When nature begets tragedy and helplessness
—
Deep in the Black Mountains of Pakistan, two villagers out gathering firewood discover a dying man. When they bring him back to the village, nature herself seems to turn against them: safe roads vanish under avalanches; ancient glaciers melt and flood other villages further upstream; the seasons are off-kilter, threatening everyone’s lives. Now the men are turning against the women, the women against the men, old against young, fathers against daughters. Violence begets violence and the village grows closer and closer to tearing itself apart.

In Ali-Gauhar’s fictional village, the spirits live alongside the human villagers, almost always there but separate. The villagers, for the most part, believe in the spirits but not enough to see them. They never interact in the narrative, which I think might have helped to integrate the book, to give an observing perspective as a proxy for the reader. As it is, the dense and extra-referential text, the lack of speech marks, the constantly changing central character followed in the narrative, all of this casts a veil across the book, a perceptual challenge that the reader has to get over before understanding the tragedy and the helplessness of these people in such a remote region, the world steamrollering over them.

That was a dark little novel, set in the mountains of Pakistan in a small village, where we follow several characters - Moosa, the village chief, and several men and women. A lot of the novel is around women and their treatment by the men in her lives, but you feel, in life as in the novel, that they remain in the periphery and the reader only really sees them through their interactions with their fathers, husbands, sons.

At the beginning of the novel, two men who have gone to gather wood, Hassan and Noor, find an injured stranger and bring him back to the village. There is a sense of unease from the beginning as the injured man is now under their care but they wonder who he could be - an enemy, a fugitive?

Between each chapter there is a lyrical passage around myths, memories of ancestors or gods (I didn't find it very clear) who observe the life of the village and draw parallels with folk tales and past events.

I found the writing very lyrical, quite flowery and this is something I personally don't enjoy. The author creates a good sense of tension and I found the soft focus on the women interesting, but it took me a while to finish this book despite its brevity.

Beautiful cover! Unfortunately I found the book a difficult read. I was interested in the subject matter but found the style didn’t draw me in to the story and ended up being disappointed.

There were part of this that were beautifully written but also parts where it felt hard to connect. The choice to change the point of view every chapter may have contributed to this, which I understand the purpose artistically but just led to it being uneven for me.

There were sections that were very atmospheric and the explanation for the title was very satisfying.

Set in a remote mountain village in Pakistan, An Abundance of Wild Roses weaves a tapestry of intertwined lives grappling with the clash between tradition and modernity.

At the centre of the narrative is Moosa, the village elder, a man of pride with three wives and one daughter. Zarina, a local health worker, strives to educate her daughters while her husband serves in a distant military outpost. Kulsoom, burdened with four daughters and a husband addicted to cough syrup, struggles to find meaning in her constrained existence.

As the stories unfold, the characters confront life-and-death decisions amidst the relentless tug-of-war between tradition and progress. The fate of women and girls hangs in the balance, caught between the allure of education and the suffocating grip of age-old expectations.

Against this backdrop, men grapple with preserving their honour while others embrace change, advocating for the liberation of their wives and daughters.

An Abundance of Wild Roses delves into uncomfortable truths, depicting the violence inflicted upon wives who fail to bear sons, the agony of mothers losing children in senseless conflicts, and the poignant image of a boy wearing his late father's oversized coat.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

Didn't really know what to expect going into this book but I really enjoyed it. Well written with some really compelling characters had me gripped.