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Night of the Golden Butterfly: The Islam Quintet Volume 5 Hardcover – 1 May 2010

by
Tariq Ali (Author)
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Tariq Ali (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars 3 customer reviews
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  • Night of the Golden Butterfly: The Islam Quintet Volume 5
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Verso (1 May 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1844676110
  • ISBN-13: 978-1844676118
  • Product Dimensions: 1.6 x 0.3 x 2.1 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 851,805 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

If Pakistan is a land of untold stories, whispered conspiracy theories and closed-door mutinies, then thank heavens for Tariq Ali, whose access to its innermost secret chambers has made him the country's finest historian and critic. --Fatima Bhutto, New Statesman

A humdinger of a book, full of energy, intelligence and bite. --Hilary Spurling, Daily Mail

About the Author

TARIQ ALI is a writer and filmmaker. He has written more than a dozen books on world history and politics, as well as scripts for the stage and screen. He is an editor of New Left Review and lives in London.

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Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsSurvivors' tales
By Sceptique500 on 22 July 2010
Format: Hardcover
Only survivors live to tell their tale - the others are drowned in the anonymous sea of history. There is always a whiff of the improbable about survivors' tales, particularly when the surviving spans generations, as with some of the characters of this book. But life is "the glory of the improbable", and we should relish every chance we get to celebrate life at its most bewildering.

The plot could have been lifted from Thousand and One Nights: a motley group in post-independence Lahore youth makes its way through life, some migrating early to professional success on cosmopolitan shores, others surviving in the "Fatherland" under most trying circumstances and succeeding in the end to join the lucky ones that went ahead. Like in the best of serial fairy tales, their lives cross and re-cross each other - no thread is lost: not even amnesia in distant Beijing is barrier to reunion and recovery of memory. All the baddies succumb to murder or aircraft crashes, or become international weapons dealers, thus drowning metaphorically in the special anonymity of this trade - never to be heard from again.

The character that acts as "unifier" of these many disjoined lives: Plato, the mathematician and painter who chooses to stay back in "Fatherland", survives in the works of his art and in the estimation of his friends, who just happen to have the means to establish a museum for his paintings. International recognition is thereby assured. And the gifted writer-friend sets out to establish his biography, making sure that his personality is recorded for posterity.

This is the last of Ali's "Quintet" - a series of books that takes us from Sicily under the early Normans, the Middle Crusades, the Fall of Grenada, and Istanbul before WWI, to today.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars
By alidolally on 28 Sept. 2014
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
A well paced story of a different time and culture
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3.0 out of 5 starsthe final chapter -book five in the series
By Ms. Diane P. Walsh on 13 Mar. 2011
Format: Paperback
The night of the golden Butter fly I found was the least convincing in the series . Of course the writing in all the series has been unusual. In an attempt to help an understanding of the history of Islam some the books suceeded better than others . Lack of political context for each period is a weakness really especially this last book and could have been achieved . I quite enjoyed the series but would have liked greater depth on many levels .Isuppose they are a kind on Arabian nights which give an insight to muslinculture at various periods. Not sure -facinated with the historyof Islam I am but found them just a little shallow .
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)

Amazon.com: 3.5 out of 5 stars 6 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Why is Tariq Ali not more widely read? 16 May 2011
By Mrs. Myhre - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
More easily deciphered by the non-erudite, yet as densely layered with literary and cultural references as Rushdie's Satanic Verses, Night of the Golden Butterfly is at once a love story, a masterful tutorial in Pakistani identity, and political commentary.

Why is the enchanting storyteller Tariq Ali not more widely read? Here is a book inhabited by Dick Cheney's heart surgeon, Barrack Obama's portrait painter, and other fictional characters who offer seriously hilarious and hilariously serious insights into the workings and malfunctions of 21st century.
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars 27 Oct. 2014
By Avinesh - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
The Islam Quintet are a classic. Very engaging and enjoyable read. This a a modern setting.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Romantic, historical 18 Oct. 2010
By Lutfi Zakhour - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
Tariq Ali does another wonderful job with this latest book - his writing is superb and research on Muslim Chinese is deep and very enlightening, though sometimes a little too much for a non-"Fatherlandi" reader (which is why he lost a star). Tariq does a wonderful job of immersing the reader in the poignant and romantic tales of his characters, which come across as very real.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Survivors' tales 22 July 2010
By Sceptique500 - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Hardcover
Only survivors live to tell their tale - the others are drowned in the anonymous sea of history. There is always a whiff of the improbable about survivors' tales, particularly when the surviving spans generations, as with some of the characters of this book. But life is "the glory of the improbable", and we should relish every chance we get to celebrate life at its most bewildering.

The plot could have been lifted from Thousand and One Nights: a motley group in post-independence Lahore youth makes its way through life, some migrating early to professional success on cosmopolitan shores, others surviving in the "Fatherland" under most trying circumstances and succeeding in the end to join the lucky ones that went ahead. Like in the best of serial fairy tales, their lives cross and re-cross each other - no thread is lost: not even amnesia in distant Beijing is barrier to reunion and recovery of memory. All the baddies succumb to murder or aircraft crashes, or become international weapons dealers, thus drowning metaphorically in the special anonymity of this trade - never to be heard from again.

The character that acts as "unifier" of these many disjoined lives: Plato, the mathematician and painter who chooses to stay back in "Fatherland", survives in the works of his art and in the estimation of his friends, who just happen to have the means to establish a museum for his paintings. International recognition is thereby assured. And the gifted writer-friend sets out to establish his biography, making sure that his personality is recorded for posterity.

This is the last of Ali's "Quintet" - a series of books that takes us from Sicily under the early Normans, the Middle Crusades, the Fall of Grenada, and Istanbul before WWI, to today. It is all about the glorious life of mostly Muslim diasporas, and a celebration of religions mixing, and exchanging, in a spirit of curiosity and freedom. There is much poignancy along the way, but the tone is one of indefatigable optimism in humanity's capacity to compromise and learn from each other. Despite the occasional lapse into kitsch, this is a superb and astonishingly high quality collection, that holds up from volume to volume exceedingly well, while enriching our knowledge of Islam's many contributions to civilisation, from el-Andalus to Yunnan.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars What a Disappointment! 5 April 2011
By Eugene W. Levich - Published on Amazon.com
Format: Paperback
Having recently read one of Tariq Ali's wonderful earlier novels in The Islam Quintet, A Sultan in Palermo, I expected to find great wisdom, joie de vivre, and civilization in Night of the Golden Butterfly. I did not. The book revolves around a set of septuagenarian Pakistanis who, for the first thirty pages or so, do nothing much more than hurl the vilest curses at each other, reminding one of the grossest behaviors of the most dull-witted high school sophomores. Unable to read any more of this work, I let the Golden Butterfly wing its way out of my sight and started another of Tariq Ali's earlier works, The Stone Woman, which I have nearly finished reading and which I have enjoyed immensely. Tariq Ali is a magnificent writer but The Golden Butterfly took off on the wrong course, on the wrong night, and should be hit with a ground-to-air missile.
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