Kartography Paperback
Shamsie, Kamila | Mariner Books
34,820원 | 20040607 | 9780156029735
"[Shamsie] packs her story with the playful evidence of her high-flying intelligence." -- San Francisco Chronicle Raised together from birth, Raheen and her best friend Karim dream each other's dreams and finish each other's sentences. They share an idyllic childhood in upper-class Karachi with parents who are also best friends, even once engaged to the other until they rematched in what they jokingly call "the fiancee swap." But when Karim's family migrates from Pakistan to London, distance and adolescence split the friends apart. Karim takes refuge in the rationality of maps while Raheen searches for the secret behind her parents' exchange. She uncovers a story not just of a family's turbulent history but that of a country -- and finds herself poised between strained friendship and fated love with Karim. "This 30-year-old has been described as a young Anita Desai, and her third book, about childhood, love, life and high society in Karachi during the turbulent 1990s is worth all the prepublication fuss." - Harper's Bazaar Kamila Shamsie, author of two previous novels, has been twice shortlisted for the John Llewelyn Rhys/Mail on Sunday Prize and named by the Orange Prize Futures as one of "21 writers for the 21st century." She lives in London and Karachi, and serves as Visiting Professor of English at Hamilton College.
Kamila Shamsie's first novel, In the City by the Sea, was shortlisted for the John Llewelyn Rhys/Mail on Sunday Prize. After her second novel, Salt and Saffron, she was named one of the Orange Futures "21 Writers for the 21st century". A recipient of the Award for Literary Achievement in Pakistan, she lives in Karachi and London, where she writes frequently for The Guardian. She often teaches in the U.S., and, at 29, is at work on her fourth novel.
KAMILA SHAMSIE is the author of three novels and was named one of the Orange Prize "21 writers for the 21st century." She lives in London and Karachi, and serves as a visiting professor of English at Hamilton College in NewYork.
The globe spins. Mountain ranges skim my fingers; there is static above the Arabian Sea. Pakistan is split in two, but undivided. This world is out of date. Rain outside. If it reaches Karachi, the waves will swell further. The airport, though, is inland. From there to here is no distance at all if you look at the map of the world. But distance is not about miles and kilometres, it is about fear. Who said that? Someone who wasn't married to a pilot, I'd guess. I unscrew a jar of ink. Scent of smudged words and metal fills the air. Do all tentacled creatures produce ink, Raheen? Does the cuttlefish? Can you write on the waves with cuttleink? I close my eyes, and wrap my fingers around a diamond-shaped bone. I still hear the world spinning. I spin with it, spin into a garden. At dusk. And yes, those are shoulder pads stitched into my shirt. 1986. Of course the garden is located where all our beginnings, Karim's and mine, are located: Karachi. That spider-plant city where, if you know what to look for and some higher power is feeling indulgent, you might find a fossilized footprint of Alexander. The Great. He led his army through Karachi, long, long before the spider-plant effect took hold, when Karachi was a harbour named Krokola. Perhaps Alexander's was the first army that stirred up the sand along the eastern coast of the Arabian Sea. That's an interesting thought. Though, really, it's never been proved that Karachi is Krokola, and even if it is Alexander probably never stepped foot on its shores; so any ancient Macedonian footprints with heelstamps of authority in Karachi's rocks must belong to Alexander's admiral, Nearchus, who wasn't even Macedonian. He was a Cretan and that sounds rude. I don't know if Karim and I were actually looking for ancient footsteps in the rockery of Karim's garden that October evening, the day all boxes were unpacked and the move from Karim's old house finally completed, but I do know that we were more than happy with our discovery of a fossilized cuttlefish. 'You sure it's a cuttlefish?' I said, turning the diamond-shaped fossil over in my hands. We were sitting cross-legged, side by side, on the grass that bordered the triangle of soil on which the rockery had been set out. Mud on his knees and chlorophyll on mine, though as we sat close, swaying back with laughter and forward with curiosity, the colours were mingling, dun shot through with emerald. 'Course it is. Well, cuttlebone. No sign of fish flesh on that thing.' 'So flesh is what makes a fish a fish?' 'Interesting question. Is a sole without flesh still a sole? Either way, a cuttlefish isn't a fish at all.' Karim waved his arms about like someone trying to breakdance. 'It's got tentacles.' He fell back on his elbows, nearly flattening an ant, which, impervious, did not waver from its path but crawled over his arm and proceeded along through the short-cropped grass. 'Imagine it.' He looked around. 'This used to be an ocean. If you squint, can't you almost see Mai Kolachi rowing a boat through the hibiscus in search of her husband, and look! over there, through the bougainvillaea you can see a wave made up of the tears Alexander wept for Bucephalus.' "Bucephalus" is an anagram for "a puce blush". When I squint, I see only a blur.' Karim rolled his eyes. 'You know, if I wasn't me, you wouldn't be you.' Odd. No matter where I begin, that line finds its way into my narrative so very early on, and forces linearity to give way to a ramble of hindsight. This is the worst of our ways of remembering-this tendency to prod the crust of anecdote in the hope of releasing a gush of piping-hot symbolism. Stop, Karim would say. Go and eat something. And look up 'symbolism' in the dictionary while you're at it. Symbolism is an anagram for 'Miss my lob'. The summer we played tennis together there was such symbolism in y
Raheen and her best friend, Karim, share an idyllic childhood in upper-class Karachi. Their parents were even once engaged to each others' partners until they rematched in what they call "the fianc? swap." But as adolescence distances the friends, Karim takes refuge in maps while Raheen searches for the secret behind her parents' exchange. What she uncovers reveals not just a family's but a country's turbulent history-and a grown-up Raheen and Karim are caught between strained friendship and fated love. A love story with a family mystery at its heart, Kartography is a dazzling novel by a young writer of astonishing maturity and exhilarating style. Shamsie transports us to a world we have not often seen in fiction-vibrant, dangerous, sensuous Pakistan. But even as she takes us far from the familiar, her story of passion and family secrets rings universally true.
