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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
3.5 stars for an uneven but impassioned story, January 5, 2009
This review is from: Fidali's Way: A Novel (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Fidali's Way is a mixed bag. It is a book I immensely enjoyed, as Mastras is a rich storyteller and paces the events well to keep the pages turning and the tension taut and ripe. However, it is also uneven and amateurish in significant ways that undermine some of its strengths.
Two narrative threads converge. First we meet Nick Sunder, a disillusioned American lawyer who has been backpacking in perilous areas of Central Asia for several years. Encountering a couple along the way--a brazen French woman and her British boyfriend--the three travel together and evolve into a passionate love triangle. After separating under mysterious circumstances (which unfold gradually and non-linearly), Nick is later arrested in Pakistan at his hotel room just moments before boarding a train to India. The police torture him in a filthy prison cell and later negotiate a dicey deal for his release, which is unacceptable to Nick. After managing to escape, Nick subsequently has to trek for many weeks through the Himalayas on the other side of the Tribal Line of Control. He ends up traveling with two very spiritual, noble men (Ghulam and Fidali) from these mountainous regions who invite Nick to accompany them under their aegis and experience with the harsh domain.
Introduced next are Aysha and Kazim, the stunning and brilliant Muslim star-crossed lovers from the small, primitive village of Indian-controlled Gilkamosh in the Kashmir mountains. They separate when Kazim leaves to train as a Mujahid in the rural mountains and Aysha goes to medical school in New Delhi. The question is whether they will reunite when she returns to Gilkamosh to open a clinic. This is also where Nick ends up after his long trek with Ghulam and Fidali.
After a short, lyrical, and haunting prologue, the story begins with muscular, crisp, and thrilling prose. The descriptions of landscape and the difficulties of survival from prison to the Himalayas and the crossing of the Tribal Line of Control are breathtaking. The author writes riveting details of these hardships, and a sense of immediacy and urgency lures the reader on. Additionally, the sensuous, enchanting coming-of-age story of Kazim and Aysha is very moving and compelling.
Unfortunately, as the novel deepens, the tone becomes inconsistent. From a brutal and sharp and often laconic tone at the beginning, the prose turns schlocky, sophomoric, and sentimental. And the parts written to reveal spiritual contemplation and reflection are conveyed through heavy-handed and expository writing. These cogitations tend to be synthetic and cloying, as in a pious, self-conscious Paul Coelho novel. Instead of offering visionary and invigorating argument and thought into spiritual and religious debate, it offers up stale and simplistic notions.
The characters of Nick, Kazim, and Aysha are arch and three-dimensional, with realistic and textured lives and complex inner conflicts. However, they are often thwarted by the uneven tone and style, which lead us into convenient (and sometimes predictable) plot contrivances at various points in the story. And Ghulam, who starts out as enigmatic and formidable, narrows into a background caricature that emerges ceremoniously as a disposable vehicle for other characters or events.
The author has a cinematic talent to his writing, and I frequently envisioned a potent film version of the novel while reading. Mastras has a keen eye for visual appeal and sensuality when he isn't being derivative. Some of the dialogue and scenes could potentially be improved and heightened to correspond to this otherwise lush and exciting story. I was annoyed with one scene between Nick and Aysha that was all but airlifted from the movie Witness (with a few altered details); however, if you are not familiar with the movie, it could stir you with its intoxicating sensuality.
The climax of the story is powerful, and I had to tear my eyes away from the pages to digest and accept some of the bracing and harrowing scenes. I did feel largely satisfied by story's end, and I would recommend it with the caveat that it suffers from the pitfalls that impede many first-time novelists.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A page-turner that i could not put down, January 8, 2009
This review is from: Fidali's Way: A Novel (Hardcover)
Be prepared to stay up late into the night, as this novel is a page-turner that you cannot put down. At the same time, however, this is no potboiler thriller you'll soon forget a few days after you're done. "Fidali's Way" is exceptional -- a story that combines a murder mystery, adventure, and romance, all interwoven into a thrilling plot that also examines some of the big questions of the human condition: redemption and forgiveness, faith versus dogma, obsession, fate, and the true meaning of freedom. Mastras not only draws the reader in with his suspenseful plot, like any best-seller would, he does so with vivid imagery of the vast mountains and glaciers of perhaps the most rugged region on earth, powerful scenes of tragic violence and emotion, and true insight into the conflicting cultures, religions, and philosophies of the diverse people of South Asia, as well as between East and West.
The story follows the main character, Nick, an American lawyer who chose to give up his successful career to travel through Asia. Immediately, the reader is drawn into his story within the first chapter, as Nick is arrested in Pakistan for the murder of his lover and travel companion, a sensual and impulsive French girl named Yvette. The plot evolves as Nick escapes capture by the Pakistani police on foot through the Himalayas, and along the way we are introduced to different characters before ending up in conflict-riven Kashmir. These characters include Ghulam and Fidali, two impoverished Kashmiri smugglers who befriend Nick, and serve as Nick's guide through the treacherous Karakoram and Himalayas. As the danger of the journey escalates, they also become Nick's mentor by way of example, showing him their capacity for selflessness, the power of their humanity, and their ability to surrender their suffering to fate -- all derived from their
unquestioning faith -- traits that are at first misunderstood, and very alien to Nick, a product of the egoism and secularism of the West.
