In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders Review

Mr. Mueenuddin's writing is outstanding. The settings for each of the stories in "In Other Rooms, Other Wonders" are particular and strange and beautiful. His characters range from maids to mistresses and much more in between, and he has a gift for describing the nuances of relationships, especially the transparent beginnings. [The book won won the regional prize for Best First Book of the 2010 Commonwealth Awards, though not the overall prize, although it had a finer title than any other nominee in any category.]

While I found all of the stories compelling and articulate, I was especially drawn to the ones describing the servant classes, because these aren't the stories usually told: Saleema is a maid in a large household, a bright, sexy, and sharp young thing. Nawabdin is a clever and adept electrician, with a prized possession to protect. My favourite was "A Spoiled Man" about Rezak, a solitary hardy old man who carries his little house with him everywhere he goes.

Perhaps the most startling and wonderful aspect of IOR,OW is the view it gives of feudal (and sometimes fancy) Pakistan. Mohsin Hamid's "Moth Smoke" was the first time I had ever heard of the elite ecstatic set in Lahore (of course they're everywhere). IOR,OW shows us this side (in "Lilly" and "Our Lady of Paris") but spends much more time in the countryside (such lovely intense detail), on the farms, in villages, and inside vicious and hierarchical servant quarters.

My only complaint was the often abrupt endings of many of the stories. The stories are longer than usual - they feel like mini-novellas - and so then, after such length and intricacy, I was disappointed by how suddenly a story like "Saleema" or "In Other Rooms, Other Wonders" could end, or why a story like "Provide Provide" ends by detailing the fate of a side character that the reader has been given little reason to care about.

I also felt that most of the women characters had no agency (though I understand the integrity and reality of this) nor any trajectory of change or possibility in their lives. Saleema peters out, Lily's end is baffling and regressive (while her male lead swells into a hero, salt of the earth, pedigreed, of course, and noble), Husna is stymied, and Zainab abandoned. This is all fine and real, but there was something tragic or futile about them that I didn't feel in the male characters.

That all said: brill first book, brill book altogether. I'll look forward to the next.

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders Feature

• ISBN13: 9780393337204
• Condition: New
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders Overview

Finalist for the 2009 National Book Award in Fiction and the 2009 Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. “The rural rootedness and gentle humour of R.K. Narayan with the literary sophistication and stylishness of Jhumpa Lahiri.”—Financial Times Passing from the mannered drawing rooms of Pakistan’s cities to the harsh mud villages beyond, Daniyal Mueenuddin’s linked stories describe the interwoven lives of an aging feudal landowner, his servants and managers, and his extended family, industrialists who have lost touch with the land. In the spirit of Joyce’s Dubliners and Turgenev’s A Sportsman’s Sketches, these stories comprehensively illuminate a world, describing members of parliament and farm workers, Islamabad society girls and desperate servant women. A hard-driven politician at the height of his powers falls critically ill and seeks to perpetuate his legacy; a girl from a declining Lahori family becomes a wealthy relative’s mistress, thinking there will be no cost; an electrician confronts a violent assailant in order to protect his most valuable possession; a maidservant who advances herself through sexual favors unexpectedly falls in love.

Together the stories in In Other Rooms, Other Wonders make up a vivid portrait of feudal Pakistan, describing the advantages and constraints of social station, the dissolution of old ways, and the shock of change. Refined, sensuous, by turn humorous, elegiac, and tragic, Mueenuddin evokes the complexities of the Pakistani feudal order as it is undermined and transformed.

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