Noon
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Noon for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'Aatish Taseer has written a grave and elliptical book about the subcontinent's shifting social structures over the past two decades. Noon illuminates in bursts episodes from the life of Rehan Tabassum . . . The story is a queasily gripping examination of an India "whose worst nature was hidden from herself."'
--Sunday Times
'However hard it might be to remain one, he is an engrossing and gifted writer. Pakistan (or any other country) needs the subtle view of its best novelists and writers more than ever.' --GQ
'The plot of Taseer's second novel is not complex, but it is layered. Underscoring it all is his understanding of class and culture in India and Pakistan, and their relationships with Britain. As violence erupts, we see the fault lines in Indian and Pakistani society, between family members and in the nation as a whole.'
--The Herald
`This fine and thoughtful writing owes a debt to VS Naipaul.'
--Financial Times
'Imbued with a feel of latent menace, Taseer's novel explores a morally unedifying world of power, corruption, violence and complicity. Combining a heady cocktail of theft, blackmail and dysfunctional family relations with a touch of the Kafkaesque, this is a powerfully written and deeply thoughtful work.' --Guardian
'As the political and personal undergo seismic shifts, Taseer grapples with new ways of telling stories. It is not the rules of linear storytelling that the narrative obeys; this is a novel instead powerfully patterned by evocative images that become increasingly poignant as they recur. The yearning to escape from a stifling political situation is symbolised in beautiful imagery of the "briny breath of the sea". In both form and content, Taseer movingly evokes the heartbreak of a nation, conveying with great acuity what happens when the ground beneath our feet is shaken to its core.' --Independent
--Sunday Times
'However hard it might be to remain one, he is an engrossing and gifted writer. Pakistan (or any other country) needs the subtle view of its best novelists and writers more than ever.' --GQ
'The plot of Taseer's second novel is not complex, but it is layered. Underscoring it all is his understanding of class and culture in India and Pakistan, and their relationships with Britain. As violence erupts, we see the fault lines in Indian and Pakistani society, between family members and in the nation as a whole.'
--The Herald
`This fine and thoughtful writing owes a debt to VS Naipaul.'
--Financial Times
'Imbued with a feel of latent menace, Taseer's novel explores a morally unedifying world of power, corruption, violence and complicity. Combining a heady cocktail of theft, blackmail and dysfunctional family relations with a touch of the Kafkaesque, this is a powerfully written and deeply thoughtful work.' --Guardian
'As the political and personal undergo seismic shifts, Taseer grapples with new ways of telling stories. It is not the rules of linear storytelling that the narrative obeys; this is a novel instead powerfully patterned by evocative images that become increasingly poignant as they recur. The yearning to escape from a stifling political situation is symbolised in beautiful imagery of the "briny breath of the sea". In both form and content, Taseer movingly evokes the heartbreak of a nation, conveying with great acuity what happens when the ground beneath our feet is shaken to its core.' --Independent
Product Description
From the brilliant young author of The Temple-Goers, shortlisted for the Costa First Book Award 2010
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
The novel comprises four related stories covering a period of about twenty years from the 1980's to the present day, a period which encompasses enormous changes in India. The main character is Rehan Tabessum who we meet initially as he travels to Pakistan to meet the father he has never known. Both Rehan's natural father and his step-father are hugely wealthy men and he has been brought up in Delhi in a life of privilege. Rehan also reflects a cosmopolitan India, in his case perhaps more westernised through his American university education. The book explores the themes of tradition & modernity, fractured families, class & caste, corruption, the corrosive effect of wealth, moral ambivalence, deceit. There are undercurrents of violence too (occasional references to the London bombings and riots in Pakistan to protest about the use of English).
I found it slightly odd that after introducing Rehan's mother, a woman who achieved success in a male-dominated society and profession, women more or less disappear thereafter, except for minor and inconsequential roles. Perhaps this is meant to have some significance, but it left me wanting to know more.
Taseer's writing style is cool, laconic, somewhat detached. For me, the first three stories were more engaging and compelling than the last one which seemed slower and more confusing than the earlier parts. I didn't feel any empathy for many of the characters in that section, most of whom are unsavoury and deeply morally flawed. Curiously, I didn't feel a sense of anger at their behaviour either. Maybe I missed the point but the end of the book was disappointing. Had the book been more even I would probably have awarded an additional star, although I don't think the author is on a par with, for example, Aravind Adiga or Rohintan Mistry.
I found it slightly odd that after introducing Rehan's mother, a woman who achieved success in a male-dominated society and profession, women more or less disappear thereafter, except for minor and inconsequential roles. Perhaps this is meant to have some significance, but it left me wanting to know more.
Taseer's writing style is cool, laconic, somewhat detached. For me, the first three stories were more engaging and compelling than the last one which seemed slower and more confusing than the earlier parts. I didn't feel any empathy for many of the characters in that section, most of whom are unsavoury and deeply morally flawed. Curiously, I didn't feel a sense of anger at their behaviour either. Maybe I missed the point but the end of the book was disappointing. Had the book been more even I would probably have awarded an additional star, although I don't think the author is on a par with, for example, Aravind Adiga or Rohintan Mistry.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a breathtakingly incisive and assured novel from a young man who has gone from being what Sir Naipaul - Nobel Laureate and notorious skinflint when it comes to praise - called 'a young writer to watch', to what I would call a 'mature writer to read'. And he's only 30.
