What do You think about Salt And Saffron (2002)?
I enjoyed this book and am struck by the feeling that I know this person and the milieu - of course I don't - her being Paki and it being set in Karachi..and me from arch enemy India..really? The flavour of the book is so much of the North India that I grew up in that I am positively nostalgic. I love a book that bashes prejudices..but of course, no upper class family from the subcontinent would countenance one of its own running away with the khansama maharaj/cook.Did Misha recommend this book because it's based on twins and not quite twins as well ;). Interesting. fortunately I am not, as far as I know, a descendant of the Timurid Mughals, so I guess I don't have to fear the curse of the twins..
—Susan
This book starts off with a certain bright effervescence that all too quickly evaporates, yielding to story that is immature and tiring. There are too many convoluted family relations, gaps in narrative and impossibly convenient plot devices for it to actually be a good read. This too bad, because I feel like the bones of an engrossing tale are in there. Had the author concentrated solely on Mariam and her marriage to the cook, focusing more on Mariam's mysterious background and the disappearance of her father, as well as the possibility of finding where she disappeared to, I think Shamsie could have had a cleaner, more engaging story. This one, by contrast, seems a little like the breathless ramblings of an author in the throes of advanced attention deficit disorder. There are other aspects of interest in getting a glimpse into a different Pakistan than the dour, fanatically devout one usually presented in US news, and thinking about how Partition affected families that now lived on two sides of a hostile border. But there was too little of this to outweigh the cliched love stories and tedious family legends. If this is Shamsie's best, I will skip the rest, and hope to discover better from other Pakistani authors.
—Jennyb
Aaliya is a global citizen of Pakistani origin. But a flirtatious conversation with a stranger on the plane sets her thinking about her roots and the people and stories that have led to her. The Dard-e-dils, Aaliya's family, trace their roots back to the Mughal era, through British occupation, down to the Partition that broke hearts & families and finally their current day status as Karachian elite. Aaliya skips between past and present as she grapples with the mysterious loss of a beloved cousin, the strange myth of the 'not-quite-twins' and the class snobbery that she derides in her family but is shocked to find even in her own self.The story moves along through various family anecdotes, tragic & funny. These fit together as a jigsaw puzzle, coming together only in the end as Aaliya makes her peace with her identity, her place in the family and the man she may love. Shamsie's writing carries a wry wit inconguously laced with touching vulnerability. This is what takes her books above the mundanity of everyday stories, into sheer poetry. I do think the ending is weaker than the rest of the book but perhaps, in a story of great drama, a nondescript ending is the right one.
—Idea Smith
