The Scent of Wet Earth in August [Paperback]

Feryal Ali Gauhar (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books (February 28, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143028251
• ISBN-13: 978-0143028253
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,084,919 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enter a World You Do Not Know, July 31, 2005

By 

John Sollami (Stamford, CT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Scent of Wet Earth in August (Paperback)

This novel was handed to me by a colleague who had just returned from India. With no expectations, I entered into a whole new world. I found myself in Lahore, Pakistan. In addition to the poetic images that are abundant and that work beautifully, the author presents us with real people inhabiting the streets of a sad run-down section of this teeming city. Each person struggles against the past, and lives in a present that has forgotten them. All they really have are one another and shreds of their sullied dignity to cling to and help them carry on.

The main story is about a damaged young girl and her yearnings for a better life, for love, and for release from her oppressed feelings. She lives with her "aunts," who are ex-courtesans of the night, long past their prime. These aging women try to do the right thing by this child, but only as they see it, not as she sees and feels it. The reader meets the girl's addict mother, the neighbors, a holy man who's gone to seed, his meek assistant who becomes a major figure in the young girl's life, and so many more memorable characters. They all inhabit this book, and the author finds all the right details and inner thoughts and emotions to make them come alive. I was totally surprised and delighted by this work, and I hope it receives a wider audience because it most certainly deserves it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars brilliant first attempt, September 24, 2003

By 

saba malik (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Scent of Wet Earth in August (Paperback)

A touching and magnificently written novel- this one really tugs at the heart strings in every way. There were times when i had to put the book down and go back to it because i became so emotionally involved. I cannot remember the last time that a book made me feel this way. Having spent some time in the area of Lahore which the author writes about I was very impressed at her knowledge, her attention to detail is impressive and shows an authenticity sometimes lacking in novels of this sort- go and buy this you won't be disappointed.

2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Development Pornography, April 9, 2006

By 

Allah Rakkha "Pakistani" (Lahore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Scent of Wet Earth in August (Paperback)

Earlier I thought the trend of "development pornography" had ended or slowed down, but this novel 'The Scent of Wet Earth in August' suggests that the trend is still in vogue. The writer of the novel belongs to that class of NGOs (upper middle class elitists of Pakistan) who would try to give a shock to their readers to get cheap popularity. Some experts of this subject say fierce competition for donations in a ballooning NGO sector has led to an alarming resurgence in shock tactics that critics call "development pornography". Here the type of the donation "targetted" by the author is publicity that several third world writers try to seize in the developed world or elitist sections of their own societies.