Some khademul Islam from ‘Daily star’ has said that this book is a definitive novel on 1971!Who is this man? Is he from Pakistan or outer planet? Please, send him a copy of ‘The days of 1971’ by Jahanara Imam.Okay, before I say other things, first a little about Tahmima. She was born in 1975 in Dhaka but has grown up abroad (Goodreads says in Paris, New York City and Bangkok). Thus naturally She has very faint idea about Bengalis and her book says so. Now she is from Harvard, so it becomes her responsibility to write a novel to keep alive the University tradition. Like uncle Ben of Peter Parker, we also can say, With big degree comes big responsibility to write a book! Now what to do! When she has a Bengali origin, why should not she encash the year of 1971? For the writers that year was ‘Annus mirabilis!’Now let’s turn the pages of the novel ‘The golden age.’ The book is more about the personal life of Rehana Haque and her son Sohail and daughter Maya than about the happenings of 1971. Most of the descriptions of the book compel me to compare it with the book ‘The days of 1971’ by Jahanara Imam.Following are the few points at which I felt immense amazement (disappointment also):1.tThe novel ‘The golden age.’ has very critical name because I could not understand when a country is under military reign and the most fierce suppression, from which angle the time seems to be ‘golden’?2.tThe book opens with a description of a party that Rehana was hosting. The main item was biriyani and as a sweet dish there was jilapi at the end. Wait, Jilapi! Why? In my whole life I have never seen that jilapi is given as the sweet dish. Have you?3.tThen 25 th of march. The Pak Sena gunned down Shahid Minar, University halls and Madhuda’s canteen, murdered eminent academics and several innocent citizens (Ref. The days of 1971). Rehana, Sohail and Maya was in the house of Mrs. Chowdhury where out of panic, Mrs. Chowdhury forced her daughter Silvi to marry Sabeer. The behavior of the characters that Tahmima portrayed throughout the book are simply illogical and out of consistency.4.tAt the same night Mrs. Chowdhury’s dog Romeo got dead out of fear. In ‘The days of 1971,’ Imam’s dog also died that night. What a Dog-to-Dog resemblance!5.tAfter 25 th, refugees came to find a shelter at the house, Shona. Rehana instantly cooked chicken dishes, korma, okra etc. for them! Is not it strange! 6.tSo far I can imagine, Dhaka is a populated city. No one can posses a land of a size of ‘Do bigha jamin’!! So it is natural that Rehana’s one house and the her other house, Shona will be over a land of the size of few ‘Kathtas.’ Also, though Shona is at the back side of Rehana’s house, it is not situated at the end of a blind lane. Then how Aref and Joy brought a truckfull of medicines to Rehana’s home and nobody noticed it!!! 7.tThe guerrilla boys brought their severely wounded Major to Shona one night. A doctor operated him and major tooke shelter for nearly one month. Sometimes Aref or Joy or the Doctor used to come there. NO BODY NOTICED their movement! Fine! 8.tThen, I did not understand, Why maya, who is a member of communist party and a supporter of Mukti Judha did not want to shelter Major!! Sudden mood change due to hormonal imbalance?9.tRehana took care of major and provided breakfast, lunch and dinner to him. Nice. What I want know who GAVE HIM BEDPANE? WHO USE TO BRUSH AND SHAVE HIM? WHO CHANGED HIS CLOTHINGS? no answer. RATHER the Major even in his sick bed always have breath with a smell of watermelon!!!!10.tRehana went with Faiz to bring Sabeer from jail in a car! Faiz was reading a English newspaper where Maya, from Calcutta has published an essay in support of guerrilla war. Newspaper, in English? In 1971? Without military censorship? ‘The days of 1971’ says a different story.11.tOne does not need to cross Howrah Bridge to reach Saltlake from Calcutta. 12.tThroughout the novel you will not be able to differentiate the seasons, day or night, morning and noon, afternoon and evening. At the morning it is foggy, at noon sun is blazing! In December night, fan is at full speed!13.tRehana and Maya were sleeping side by side in a bed. At night major came and lifted Rehana from her bed and carried to Shona. They made love for whole night and Maya could not know that her mother is absent from bed!!! How did major entered the home at all? Is this usual for the Dhakha habitants to go to sleep without locking their doors?14.tIs any military man so much dumb headed that they thought major as Rehana’s son Sohail!!!!! Major is even older than Rehana!! THOUGH A COW IS TOO HEAVY TO CLIMB EVEN A ROSEBUSH, THE AUTHOR HAS SENT IT TO MARS!!! These are only few cases that I mentioned. I can find faults in every pages and put exclamation marks every alternate lines. But I am feeling tired. Finally, the incidents of 1971 is always a hot selling topic and no doubt Tahmima wanted to encash it. She is very much successful in selling her books. THOUGH THE BOOK WOULD HAVE BEEN MUCH MUCH BETTER ONLY IF TAHMIMA HAS SOME SENSE OF LOGIC.