I have read and thoroughly enjoyed all three of Taseer's books so far. They read like a trilogy of a sort, even though the first - part memoir-part travelogue - is not of the same genre. They all draw from elements of the writer's own turbulent life and complement each other; revealing and adding layers.
Two of the most remarkable things about 'Noon', are how the episodic structure of the novel and spare and extremely fine writing are used with skill to communicate the jaggedness of the sometimes-main-protagonist/sometimes-narrator, Rehan's life.
The completeness of 'story' in each episode is set against the deliberately ruptured narrative structure of the novel as a whole to produce something that is very compelling. It allows one to fill in the gaps in a way that will be very satisfying to every intelligent reader. It's a book that tells stories - often of dramatic change and violence - with great subtlety.
Noon also expresses perhaps more successfully than any non-fiction on the subject, the complexity and contradiction within the societies of India and Pakistan; it reveals the casual cruelty prevalent in one and the perpetually lurking potential for violence in the other.
In what is perhaps my favorite chapter in the book, 'Dinner for Ten', Taseer captures and distils - in a display of virtuoso storytelling at par with the great Russian writers - the different levels at which wealth and power and talent are at work in a society built on the framework of caste and class; wheels within wheels are laid bare, and masterfully.
'Notes from a Burglary' shows the ease with which even thoughtful, compassionate people can be made to partake in the easy viciousness of a society. In its gentle way it is one of the most thought-provoking chapters in the book and perhaps lies at the heart of this wonderful book.
Like Taseer's other two books, there is something ominous about 'Noon'. But a reader's foreboding will turn to a kind of baffled amazement - as it did for me - if he or she knows the truly shocking way in which this book foreshadows events in the real world. The prologue of Noon has a young man talking about the violent death of his father and it was written by Taseer months before the assassination of his own father in January this year. His father, the late Governor of Punjab in Pakistan, Salman Taseer, was shot dead by one of his own bodyguards; a demonstration of the religious fanaticism that lurks just below the surface of the Pakistan depicted in 'Noon'. A Pakistan that has, unfortunately, come to pass.
Yet, like any great writer, even while ruthlessly exposing the truths of these two societies, the narrator's voice never loses its immense compassion. It is a unique and gifted voice that is calmer and wiser in 'Noon' than in either of Taseer's remarkable earlier books. Both of them - 'Stranger to History' and 'The Temple-Goers' - are, in different ways, about a young man in search of himself and in search of some of the bigger truths of the world. With 'Noon' Taseer arrives at maturity, proving that he has found his center and is now in a position to share some of the truths of this world with us. Brilliant, brilliant. Read it now!
I have read and thoroughly enjoyed all three of Taseer's books so far. They read like a trilogy of a sort, even though the first - part memoir-part travelogue - is not of the same genre. They all draw from elements of the writer's own turbulent life and complement each other; revealing and adding layers.
Two of the most remarkable things about 'Noon', are how the episodic structure of the novel and spare and extremely fine writing are used with skill to communicate the jaggedness of the sometimes-main-protagonist/sometimes-narrator, Rehan's life.
The completeness of 'story' in each episode is set against the deliberately ruptured narrative structure of the novel as a whole to produce something that is very compelling. It allows one to fill in the gaps in a way that will be very satisfying to every intelligent reader. It's a book that tells stories - often of dramatic change and violence - with great subtlety.
Noon also expresses perhaps more successfully than any non-fiction on the subject, the complexity and contradiction within the societies of India and Pakistan; it reveals the casual cruelty prevalent in one and the perpetually lurking potential for violence in the other.
In what is perhaps my favorite chapter in the book, 'Dinner for Ten', Taseer captures and distils - in a display of virtuoso storytelling at par with the great Russian writers - the different levels at which wealth and power and talent are at work in a society built on the framework of caste and class; wheels within wheels are laid bare, and masterfully.
'Notes from a Burglary' shows the ease with which even thoughtful, compassionate people can be made to partake in the easy viciousness of a society. In its gentle way it is one of the most thought-provoking chapters in the book and perhaps lies at the heart of this wonderful book.
Like Taseer's other two books, there is something ominous about 'Noon'. But a reader's foreboding will turn to a kind of baffled amazement - as it did for me - if he or she knows the truly shocking way in which this book foreshadows events in the real world. The prologue of Noon has a young man talking about the violent death of his father and it was written by Taseer months before the assassination of his own father in January this year. His father, the late Governor of Punjab in Pakistan, Salman Taseer, was shot dead by one of his own bodyguards; a demonstration of the religious fanaticism that lurks just below the surface of the Pakistan depicted in 'Noon'. A Pakistan that has, unfortunately, come to pass.