As Nick's dangerous journey unfolds, the author also tells the story of Aysha, a village girl who grows up to be the village healer and inspirational leader; and Kazim, Aysha's childhood lover. Kazim comes under the influence of the fiery mullah of a newly-built, radical madrassa, and becomes torn between his love for Aysha and his devotion to the ideal of Kashmiri freedom. He eventually becomes a revered leader of the regional Mujahideen rebels, pitting the two former lovers against each other. As Nick's and Aysha's two stories are organically woven together, Mastras skillfully develops the interplay among all these diverse characters, hooking the reader with scenes that range from the sensual and erotic, to the comical, to the tragically violent and horrifying.
As I read the novel, I found myself frequently assuming the thoughts of Nick in my own mind, contemplating in self-introspection for an answer to the many ideological questions that are subtly posed within the drama. This thoughtful, philosophical and spiritual level to the novel, along with the moving descriptions and violent climax, is perhaps one of the reasons why the book has stayed with me, and I suspect will continue to affect me for a long time to come.
There is no question that Mastras is an exceptional writer who is not only skillful in developing a dramatic plot that is original, complex, and engaging. He is also a writer who delves deeply into human nature and controversial cultural issues in search of truth, and who is not afraid to describe the intense emotions and passions of life with frank honesty that is both beautiful to read and powerful.
On top of all these qualities, Fidali's Way is certainly timely given the current events in Mumbai, Afghanistan, the Gaza strip, and even here at home where many are questioning the ideal balance between materialism and quality of life, and between the pursuit of egoistic goals and humanity. I highly recommend "Fidali's Way" to anyone who enjoys murder mysteries, thrillers, romance novels, and travel stories, and to those readers who are interested in issues of faith, philosophy, and who desire to perhaps better understand the major world conflict of our time -- particularly, the confrontation between Islam and the West. Then again, to put it more simply, I recommend Fidali's Way to anyone who loves great literature. A request out to the author for future writings as this novel left me with a void craving for more!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An American on the Run, April 17, 2009
This review is from: Fidali's Way: A Novel (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I have been immersed in "Fidali's Way," the debut novel of George Mastras, for almost a week because of the strong sense of place that Mastras gives his story of an American inadvertently caught up in the present-day conflict between Pakistan and Kashmiri separatists. Mastras very successfully places a human face on those involved in a tragic struggle (on both sides) that is little more than headline news to most of the rest of the world.
Nick Sunder, an attorney who became disillusioned by the dark impact of some of his courtroom victories, has been backpacking in Central Asia for a while before he joins up with a beautiful French girl and her British boyfriend. When the young woman is found murdered, Nick is arrested and tortured by the Pakistani police who want him to confess to the murder. Nick makes a narrow escape from the police, implicating himself in another crime in the process, and makes a run for India.
On the run and near death from exposure, Nick chances upon two of his former cellmates who, despite knowing nothing about Nick, offer to lead him to the relative safety of Indian-occupied Kashmir - a danger-filled walk of several days he barely survives.
But Nick Sunder is only part of the story. In alternating sections of the book, Mastras tells of a very special woman who grew up in the very village toward which Nick is headed and of the little boy who grew up there to become a ruthless muhajideen leader fighting the Indian army for possession of his part of Kashmir. Aysha, even as a child, was considered to be the village healer, and she grew up to become one of the few female medical doctors in her part of the world. Her fiancé, Kazim went a different way, choosing radical jihad over marriage to the beautiful Aysha, a decision both would continue to regret.
Their paths were destined to cross, and what happens when Nick, Aysha, and Kazim come together is at the heart of this beautiful and brutal story. The climax of the book, when personal grudges, religious fanaticism and rabid nationalism clash at the clinic run by Aysha to the benefit of Indians and Pakistanis, alike, illustrates the ultimate futility and folly of religious warfare in a way that readers will long remember.
George Mastras is a good storyteller and his knowledge of the remote part of the world in which he sets "Fidali's Way" is impressive. His characters are complex enough that their motivations, decisions and regrets are believable, and readers will find themselves thinking about Nick, Aysha, Kazim, and Nick's two guides long after they have finished the book. I did, however, find the book's final resolution (during which Nick discusses the French girl's murder with her British boyfriend) to be rushed, leaving me with the sense that it was tacked on simply as an attempt to tie up any of the story's remaining loose ends. The unlikelihood of the two meeting under the circumstances described, reminded me that I was reading fiction just when I wanted to forget that.
Overall, this is a very fine thriller, especially for an author's first time out of the gate.
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