Raheen and her best friend, Karim, share an idyllic childhood in upper-class Karachi. Their parents were even once engaged to each others' partners until they rematched in what they call "the fianc e swap." But as adolescence distances the friends, Karim takes refuge in maps while Raheen searches for the secret behind her parents' exchange. What she uncovers reveals not just a family's but a country's turbulent history-and a grown-up Raheen and Karim are caught between strained friendship and fated love. A love story with a family mystery at its heart, Kartography is a dazzling novel by a young writer of astonishing maturity and exhilarating style. Shamsie transports us to a world we have not often seen in fiction-vibrant, dangerous, sensuous Pakistan. But even as she takes us far from the familiar, her story of passion and family secrets rings universally true.
Raheen and her best friend, Karim, share an idyllic childhood in upper-class Karachi. Their parents were even once engaged to each others' partners until they rematched in what they call "the fianc? swap." But as adolescence distances the friends, Karim takes refuge in maps while Raheen searches for the secret behind her parents' exchange. What she uncovers reveals not just a family's but a country's turbulent history-and a grown-up Raheen and Karim are caught between strained friendship and fated love. A love story with a family mystery at its heart, Kartography is a dazzling novel by a young writer of astonishing maturity and exhilarating style. Shamsie transports us to a world we have not often seen in fiction-vibrant, dangerous, sensuous Pakistan. But even as she takes us far from the familiar, her story of passion and family secrets rings universally true.
Raheen and her best friend, Karim, share an idyllic childhood in upper-class Karachi. Their parents were even once engaged to each others' partners until they rematched in what they call "the fiance swap." But as adolescence distances the friends, Karim takes refuge in maps while Raheen searches for the secret behind her parents' exchange. What she uncovers reveals not just a family's but a country's turbulent history-and a grown-up Raheen and Karim are caught between strained friendship and fated love. A love story with a family mystery at its heart, Kartography is a dazzling novel by a young writer of astonishing maturity and exhilarating style. Shamsie transports us to a world we have not often seen in fiction-vibrant, dangerous, sensuous Pakistan. But even as she takes us far from the familiar, her story of passion and family secrets rings universally true.
"A gorgeous novel. Shamsie''s wry humor infuses and quickens the narrative."
"A gorgeous novel. Shamsie''s wry humor infuses and quickens the narrative."
"A modern-day romance in a war-ridden city, how love continues to blossom in the rubble of a devastated land."
"A modern-day romance in a war-ridden city, how love continues to blossom in the rubble of a devastated land."
"An ambitious novel that is both a love story and a commentary on the problems that have plagued Pakistan."
"An ambitious novel that is both a love story and a commentary on the problems that have plagued Pakistan."
"A shimmering, quick-witted lament and love story. This is a complex novel, deftly executed and rich in emotional coloratura and wordplay."
"A shimmering, quick-witted lament and love story. This is a complex novel, deftly executed and rich in emotional coloratura and wordplay."
"At her best describing teeming Karachi and the love, fear and loathing it stirs in the hearts of her characters."
"At her best describing teeming Karachi and the love, fear and loathing it stirs in the hearts of her characters."
"At her best describing teeming Karachi and the love, fear and loathing it stirs in the hearts of her characters." br
"Described as a young Anita Desai, [Shamsie''s] third book, about Karachi during the turbulent 1990s, is worth all the fuss."
"Described as a young Anita Desai, [Shamsie''s] third book, about Karachi during the turbulent 1990s, is worth all the fuss."
"Its artful uncovering of how people hide from themselves and one another echoes Arundhati Roy''s The God of Small Things."
"Its artful uncovering of how people hide from themselves and one another echoes Arundhati Roy''s The God of Small Things."
