Reviews with content warning for Drug use - Moth Smoke

"There are two social classes in Pakistan," Professor Superb said to his unsuspecting audience, gripping the podium with both hands as he spoke. "The first group, large and sweaty, contains those referred to as the masses. The second group is much smaller, but its members exercise vastly greater control over their immediate environment and are collectively termed the elite. The distinction between members of these two groups is made on the basis of control of an important resource:air-conditioning. You see, the elite have managed to re-create for themselves the living standards of say, Sweden without leaving the dusty plains of the subcontinent. They're a mixed lot - Punjabi and Pathans, Sindhis and Baluchis, smugglers , mullahs, soldiers, industrialists - united by their residence in an artificially cooled world. They wake up in air-conditioned houses, drive air-conditioned cars to air-conditioned offices, grab lunch in air-conditioned restaurants (rights of admission reserved), and at the end of the day go home to an air-conditioned lounges to relax in front of their wide-screen TVs. And if they should think about the rest of the people, the great uncooled, and become uneasy as they lie under their blankets in the middle of the summer, there is always prayer, five times a day, which they hope will gain them admittance to an air-conditioned heaven, or at the very least, a long, cool drink during a fiery day in hell.

You have to have money these days. The roads are falling apart, so you need a Pajero or a Land Cruiser. The phone lines are erratic, so you need a mobile. The colleges are overrun with fundos who have no interest in getting an education, so you have to go abroad. And that’s ten lakhs a year, mind you. Thanks to electricity theft there will always be shortages, so you have to have a generator. The police are corrupt and ineffective, so you need private security guards. It goes on and on. People are pulling their pieces out of the pie, and the pie is getting smaller, so if you love your family, you’d better take your piece now, while there’s still some left. That’s what I’m doing. And if anyone isn’t doing it, it’s because they’re locked out of the kitchen.

ACs, on the other hand, he considered unnatural and dangerous. Your pores will get out of shape if you rely on ACs for your cooling, he would say. It's fine as long as you stay in your little air conditioned space, but one day you might need to rely on your body again and your body won't be there for you. After all, fortunes change, power blackouts happen, compressors die, coolant leaks.
He loved load shedding for this reason. It amused him to see the rich people on the grounds of their mansions as he drove past their iron gates, fanning themselves in the darkness, muttering as they called the power company on their cellular phones. Indeed, nothing made me Murad Badshah more happy than the distress of the rich."

Three POVs, my favourite character being Murad Badshah with Mumtaz a close second.
RTC

I am going to go search for Mohsin Hamid's other books, if this debut is any indication of his writing prowess.

Content Warnings

rae_kh's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

More...