Fatima Bhutto’s novel is insightful, engaging and heart-wrenching
Fatima Bhutto in her debut novel, The Shadow of the Crescent Moon, weaves the world of the disenfranchised and the terrorised into an emotionally gripping tale of cruelty, injustice and betrayal.
The book is about three brothers, Aman Erum, Sikander and Hayat, and the women in their lives, Mina and Samarra, and depicts their struggle to survive amid rampant bigotry and violence. The story is set in the fictional town of Mir Ali in Waziristan against the backdrop of an anti-state rebellion, the Taliban and the Shia-Sunni sectarian conflict.
The novel opens with the three brothers choosing separate mosques for saying their Eid prayers as it has become too dangerous to pray together in one place with the suicide bombers around.
Despite being siblings, the three brothers are quite different in their personalities and mindset. The youngest, imbibed with the spirit of ancestry through the stories of his father, is the family patriot. The eldest is indifferent to the woes of his fellow citizens and only obsessed with somehow making it to the land of opportunity. The middling brother leads an unhappy existence, having suffered a personal tragedy.
The women in this work have a significant role to play in the plot. Samarra and Mina, both exhibit great strength of character, each in her own way. Samarra is the stronger one and indeed the most memorable character of the novel. From a timid girl she grows into a formidable woman determined to exact revenge for all the wrongs done to her and her family. Then there is Mina, Sikander’s wife, who maddened with grief, boldly confronts the Taliban for an atrocity they committed, though her husband was unable to muster such courage.
Bhutto’s writing, lyrical and poetic in places, is impressive. Her ability to paint a vivid picture is most evident in her description of Mina’s altercation with the Taliban. The dramatic intensity of the scene almost makes Mina’s screams echo in the reader’s mind. Another example is Samarra’s exclamation about the state selling its skies, denoting the country’s confused policy on the US drone attacks.
Although the plot of the novel spans a mere three hours, it is full of flashbacks chronicling the related events of the past years. The flashbacks, no doubt intended to hold the readers interest, with the plot intermittently moving back and forth, actually make the story a little hard to follow. Also, her opinions of the current national issues, although woven with skill and insight in the story, at times make the plot appear engineered and unnatural. The sudden change in one character’s loyalties, although fully explained, seems a little far-fetched despite the willing suspension of disbelief on the readers’part. While there has been criticism of the author for leaving too many loose ends, the ending seems to be justified considering the complexity of the war that the novel is based on, a war that defies a black and white definition or resolution.
That said, Fatima Bhutto deserves kudos for creating an engaging and heart- wrenching read.
Book Excerpts
“But the shadow of that moon never faded over Mir Ali. It hung over its sky night after night, condemning the town to life under its cold shadow.”
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“Mir Ali had always been Hayat’s destiny….As a young man enlisting to fight for his home he had been carried by the impermeable optimism of revolutionaries. This was a battle for justice.”
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“He was of Mir Ali but had decided very early on never to make his future here, only his fortune.”
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“They smelled the weak and swooped down only upon those whose resistance to them would be futile.”
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“He remembers a time, long ago, when he and his brothers were children. When one insurgency believed their harvest was ready to be reaped, when they felt that the moment was upon them…”
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“Those who had initially lined up to receive emigration papers…were shamed into tearing up their applications…Only those with ambition larger than shame, with individual desires that were stronger than the struggles of the collective, went ahead and left anyway.”
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“They sacrificed nothing of their own; the dreams had been their fathers…Freedom meant nothing to this generation. It was easily bartered for convenience.”
The Shadow of the Crescent Moon
By Fatima Bhutto
Publisher: Penguin India
Pages: 230; Price: Rs895