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The Assassin's Song (Paperback)

by M.G. Vassanji (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd (20 Aug 2009)
  • ISBN-10: 1847672833
  • ISBN-13: 978-1847672834
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 238,101 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description

Karsan Dargawalla, heir to the shrine of a mysterious, medieval sufi begins to tell the story of his family and the destroyed shrine in the aftermath of the violence that gripped western India in 2002. His tale begins in the 1960s, and young Karsan wishes above all else to be ordinary. And when he is accepted to Harvard he can't resist the opportunity to escape his hereditrary obligation. After a bitter quarrel with his father that leads him to abdicate his successorship, he marries and has a son in Canada, but after tragedy strikes in Canada and India, he is drawn back after thirty years to see if anything is left for him. A story of grand historical sweep and intricate personal drama, a stunning evocation of the physical and emotional landscape of a man caught between the ancient and the modern, between legacy and discovery, between the most daunting filial obligation and the most undeniable personal yearning - "The Assassin's Song" is a heartbreaking ballad of a life irrevocably changed.

About the Author

M.G. Vassanji is the author of five acclaimed novels: The Gunny Sack, which won a regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize; No New Land; The Book of Secrets, which won the very first Giller Prize; Amiriika; and The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, which also received the giller Prize. He lives in Toronto with his wife and two sons
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Questing for identity beyond identities, 4 Mar 2009
This review is from: The Assassin's Song (Paperback)
This is the first novel of M.G. Vassanji that I have read. It will not be the last. It is narrated by Karsan, the eldest son of a hereditary pir, guardian of a Sufi shrine in Gujarat, that over time has become beloved as a place of solace and healing, illumination and enlightenment by people of many faiths.

The son, however, yearns to be ordinary, wishes to escape the burden of a tradition in which he cannot believe. So he flees his pressed inheritance, goes to America, building a life as a professor of English.

Meanwhile, in India, the shrines tradition of tolerant inclusivity is under threat from rising fundamentalism that wants people to choose fixed identities to be Hindu or Muslim, to worship in known forms, conforming the one truth to our possessed truth, a truth that excludes the other, making them alien.

Finally, the shrine is engulfed in the flames of the brutal communal violence: the actual historic violence that swept Gujarat in 2002, killing thousands.

It forces Karsan to return, to reassess that which he evaded, to re-encounter his younger brother left behind, who has chosen the path of an unequivocal, yet defensive, Islam. To find a way of both honouring the followers of the pir and honouring his own secularised self.

Woven through this contemporary story is that of the shrines founding saint and the mystery of his original identity.

The book makes exemplary use of the contemporary Indian phenomena by which shrines long hallowed by all have been assimilated to one tradition, often at the cost both of communal harmony and honesty to history. Unambiguously Sufi saints have found themselves dressed in Hindu narratives and chauvinistically adopted to a Hindu Mother India, allowing of no ambiguity, of no sense of the diverse paths that one might walk to the divine.

It makes tragic use of the reality of violence, scrutinising it from a perspective that is both within being Indian and yet apart, and Vassanji himself is ethnically Indian yet from East Africa and Canadian - multiple identities held yet resolutely refusing to be bound by any.

It is beautifully written - the life of the originating saint told in the simple language of legend, the modern narration with the recondite complexities of our interiority - and moving as a hymn to the challenging and difficult possibility of honouring identities and yet refusing to identify with them. There is a space, beyond identity, barely glimpsed, often compromised where our common humanity is found.

In Christian tradition, this would be because we bear God's image, and thus there is no possible identity that we can describe that can capture us or anyone else: we are free but how often do we surrender that freedom for lesser selves.

It is a long time since I have enjoyed a contemporary novel more.
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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Ismailis and Satpanthis would find it interesting...!, 23 Sep 2007
By Hussain Jasani (Bombay, India) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Assassin's Song (Hardcover)
Gujaratis would see it as a tale from Gujrat.

Ismailis and satpanthis would be able to see resemblance with their historic past. The phrase like "beautiful ginans from our temple" (p.178) to verses like Kesri sinha swarupa bhulayo (p.216) quoted in the book are good enough for an Ismaili to pick up the book and has enough to hold his/her interest.

Usage of "extended metaphors" by "Metaphysical Poets" also find a mention in the context of metaphors used in ginans (p. 222), John Keats gets quoted along with ginans, creating a bridge for those not familiar with one of the two worlds.
The work very creatively tries to find the answer to "Do we always end up where we really belong?" and thus also would appeal to those leaving in the "in-between" world.

Like Vasanjee's many other works the readers from varied backgrounds will be able to relate to his "The Assassin's Song". A bit long (will seem longer for those not familiar with historic and cultural setting) but insightful and touching.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Some beliefs are indestructible, 28 Sep 2009
This the unusual tale of Karsan, preordained to follow his father's footsteps and guard the shrine of a medieval sufi saint or 'Pir' in Gujarat. As a hereditary 'Pir' he is destined to be revered as his father and grandfather were before him almost as saints themselves. Instead Karsan decides to break the tradition by "escaping" to America for his university education and to live a more independent, modern life in the West, unhampered by the oppressive expectations of the community around him.
Karsan does not consider himself worthy of the respect he is given as the shrine's guardian, yet people persist in respecting him as the saint's heir. He wants to break the tradition of his family, but it cannot be broken. The shrine itself is virtually destroyed during the 2002 Gujarat riots, yet its sanctity lives on. Karsan also embarks on a quest to find out more about the saint, and discovers the sufi was not all he was cracked up to be. Yet myths and legends have a stronger hold on the people and the beliefs of the followers cannot be destroyed.
If you want to understand why so many Indians "escape" to the west yet remain quintessentially Indian, this book provides a clue. It sheds some light on how spirituality and traditions and how eons of belief cannot easily be jettisoned.
It is not always an easy read but it is beguilingly and atmospherically written. I wanted to read on, though the themes were often esoteric and the story not always easy to grasp.I enjoyed the search for the truth about the Pir and the mystical, legendry aspect woven into a modern novel. It was very skillfully written, but if the story had been more accessible, this book would have earned five stars from me.

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