{"id":15993,"date":"2012-02-08T11:39:56","date_gmt":"2012-02-08T16:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=15993"},"modified":"2014-05-16T17:33:32","modified_gmt":"2014-05-16T21:33:32","slug":"the-wish-maker-by-ali-sethi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-wish-maker-by-ali-sethi\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wish Maker by Ali Sethi"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wish<\/a>I confess the main reason I finally plucked this debut novel (written by its author when he was just 23) from my never-shrinking ‘to-read’ pile was because I found the audible version is narrated by Indian American actor Firdous Bamji. After finishing Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide<\/a><\/em>, I was missing Bamji’s transporting characterizations … alas, even Bamji\u00a0couldn’t bring enough sparkle to the ultimately disappointing, overwritten family saga.<\/p>\n

Wish Maker<\/em>\u00a0basically\u00a0begins where it will end (don’t worry: no spoilers): narrator\u00a0Zaki Shirazi arrives in his native Pakistan from his U.S. college in the first chapter to attend the wedding of his cousin-raised-as-his-sister Samar Api, the event which will mark the novel’s end. Over the 400-plus pages in between, we meet the many women \u2013 yes, the men are mostly absent\u00a0\u2013\u00a0that shape and influence\u00a0Zaki’s\u00a0young life: his imperious, power-wielding conservative grandmother who is the family matriarch; his widowed, liberal, feminist mother often at odds with the matriarch; and, of course, his free-spirited, rule-defying cousin-sister Samar Api (who is, actually, Zaki’s father’s first cousin, the daughter of his grandmother’s younger sister, to be absolutely accurate).<\/p>\n

Sethi gingerly overlays three generations of Pakistan’s tumultuous history \u2013\u00a0from its violent separation from East Pakistan-turned-Bangladesh to the controversial leadership of Benazir Bhutto to the country’s ongoing struggles toward democracy\u00a0\u2013 with reminders of the unexpected influences of western pop culture (The Wonder Years<\/a>!<\/em>) and the closer-to-home fantasies created by Bollywood. Sethi is never overtly political except to allow Zaki’s mother an occasional anti-colonial diatribe, but he does remain keenly aware of the inequity of gender-based privilege throughout. Undoubtedly, the characterization of Samar Api’s mother remains the most memorable by story’s end.<\/p>\n

I (again) confess that I don’t have any glaring, obvious reasons as to why Wish Maker<\/em>\u00a0eventually proved so lackadaisical a read (and listen); surely it seems to have had all the potential elements to be stupendous (including that 23-year-old wunderkind<\/em> bravado!). But bottom line: at 432 hardcover pages or 11 hours in narration, such a time commitment is inevitably better spent with others … in Pakistan alone, Daniyal Mueenuddin<\/a>, Kamila Shamsie<\/a>, Mohammad Hanif<\/a>, Mohsin Hamid<\/a>, Bapsi Sidhwa<\/a> all beckon with unforgettable tales.<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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