Kartography is Kamila Shamsie's impressive third novel. At its heart is a traditional love story-cum-family saga. Karim and Raheen are anagram-swapping "fated friends." Until the age of 13, when Karim moved to London, they were virtually raised as brother and sister. Their parents had once been engaged to each other. The unravelling of quite why this matrimonial square dance occurred is juxtaposed with Karim and Raheen's own, and decidedly more protracted, romance. As the title suggests, mapping--geographical, political and emotional--is central to the book. The "comic" spelling is a wry allusion to its setting: the troubled Pakistani city of Karachi, a place that, as Karim observes, worships "at the altar of K." Karim, Raheen and their friends Sonia and Zia all belong to the privileged Karachi elite. Born on the right "side of the Clifton Bridge" they seem immune from Karachi's endemic corruption, violence, and religious and ethnic intolerance but they and their families, like the rest of the city's inhabitants, have all been horrifically scarred by events of the 1971 civil war. Like Austen, or perhaps more accurately Forster, Shamsie is wonderfully adept at capturing the petty rivalries and social games of Pakistan's highly stratified bourgeoisie society--Zia's house is sagely described as "always full of people worth cultivating, rather than people worth having in your home." There are a few (well-acknowledged) nods to Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities and even Homer's Odyssey gets a look in but Shamsie wears her learning lightly. She manages to make Karim and Raheen's journey to toward engagement, both with the realities of Karachi and with each other, into a profound meditation on the nature of love, storytelling and politics. --Travis Elborough, Amazon.co.uk
Kartography is Kamila Shamsie's impressive third novel. At its heart is a traditional love story-cum-family saga. Karim and Raheen are anagram-swapping "fated friends." Until the age of 13, when Karim moved to London, they were virtually raised as brother and sister. Their parents had once been engaged to each other. The unravelling of quite why this matrimonial square dance occurred is juxtaposed with Karim and Raheen's own, and decidedly more protracted, romance.As the title suggests, mapping--geographical, political and emotional--is central to the book. The "comic" spelling is a wry allusion to its setting: the troubled Pakistani city of Karachi, a place that, as Karim observes, worships "at the altar of K." Karim, Raheen and their friends Sonia and Zia all belong to the privileged Karachi elite. Born on the right "side of the Clifton Bridge" they seem immune from Karachi's endemic corruption, violence, and religious and ethnic intolerance but they and their families, like the rest of the city's inhabitants, have all been horrifically scarred by events of the 1971 civil war.Like Austen, or perhaps more accurately Forster, Shamsie is wonderfully adept at capturing the petty rivalries and social games of Pakistan's highly stratified bourgeoisie society--Zia's house is sagely described as "always full of people worth cultivating, rather than people worth having in your home." There are a few (well-acknowledged) nods to Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities and even Homer's Odyssey gets a look in but Shamsie wears her learning lightly. She manages to make Karim and Raheen's journey to toward engagement, both with the realities of Karachi and with each other, into a profound meditation on the nature of love, storytelling and politics. --Travis Elborough, Amazon.co.uk
PRAISE FOR KARTOGRAPHY "A gorgeous novel of perimeters and boundaries, of the regionsliteral and figurativein which we're comfortable moving about and those through which we'd rather not travel . . . Shamsie's wry humor infuses and quickens the narrative, leavening even the most serious scenes without detracting from their emotional weight."LOS ANGELES TIMES "[Shamsie] packs her story with the playful evidence of her highflying intelligence."SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"Shamsie''s unique slice-of-life tale beautifully illustrates the unbreakable bonds of love and friendship that are made more durable by forgiveness."
"Shamsie''s unique slice-of-life tale beautifully illustrates the unbreakable bonds of love and friendship that are made more durable by forgiveness."
"[Shamsie] packs her story with the playful evidence of her high-flying intelligence." -- San Francisco Chronicle Raised together from birth, Raheen and her best friend Karim dream each other's dreams and finish each other's sentences. They share an idyllic childhood in upper-class Karachi with parents who are also best friends, even once engaged to the other until they rematched in what they jokingly call "the fiancee swap." But when Karim's family migrates from Pakistan to London, distance and adolescence split the friends apart. Karim takes refuge in the rationality of maps while Raheen searches for the secret behind her parents' exchange. She uncovers a story not just of a family's turbulent history but that of a country -- and finds herself poised between strained friendship and fated love with Karim. "This 30-year-old has been described as a young Anita Desai, and her third book, about childhood, love, life and high society in Karachi during the turbulent 1990s is worth all the prepublication fuss." - Harper's Bazaar Kamila Shamsie, author of two previous novels, has been twice shortlisted for the John Llewelyn Rhys/Mail on Sunday Prize and named by the Orange Prize Futures as one of "21 writers for the 21st century." She lives in London and Karachi, and serves as Visiting Professor of English at Hamilton College.
