their worlds. The characters which are portrayed as real-life, flawed and sentimental through their genuine demeanor. This is where the readers will grieve for the characters as well as for the evocative memories of theirs. Although the pain shifts way too quickly from one category or character to another before even the readers are given an opportunity to drown themselves into the depth and intensity of such affliction of the characters.

The city of Karachi is vividly painted into the backdrop of this novel where the author has vividly arrested the crowd life of the city by highlighting the nasty streets, moldy smelling alleys, shabby houses and debris filled sea beaches filled with so many innocent and simple souls. And through the portrayal, the author brings out the corruptness and the defected politics of the city as it is left immobilized by terrorism and the extreme religion followers. Yes, the readers will be transportraed to this tortured city almost immediately while reading the book and can easily visualize the scenes right before their eyes.

The writing of this debut author my not be that polished, but is laced with enough emotions to make the readers feel with it. The narrative is very disjointed and at times, it might confuse the readers, since there is no protagonist in each of the stories. The pacing is fast, as the chapters are short and quick. The major disappointment would be that the stories aren't that striking or even fails to make the readers contemplate with it.

In a nutshell, although this book turned out to be the most anticipating read after its publication, yet I feel the story failed to interest me or let me look beyond some of the predictably related characters into their soul.

Verdict: Read it only if you want to see the honest brutality in Karachi through the eyes of the author, otherwise, skip it.
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Author Info:
Bilal Tanweer was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan. His fiction, poetry, and translations have appeared in various international journals, including Granta, Vallum, The Caravan, and Words Without Borders. He was selected as a Granta New Voice in 2011 and was named an Honorary Fellow of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. He lives in Lahore, Pakistan.
Visit him here



Book Purchase Links:

• Amazon US
• Amazon India