Books

A Case of Exploding Mangoes
By Mohammed Hanif, Random House, Canada

If cynicism were oil, this book would make gas prices drop by at least a quarter.

A Case of Exploding Mangoes, by Mohammed Hanif, is Catch-22 as strained through Hamlet and set in Pakistan in the 1980s. It's written in so jaundiced a tone you might have to Visine your eyes when you're done — but you will get done with it, because it's a good read.

The main character is Ali Shigri, looking for who killed his father and made it look like suicide. It's an early sign of the black waters you'll be sailing through that one of the reasons Ali doubts the suicide finding is because it was done by hanging. His dad would have shot himself, never hung himself.

Many of the major characters in the book are not very sympathetic in a most readable way. For example, the president by coup spends his first post-takeover meeting discussing religious grammar and tells his advisors to make sure new money is used for a charity giveaway, since the widows love that new money smell, and the chief of police mistakenly feels America is behind a planned overthrow due to misheard cheers while watching a football game with the U.S. ambassador.

The general dark tone of the book makes scenes of caring stand out all the more like broken glass bottles on a beach. Obaid, Ali's best friend, is prominent in most of these, although my favorite was when a crow became an agent of justice.

All of these threads merge in a crazy quilt ending that doesn't feel strained but fitting. But in the classic sense, the ending isn't the perfect one Ali could have wanted.

About the only quibble with the book is the characters, while still believable, were very one-dimensional. Ali's the most rounded and all we really know about him is his drive for justice. But the story loops and swoops like a good roller coaster, which evens things out.

Calhoun County resident Brian Robinson is a member or the Organized Anarchists book group.