Moth smoke by Mohsin Hamid

1. M O T H S M O K E
A N o v e l b y M o h s i n H a m i d

2. T H E T I T L E
The moth starts to make diving passes at the
candle.
‘He’s an aggressive fellow, this moth,’ I say to
Manucci.
‘Love, saab,’ he replies.
‘I never knew you were such a romantic.’
He blushes. ‘The poets say some moths will do
anything out of love for a flame.’
The moth stops swooping, enters a holding
pattern about two feet above the candle, and
then lands on the wall in front of us.
‘He’s afraid,’ Manucci says.
‘He should be. Love’s a dangerous thing.’ I look
carefully.
A penned reflection of himself
• Daru was even considering killing
Mumtaz’s son, because he believed it was
the only thing between them
• Daru understood from the very beginning
how dangerous love can be, but he was a
moth, hungry for the flame
• And so, he was soon moth smoke.
Lingering in the jail cells for a crime he
didn’t commit.

3. B A C K G R O U N D
It is said that one evening, in the year his stomach
was to fail him, the Emperor Shah Jahan asked a
Sufi saint what would become of the Mughal
Empire.
The Emperor closed his eyes. ‘Aurangzeb is my
youngest son.’
‘Yes,’ said the saint. ‘He will be aurangzeb.’
The Emperor gazed across the plain at the
incomplete splendor of his wife’s mausoleum and
commanded his workers to redouble their efforts.
It would be finished before the war of succession
began.
The truth of the saint’s words became apparent.
Aurangzeb was crowned Emperor, and he obtained
from the theologians a fatwa against his defeated
brother, charging Dara Shikoh with apostasy and
sentencing him to death.
A depiction of the story of Shah Jahan’s
(Khurram) sons, fighting for the thing
they love most: In this case Mumtaz
• The book begins and ends with excerpts
from the story of Emperor Shah Jahan,
builder of the Taj Mahal for his beautiful
and beloved wife, Mumtaz. Their children,
Darashukoh and Aurangzeb, became
enemies. Mohsin Hamid names his
characters for these historical people and
shows a similar unraveling of childhood
relationships.
• Ozi got Daru imprisoned for killing a boy,
that in reality he ran over in his Pajero.
• Ozi didn’t get angry. He was quiet for a
long time. And when he spoke, softly, he
just said he’d see to it that Daru wouldn’t
get out of prison for a long time.

4. T H E I M P A C T
“People are robbing the country blind, and if the choice is between being held up at
gunpoint or holding the gun, only a madman would choose to hand over his wallet rather
than fill it with someone else’s cash.”
Ozi puts it: "You have to have money these days. The roads are falling apart, so you need a
Pajero or a Land Cruiser… The colleges are overrun with fundos… so you have to go abroad…
The police are corrupt and ineffective, so you need private security guards… People are
pulling their pieces out of the pie, and the pie is getting smaller, so if you love your family,
you'd better take your piece now, while there's still some left.“
“Guilt isn’t a problem, by the way. Once you’ve started, there’s no way to stop, so there’s
nothing to be guilty about. Ask yourself this: If you’re me, what do you do now? Turn
yourself in to the police, so some sadistic, bare-chested Neanderthal can beat you to a pulp
while you await trial? …Right: you accept that you can’t change the system, shrug, create lots
of little shell companies, and open dollar accounts on sunny islands far, far away.”
A reflection of the ruins of greed and insecurity of Pakistan's rich, Survival of the richest, and
exploitation of the poor at its finest

5. T H E I M P A C T ( P L O T )
• The hypocritical nature of (Humans at large) Daru, where he feels bad for the poor boy Ozi ran over
with his Pajero, but beats Manucci, has not paid him in months, and always talks about ‘putting him
in his place’
• He criticizes people cheating the system, and using their money and influence to do so, but wouldn’t
mind cheating with his best friend's wife
• Materialism and ‘Money is Power’ depiction: ozi and his elite parties, Daru selling drugs to have quick
money instead of finding a job for himself, Daru trying hard to fit into Ozi’s elite crowd, Ozi framing
Daru for a crime he committed
• How people put on this farce of everything around them is shinny and joyful when in reality their
relationships, their families, and they themselves are falling apart
• Largely targets the corruption and elite class exploitation (Marxism) in Pakistan
• The plot slowly burns, like the moth smoke metaphor, providing a decline to not just the characters
but also the county

6. R E V I E W S
P O S I T I V E
• Moth Smoke is a novel that perfectly captures
the geist at a particular time in a particular
third world country. The country is Pakistan
and the geist is drug-addled, soporific, deeply
asleep – Goodreads
• Mohsin Hamid’s 2000 debut novel “Moth
Smoke” is a rare example of transgressive
South Asian fiction and does an incredible job
of showing how the conflicts within a society
come to be mirrored within individuals as well.
– Philhalton
• This is exactly the kind of book I have been
wanting to read for a long time - character
driven, lucid narrative, gripping story. This is
the exact opposite of coming-of-age genre
but is equally, if not more, enchanting –
Amazon
C R I T I C A L
• Moth Smoke has some first-novel flaws. The
switches between narrators can be unnecessarily
tricksy, and Mumtaz's secret career verges on
melodrama. A central conceit – the parallel
between Daru and Ozi and the Mughal emperor
Shah Jahan's fratricidal sons Dara Shikoh and
Aurangzeb – doesn't really hold – The Guardian
• The story would have been better with more
positivity, richer episodes and a better story line.
There is little reason to appreciate the rapid
downward spiral of the characters lives –
Goodreads
• On the whole I felt I had wasted a good few
hours reading this book that could have been
spent better on another book or activity. I hope
Hamid reads the review and returns to the
quality of characters and plot that he exhibited in
his earlier book – Amazon

7. THANK YOU