Kartography

Publishers Weekly

The trauma of war is typically gauged by loss of lives and property, not broken hearts, but the microcosm is often as powerful an indicator of loss as the macrocosm-or so Shamsie seems to say in her latest novel, a shimmering, quick-witted lament and love story. Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, is a place under constant siege: ethnic, factional, sectarian and simply random acts of violence are the order of the day. This violence-and the lingering legacy of the civil war of 1971-is the backdrop for the story of Raheen and Karim, a girl and boy raised together in the 1970s and '80s, whose lives are shattered when a family secret is revealed. The two friends and their families are members of the city's wealthy elite, personified in its shallowness by family members like Raheen's supercilious Aunt Runty and in guilty social conscience by Karim himself. This is a complex novel, deftly executed and rich in emotional coloratura and wordplay (the title is inspired by Karim's burgeoning obsession with mapmaking, and spelled with a "k" after the city's name). Shamsie pays homage to Calvino with a pastiche of Invisible Cities written by Raheen at her upstate New York college. But Shamsie's novel deals more with ghosts than cities: ghosts of relationships, ghosts of childhood, ghosts of love. A ghost is said to haunt a tree where Raheen's father-once engaged to Karim's mother-carved their initials long ago. Two ghosts representing Karim and Raheen walk an invisible city in Raheen's Calvino tribute. As someone said to Raheen: "There's a ghost of a dream you don't even try to shake free of because you're too in love with the way she haunts you." In similar fashion, Raheen remains in love with Karachi, family and friends, even as one by one their facades crumble. (Aug.) Forecast: Shamsie's cerebral, playful style sets her apart from most of her fellow subcontinental writers. Something of a cross between Arundhati Roy and Salman Rushdie, she deserves a larger readership in the U.S. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus

"Its artful uncovering of how people hide from themselves and one another echoes Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things."

Publishers Weekly

"A shimmering, quick-witted lament and love story. This is a complex novel, deftly executed and rich in emotional coloratura and wordplay." —Starred Review

Library Journal

In this third novel by Shamsie, whose Salt and Saffron landed her on the Orange Prize Futures List, Raheen and Karim share a friendship that in some ways predates their very births. Yet at age 13, they are separated when Karim's family leaves Pakistan, though even more difficult is the divorce of Karim's parents, which blights the relationship between the two friends. Several themes run through the narrative, including how the civil war that divided Pakistan and Bangladesh created turmoil in personal relationships, how personality can be shaped by geography, and how friendships can only truly survive if each takes responsibility for the needs of the other. Shamsie uses a variety of techniques to tell her story, from Karim's hand-drawn maps to letter collages to more conventional prose, and the sensual quality of her writing is best described in her own words: "I unscrew a jar of ink. Scent of smudged words and metal fill the air." Yet despite the many strongly evocative word pictures, there are also patches of bland dialog that detract from the overall effectiveness of the writing. Of interest to collections with a strong international and multicultural focus.-Caroline Hallsworth, City of Greater Sudbury, Ont. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

The splintering effects of an unbroken "cycle of violence, unemployment, divisiveness" in Pakistan enfold and alienate the protagonists of this intense third novel from the author of Salt and Saffron (2000). Narrator Raheen has grown up partially insulated from ethnic hatred in her native Karachi by her family's comparative affluence and as the soulmate of Karim, her best friend since they were infants. In an echo of their country's experience of Partition (from India in 1947), Raheen's and Karim's parents had made a "fiancée swap" in 1971 (the year of Bangladesh's creation). Thus are division and uncertainty built into the intimacy between Raheen and "Karimazov," as she playfully calls him, exercising the verbal wit (including desperately clever neologisms and anagrams) that typifies their not-quite-romantic friendship. In 1995, with Karachi again under siege, Karim's parents remove him to safety in London. Years pass, he and Raheen connect only through correspondence. His desire to establish control over the shifting world in which he does, and doesn't live increases his obsession with the certainties of "mapping" (i.e., "kartography"). And Raheen inquires of herself and others "why his mother broke off her engagement with my father"-gradually learning of the betrayals, lies, and secrets that simultaneously ensured their parents' survival and illuminated their self-destructive weaknesses. In its artful uncovering of how people hide from themselves and one another, Shamsie's tale partially echoes Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. But Kartography is oddly uninvolving, thanks to its narrative and thematic redundancy. Too many scenes and passages are too similar, andcharacters-several of whom (including, alas, Karim) remain undeveloped and indistinct-fail to fully engage our sympathies. Shamsie's stylish, energetic prose holds real promise for future books. Kartography, though, is a near-miss.

Harper's Bazaar

"Described as a young Anita Desai, [Shamsie's] third book, about Karachi during the turbulent 1990s, is worth all the fuss."

Booklist

"A modern-day romance in a war-ridden city, how love continues to blossom in the rubble of a devastated land."

Los Angeles Times

"A gorgeous novel. Shamsie's wry humor infuses and quickens the narrative."

The Virginia Pilot

"At her best describing teeming Karachi and the love, fear and loathing it stirs in the hearts of her characters."

Richmond Times-Dispatch

"An ambitious novel that is both a love story and a commentary on the problems that have plagued Pakistan."

curledup.com

"Shamsie's unique slice-of-life tale beautifully illustrates the unbreakable bonds of love and friendship that are made more durable by forgiveness."