Having loved Anam's second book, 'The Good Muslim', I was on the lookout for her first book - 'The Golden Age'. Although The Good Muslim was a sequel, I had no trouble following the story line, and I hoped that The Golden Age wouldn't be rendered redundant by the fact that I had already read the sequel. I needn't have worried. It is East Pakistan in 1971. Rehana Haque has just about started to breathe easy. Her two children, Sohail and Maya, who she struggled to keep with her and bring up, after she was widowed, have grown up and are in university. She now feels secure and comfortable, she has kept her children safe. The country is in the brink of a civil war. East Pakistan is fighting for independence and her children, she realizes, are right in the middle of it all. Not for them, the everyday worries of safety and security. Her sense of security vanishes overnight. The life that she carefully tried to preserve, carefully nurtured, is all in pieces. Political upheavals seem to be mirrored in personal upheavals. Things which they took for granted are suddenly questioned. While the sequel was largely about Maya and Sohail. The Golden Age, I would say, is mainly about Rehana. It is her story. Her struggles, her choices, and her life. Even when her choices seem wrong, it is difficult to judge her because her circumstances seem so tough on her. The ties that bind a mother to her children, and the extents to which people are forced to go because of their circumstances. Rehana finds herself part of a war, an upheaval that she wanted no part of, but is powerless to do anything about it.I particularly liked the way the author has woven political incidents and upheavals into the story. Rehana's life in East Pakistan before it became Bangladesh is a window to life in East Pakistan and the way it all changed. Hindus who considered it their homeland, suddenly realized that they had to run for their lives. When suddenly everybody has to choose sides, and hope that they have chosen the right side. While the older generation struggles with the choices, the younger generation is the one with the spirit to fight for what they consider their right. I can't imagine what it must be to live through a war like this, but can only guess, that despite the tremendous losses, what they gained must be so very precious. A tale of love, heart-break, strife and hope. A wonderful book. A book which I would recommend to everybody who likes books set in political situations and history. I especially love books of this sort, as it gives me an insight to how everyday life gets changed irrevocably by political decisions and political situations.
Do You like book A Golden Age (2015)?
The particulars of the conflict between Pakistan and Bangladesh are not familiar to many of us in America. To make this new ground palatable, Anam deftly filters the big picture through the personal experiences and impossible choices of her characters. We instinctively understand the indelible and intimate impact of passionate revolt on the quotidian; we smell the fetid air of the refugee camp, where the best shelter for one's family is found inside a construction pipe, while at the same time we are surpisingly moved by the desperation of a foolish woman who forces her daughter's marriage to a green young army offficer, believing it will ensure their safety in unstable times. It is such gem-like moments, without even the slightest hint of hysteria or playing to the audience, that made me feel fortunate to be reading A Golden Age during the sadly historic week of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and to be learning about an aspect of Pakistan's history that informs what occurs there today. I look forward to the subsequent volumes in the trilogy.
—Chris
This is an important book, in the way that Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa is important: it illustrates a history that we might otherwise overlook, or at least not try hard enought to embody. But the stylistic choices were somewhat flat. Without the weight of the context, the language would not call out to me, the way it does with writers who can turn a phrase regardless of what they write about. In this latter category of South Asian writers -- those who are brilliant at both style and content -- I would put Arundhati Roy, Uzma Aslam Khan, and Indra Sinha.
—Julia Thomas-Singh
Until the end of 1971, Bangladesh, inhabited mainly by Bengalis, was known as ‘East Pakistan’. West Pakistan, now all that remains of Pakistan is, and was inhabited by a Punjabi majority. In 1970, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (‘Mujib’,a Bengali) and his party won the parliamentary elections. Mujib was prevented from taking office by President General Yahya Khan, of West Pakistan, who along with many of his fellow Punjabis and Pathans held the Bengalis in low regard. He arrested Mujib in early 1971 and launched a vicious military assault on East Pakistan. Its aim was to decimate the Bengali population. During this operation, about a million East Pakistanis fled to neighbouring India and anything between 30,000 and 3,000,000 East Pakistanis were massacred. Had it not been for the intervention of Indian armed forces, many more would have been killed. By the end of 1971, Yahya’s forces were defeated; Mujib was released, and soon after this East Pakistan divorced itself from West Pakistan and the republic of Bangladesh was born.Tahmima Anam, the author of A Golden Age was born in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, 4 years after the end of the Bangaldeshi’s struggle against Yahya Khan's forces of West Pakistan. Yet, her novel which is set mainly in Dhaka during 1971 gave me the feeling that she had been an eye-witness of those troubled times.The main character in the book is the widowed Rehana, a non-Bengali who lives in Dhaka. Both of her children become involved in the struggle against Yahya’s forces. She tries to maintain her home as things gradually deteriorate all around her and her children become ever more deeply embroiled in the resistance to the murderous thugs (including her brother-in-law whose home was in West Pakistan), who had invaded their country. At first, I was lulled into thinking that Rehana was an innocent in a sea of turmoil, but as the tale unwinds, I learned that she also harboured secrets, some of which had nothing to do with the invasion of Yahya’s forces.The novel is beautifully written. Ms Anam gently creates the atmosphere of terror that was developing in Dhaka by subtle allusions to it. She resists the temptation to dwell on graphic descriptions of the atrocities performed by Yahya’s forces to suppress the Bengalis in order to ‘restore order’. And when, on occasion, she does describe such atrocities, she says only sufficient to allow the reader’s imagination to do the rest.A Golden Age is laced with transliterations of Bangla and Urdu words, which will be understood by those familiar with the sub-continent, but may puzzle readers who are not. There is no glossary because Ms Anam follows in the footsteps of Salman Rushdie, who led the way, according to what my wife learnt from a conversation with the author Shashi Deshpande, in dispensing with such things. However, the inclusion of unexplained vernacular terms does not detract from the enjoyment of a book, which I can strongly recommend, nor its comprehensibility.
—Adam
