A gripping contemporary tale: Review of Punjabi Novel
The publication of this novel is a transgressive event in the world of letters in Pakistan. The novel successfully blurs the boundaries between time and space, fiction and nonfiction, poetry and prose, social facts and historiography. The surface story in this debut novel is set in Lahore and narrates the story of Hussain and Mahboob but it is also a history of Lahore and the region in which Lahore exists. Written in a stream-of-consciousness style, the novel is also a social document because, through the thoughts of its characters, it creates a catalogue of historical events, social movements, and political upheavals that influence the fictional lives. The life story of Madho Lal Shah Hussain, originally two Sufi saints which are referred by one name and who are buried in Lahore, is the source of inspiration but it has been transformed into a contemporary tale. It is a difficult task to transform a historical life into a metaphor for the present but Nain Sukh has accomplished it with a deceptive sense of ease. The carefully honed analytical and creative acumen of the author exhibits an obsession with the social and political history of South Asia as well as a Sufic detachment with this post-lapsarian world. The result is a book that should be a mandatory reading for anyone who wants to understand Lahore and Pakistan with everything sordid, censored, and sublime included. The effect on the reader is very unsettling at the beginning because this method of mixing facts, fiction, and poetry is new in Punjabi but not in English, which has a long history of nonfiction novels or even faction (fact+fiction = faction). The Punjabi literary landscape is already abuzz with the debate whether this book is a novel or not. But because there are no universally acceptable definitions of what the novel is, the readers should enjoy the book and the stories within the story without worrying about its genre. If House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, The Taqwacores by Michael Muhammad Knight, and Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (a novel with 96 pages of footnotes) are novels, this book is definitely a novel. But it is not just a novel. It is a book that deserves to be noted as a social document as well. For this, Nain Sukh deserves major kudos.
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