A Golden Age

Bangladesh book around the world.

2.5 stars

‰ЫПShe saw him arguing with himself, calculating the most noble thing to do. The thing that would require the most sacrifice. Weighing his guilt against his desire to go. He must be picturing her along in the house, with only Maya as her silent companion. And then himself in an army uniform. Which would be worse? He would choose that.‰Ыќ

Taking a tip from the illustrious Chris Blattman, my model on being a globe trotting development worker, I decided to read this book in preparation for an upcoming work trip to Bangladesh.

I'm glad I did - reading (even fictionalized) historical accounts about a country is probably a fun, insightful way to learn about it, as long as you keep in mind the potential biases. In this author's case, I suppose there are two: first, she was born several years after the Bangladesh Liberation War (this story centers around the 9-month 1971 conflict between what was then East and West Pakistan), and so I suspect there may be some romanticizing nostalgia going on (the same way I might romanticize the Iron Curtain or the Berlin Wall). And secondly, every (West) Pakistani character in this book is pretty uniformly awful - from the shrill Karachi relatives to the evil Pakistani military forces. The book's obviously pro-Bangladesh, which is fine and well and all that, though I think its pride (and nationalism) sometimes spills over into implicitly anti-Pakistan jingoism too. Which is less appealing.

Onto the good bits! One very, very good bit is that the protagonist is a middle-aged lady, a mother of two headstrong, charismatic college kids. The middle-aged-lady-as-focus is very rare indeed throughout film/TV/books, and so it's always refreshing to hear this voice, see through these eyes. Rehana Haque, the heroine, is also nicely quirky: from her easy-going spirituality to her girlish rebellious streak. At times it strains credulity, or feels a bit thin, such as Rehana swinging from anxiety to pride re: her son's guerrilla exploits. But overall, the voice is consistent and compelling.

The overall writing style is also compelling, and it feels very, very familiar. At least, I feel like I would have written this in the exact same way - which meant that, while the familiarity was warm and fuzzy, it also left me wishing for something more, in the same way I find my own writing limited and even formulaic. The author is no Salman Rushdie, blowing your hair back with a BIG BRAIN strutting its stuff. Nor is she even a R.K. Narayan, captivating you with humanistic simplicity. Instead, it was good, never great - and satisfying, but never overly stimulating.