Nadeem Aslam

Strange: Determined to make a bit of space on the A shelf, I picked up this novel with fond memories of British-Pakistani Nadeem Aslam's Maps for Lost Lovers (2004) which was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. But now, having read The Golden Legend (2017) I've checked my reading journal and realised that I must have confused Maps for Lost Lovers with something else. Like The Golden Legend, Maps for Lost Lovers was very well-written and perhaps it was an authentic portrait of Pakistani immigrants who despise the country that's hosting them while they make money, but I did not enjoy reading it and I found The Golden Legend very confronting as well. My reading journal tells me that I didn't much like The Wasted Vigil (2008) either, but I'd forgotten reading it, so I don't think I'll be revisiting this author's work again.

He seems to have made a career out of writing about dysfunctional Islam. Maps is about an immigrant Pakistani community in England; Vigil is about Islam in Afghanistan, and The Golden Legend is about terrorism, cruelty, corruption and sectarianism in Pakistan. There is also love across religious divides in Aslam's fictional city of Zamaran, but as the novel traces the ill-fortune of Nargis after her husband Massud is killed in a terrorist attack, it portrays a culture of inescapable violence and intimidation.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/01/31/the-golden-legend-by-nadeem-aslam/… (more)

Beautifully poetic writing, with a very sad story. I wish that a few things, particularly surrounding the murders at the center of the book, hadn't been made as clear by the end. The uncertainty was more powerful, I think. I was also bothered by the amount of hypocrisy in the words and actions of a number of characters. The hypocrisy of the more fundamentalist characters is clearly held against them, but there's a great deal of hypocrisy that goes less highlighted in the characters that we are meant to find more sympathetic. That said, the book is overall honest in showing the failings of both sides, and it provides a really interesting look at people caught between two cultures.… (more)