Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

ebook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available

Winner of the Story Prize
Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
Finalist for the National Book Award
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

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.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

  • Formats

  • Languages

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from November 17, 2008
      In eight beautifully crafted, interconnected stories, Mueenuddin explores the cutthroat feudal society in which a rich Lahore landowner is entrenched. A complicated network of patronage undergirds the micro-society of servants, families and opportunists surrounding wealthy patron K.K. Harouni. In “Nawabdin Electrician,” Harouni’s indispensable electrician, Nawab, excels at his work and at home, raising 12 daughters and one son by virtue of his cunning and ingenuity—qualities that allow him to triumph over entrenched poverty and outlive a robber bent on stealing his livelihood. Women are especially vulnerable without the protection of family and marriage ties, as the protagonist of “Saleema” learns: a maid in the Harouni mansion who cultivates a love affair with an older servant, Saleema is left with a baby and without recourse when he must honor his first family and renounce her. Similarly, the women who become lovers of powerful men, as in the title story and in “Provide, Provide,” fall into disgrace and poverty with the death of their patrons. An elegant stylist with a light touch, Mueenuddin invites the reader to a richly human, wondrous experience.

    • Kirkus

      Starred review from December 1, 2008
      The pangs of individuals and cultures subject to established inequality and radical change are expertly analyzed in Pakistani author Mueenuddin 's impressive debut collection.

      The eight stories explore relationships among scions of the super-rich Harouni farming family, living near Lahore —those who serve it and those who marry (often unhappily) into it. The stories are Chekhovian in their grasp of indigenous detail and subtle understanding of their characters ' complex experiences and destinies. In "Nawabdin Electrician " (one of two stories that previously appeared in the New Yorker), a resourceful Mr. Fixit, who 's also the overburdened father of several marriageable daughters, patches together a living from his genius for mechanical improvisation, suffers grievous losses when he 's robbed and beaten, yet, through sheer force of will, perseveres. Echoes of Irish storyteller Frank O 'Connor 's keen eye for quotidian minutiae and Doris Lessing 's fatalistic irony are sounded in the title story 's understated portrayal of an indigent woman who "rises " to security as mistress to the elderly Harouni patriarch, but, upon his death, loses all she has gained; the tale of a judge 's servant whose family turns an act of horrific abuse to its profit ( "About a Burning Girl "); and a harrowing story ( "A Spoiled Man ") about an aging workman whose painstakingly earned chance at happiness is ruined by a do-gooder 's misunderstanding of the traditions that fix him irrevocably in his place. Even better are the longer stories: In "Lily, " the chronicle of a vain party girl 's ingenuous hope of reclaiming respectability, as the wife of an industrious wealthy farmer 's son, is dashed as their utter incompatibility uncoils and shows itself; and the magnificent "Provide, Provide, " wherein the ambitious Zainab insinuates herself among the Harounis, abandoning her weakling husband to marry a well-placed household servant, only to lose everything when the force of family obligation shoulders aside all her scheming.

      Superlative stories from an accomplished stylist who looks as if he may well have a great novel in him.

      (COPYRIGHT (2008) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

    • Booklist

      Starred review from January 1, 2009
      Mueenuddins story collection is a remarkably confident debut. Although the eight stories are broadly linked by a common Pakistani community, the narratives are diverse in both content and approach. The first storieswritten in an unsparing, declarative stylefollow the poorer members of the feudal network. Nawabdin Electrician, selected by Salman Rushdie for the newest Best American Short Stories anthology, is particularly severe in its worldview, though its protagonist is warm, even jovial. When Mueenuddin turns his attention to the wealthythe gulf between rich and poor is starkly dramatizedhis prose grows more indulgent, especially in the stories Our Lady of Paris and Lily. Although the latter develops slowly, with dialogue and scenes that strain to come off the page, the libertine turned wifes reflections on her husband are startling and familiar and deeply sad: She considered the tone in which Murad had told the aphorism about the beginning and the ending of loveexposed, hardened, ironica tone that couples settle into when they are broken and at odds forever, but bound.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)

    • Kirkus

      Starred review from December 1, 2008
      The pangs of individuals and cultures subject to established inequality and radical change are expertly analyzed in Pakistani author Mueenuddin's impressive debut collection.

      The eight stories explore relationships among scions of the super-rich Harouni farming family, living near Lahore —those who serve it and those who marry (often unhappily) into it. The stories are Chekhovian in their grasp of indigenous detail and subtle understanding of their characters ' complex experiences and destinies. In "Nawabdin Electrician " (one of two stories that previously appeared in the New Yorker), a resourceful Mr. Fixit, who's also the overburdened father of several marriageable daughters, patches together a living from his genius for mechanical improvisation, suffers grievous losses when he's robbed and beaten, yet, through sheer force of will, perseveres. Echoes of Irish storyteller Frank O ' Connor's keen eye for quotidian minutiae and Doris Lessing's fatalistic irony are sounded in the title story's understated portrayal of an indigent woman who "rises " to security as mistress to the elderly Harouni patriarch, but, upon his death, loses all she has gained; the tale of a judge's servant whose family turns an act of horrific abuse to its profit ( "About a Burning Girl "); and a harrowing story ( "A Spoiled Man ") about an aging workman whose painstakingly earned chance at happiness is ruined by a do-gooder's misunderstanding of the traditions that fix him irrevocably in his place. Even better are the longer stories: In "Lily, " the chronicle of a vain party girl's ingenuous hope of reclaiming respectability, as the wife of an industrious wealthy farmer's son, is dashed as their utter incompatibility uncoils and shows itself; and the magnificent "Provide, Provide, " wherein the ambitious Zainab insinuates herself among the Harounis, abandoning her weakling husband to marry a well-placed household servant, only to lose everything when the force of family obligation shoulders aside all her scheming.

      Superlative stories from an accomplished stylist who looks as if he may well have a great novel in him.

      (COPYRIGHT (2008) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

Languages

  • English

Loading