Yet, like any great writer, even while ruthlessly exposing the truths of these two societies, the narrator's voice never loses its immense compassion. It is a unique and gifted voice that is calmer and wiser in 'Noon' than in either of Taseer's remarkable earlier books. Both of them - 'Stranger to History' and 'The Temple-Goers' - are, in different ways, about a young man in search of himself and in search of some of the bigger truths of the world. With 'Noon' Taseer arrives at maturity, proving that he has found his center and is now in a position to share some of the truths of this world with us. Brilliant, brilliant. Read it now!
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
"Noon" sits somewhere between a collection of related short stories and a full blown novel in that it tells four different episodes on Rehan Tabassum's life spread over a couple of decades. It explores some large issues though.
Rehan grows up in a privileged Indian society while his estranged father is a big shot in neighboring Pakistan. Added to this cultural melting pot, Rehan is studying in America and has what might be termed a Western outlook on things. His father, Sahil remains a shaddowy figure throughout the book. The book cleverly exposes the ways that Rehan gets drawn into the cultural values of first India and then Pakistan in his actions despite initial resistance. Aatish Taseer is particularly damning about the self-destructive forces in Pakistan in the final chapter of the book as he seeks to connect with his father while living in the moral mess of Port bin Qasim.
The first two episodes/chapters are shorter - the first dealing with his memories of the departure of his father and the second the relationships of his step father, a successful industrialist, to the historic power of the hereditary privileged classes of India. In the third episode a theft occurs while Rehan is in one of their Indian houses and the chapter explores how Rehan's initial ideas of fair play are eroded by the police's treatment of the suspected servants. In the final Pakistan-based chapter, the event surrounds the blackmail of his half brother.
He explores new wealth/old wealth; servant and class issues; religious conflict; and the impact of capitalism on more traditional cultures.
I confess that I didn't fully share the critical acclaim of Aatish Taseer's "The Temple-Goers" which I found to be too cold and there are still hints of that coolness that really stem from his choice of narrators who are always on the outside of events, but in "Noon" it works much, much better to my eyes. The shorter format of the different events really enforces Taseer's ability to cut through to the key issues while maintaining an entertaining and, at times, amusing tone. He's an interesting and urgent writer and this is well worth checking out.
Rehan grows up in a privileged Indian society while his estranged father is a big shot in neighboring Pakistan. Added to this cultural melting pot, Rehan is studying in America and has what might be termed a Western outlook on things. His father, Sahil remains a shaddowy figure throughout the book. The book cleverly exposes the ways that Rehan gets drawn into the cultural values of first India and then Pakistan in his actions despite initial resistance. Aatish Taseer is particularly damning about the self-destructive forces in Pakistan in the final chapter of the book as he seeks to connect with his father while living in the moral mess of Port bin Qasim.
The first two episodes/chapters are shorter - the first dealing with his memories of the departure of his father and the second the relationships of his step father, a successful industrialist, to the historic power of the hereditary privileged classes of India. In the third episode a theft occurs while Rehan is in one of their Indian houses and the chapter explores how Rehan's initial ideas of fair play are eroded by the police's treatment of the suspected servants. In the final Pakistan-based chapter, the event surrounds the blackmail of his half brother.
He explores new wealth/old wealth; servant and class issues; religious conflict; and the impact of capitalism on more traditional cultures.
I confess that I didn't fully share the critical acclaim of Aatish Taseer's "The Temple-Goers" which I found to be too cold and there are still hints of that coolness that really stem from his choice of narrators who are always on the outside of events, but in "Noon" it works much, much better to my eyes. The shorter format of the different events really enforces Taseer's ability to cut through to the key issues while maintaining an entertaining and, at times, amusing tone. He's an interesting and urgent writer and this is well worth checking out.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Considerably better than The Temple Goers
Having read his previous book, The Temple Goers The Temple-goers and been particularly unimpressed [...], I wasn't expecting much. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Peter Roxburgh
Sometimes brilliant, sometimes banal
Aatish Taseer is a writer who I really want to like. I keep on buying and reading all of his books. There are occasional flashes of brilliance that drag me in and make me want to... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Gabrielle O
Eloquent and incisive representations of India and Pakistan
This is a lovely novel about self-discovery, relationships and life.
Rehan Tabassum is the protagonist, and the novel spans some two decades of his life. Read more
Rehan Tabassum is the protagonist, and the novel spans some two decades of his life. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Moonless
Oh dear...
This is a book that meanders oddly. It is split into different times telling the story of a family. However there's an odd inconsistency even within a time frame that seems to make... Read more
Published 10 months ago by R. Lawson
Brilliant writer, blew me away
This is one of those books that i just don't know how to start describing. As you read, it, you find you are drawn in by the narrators without even noticing. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Laura Smith
Raw and exciting writing
This is a difficult book to review because in itself it feels somehow unfinished - and yet I couldn't help feeling throughout that I was in the company of someone with the... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Roman Clodia
Compelling storytelling
This book reads more like a collection of short stories than a novel, showing as it does distinct episodes in the life of Rehan Tabassum set several years apart. Read more
Published 11 months ago by FictionFan
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
