Latest / Bookies' Favourite / Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi | Review | International Booker Prize 2025

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Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi | Review | International Booker Prize 2025 · Bookies' Favourite

• 0:10
  Hi. Hello, hello, hello.
• 0:14
  Welcome back to Vicky's favorite guys.
• 0:17
  We need it. We've finished.
• 0:19
  The. Book 6 How does everyone?
• 0:21
  Feel. Exhausted.
• 0:25
  It has been a challenge, I have to say.
• 0:28
  I don't think I've read that many books in such a short space
• 0:30
  of time since I was a teenager. But this week we were reading
• 0:35
  Heart Lapse by Banu Mushtaq, and it was a collection of 12 short
• 0:40
  stories that delve into the lives of Muslim and Dalit women
• 0:44
  and children in southern India. It's quite interesting actually.
• 0:48
  So these were originally written in Canada between 1990 and 2023,
• 0:55
  and it was translated by Deepa Bashti.
• 0:58
  And so she's a writer and literary translator based in
• 1:02
  southern India. And there's a lot before we got
• 1:06
  really into the book and ask everyone's thoughts and feelings
• 1:08
  this week, just a little more about the inspiration that Bani
• 1:12
  had for the stories. And so they're about women and
• 1:15
  how religion, society and politics demand unquestioning
• 1:18
  obedience from them and in doing so, inflict inhumane cruelty
• 1:21
  upon them. So these kind of like daily
• 1:24
  incidents and personal experiences and how people have
• 1:28
  endured them and the inspiration kind of behind them.
• 1:30
  And that's how she's delved into the work.
• 1:32
  So how is everyone feeling this week about it?
• 1:35
  I not going to lie, I found it quite hard at times.
• 1:39
  I just don't think I was mentally in the zone.
• 1:42
  I think some of us are feeling that this week.
• 1:44
  But some stories like thought were fantastic, others kind of
• 1:48
  blended into one. But I'm going to start actually
• 1:51
  my question of the week, Aaron, how do you finish the books?
• 1:57
  I know this has become a trend. I did not finish all of the
• 2:01
  short stories in. This.
• 2:06
  Book, But I do have to say that it was less of a time management
• 2:15
  issue this week and more of a not my type of story issue this
• 2:22
  week. There were some really
• 2:24
  interesting stories and others that I literally read the entire
• 2:29
  thing and I couldn't tell you what happened.
• 2:31
  And then there were maybe 3 that I basically haven't read.
• 2:37
  Yeah, I wasn't the biggest fan of this, but there were some
• 2:40
  really interesting stories. Lucy what?
• 2:43
  What do you think? Goodness me.
• 2:44
  Well. I feel like this is the usual
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  theme. I I really loved it.
• 2:48
  I thought it was really like emotional and really like you,
• 2:52
  you really felt for these women and these stories and like the
• 2:55
  frustration that they must feel in these times.
• 2:58
  And like I thought as well like the kind of like universality of
• 3:02
  it and like the fact these are these are very specific to this
• 3:08
  Muslim. Sorry, these are very specific
• 3:11
  to Muslim people in this area of India, but I think that they
• 3:14
  could be applied to probably anywhere in the world.
• 3:16
  And probably the, the pendulum of how women are treated by the
• 3:20
  law and by other people is just in constant kind of flux.
• 3:24
  And it's like in some ways we're always just at the whim of what
• 3:29
  men will like, the kind of things that they will alloy.
• 3:33
  And it's like we, we might have a bit of freedom at the moment
• 3:36
  and especially in this country. And you know, and in this
• 3:38
  country, it's only been the last kind of 30 years that we've had
• 3:41
  like any kind of like within my lifetime and we've, we've had
• 3:45
  certain rights. So it's kind of, yeah, just
• 3:49
  really head home that like things, things change and a lot
• 3:52
  of societies go swing in between, like what life is like
• 3:56
  for women. So I found it was really
• 3:58
  emotional. It was really frustrating.
• 4:00
  It made me angry at times. I was like, I thought I thought
• 4:02
  it was really brilliant. I thought she really, like
• 4:04
  brought you into this world. And although I think that the
• 4:08
  issue with short stories, and I think that's it's kind of
• 4:11
  common, is just the idea that some of them do just blend into
• 4:14
  like the same story. And a lot of the characters had
• 4:17
  the same name, which was a bit frustrating.
• 4:21
  She had written them from like 1990 to like 2023.
• 4:25
  So you can't really be like, OK, she's not like, I mean, it's the
• 4:28
  equivalent of having a couple of characters called John.
• 4:30
  And, you know, it's not like, I imagine, but to us, because
• 4:33
  they're not necessarily the most familiar names.
• 4:36
  It's like, oh, I've, I've read someone with this name before
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  and you kind of maybe got a bit confused.
• 4:41
  But no, I thought I like, I just thought they were really
• 4:43
  powerful. I thought they were really like
• 4:45
  moving. Yeah, yeah.
• 4:47
  No, I loved it. I thought it was great.
• 4:49
  Well, Colin, you're back from Paris.
• 4:51
  Question is, did you? Lose Jet Setter.
• 4:54
  Do I lose this? I have a confession.
• 4:57
  I've only read five of the 12 stories I know.
• 4:59
  Boo, Boo, Boo me. Boo me, everyone.
• 5:02
  I deserve it. Shame.
• 5:03
  Boo you. Because you've, you're like, you
• 5:06
  and Lucy are the most dedicated readers out there.
• 5:09
  Yeah, well, yeah, I. Think I think partially being on
• 5:14
  holidays and then burnout from reading books like kind of got
• 5:17
  to me. It wasn't like the stories I did
• 5:19
  read. I actually enjoyed them quite a
• 5:22
  lot and like Lucy was saying, I enjoy a lot of the themes and
• 5:25
  while some things kind of went over my head, I the book kind of
• 5:29
  made me my my main emotional take away from it was kind of
• 5:33
  anger. I'll get, I'll get into this a
• 5:35
  bit later on. There's I, I always grapple with
• 5:38
  the idea of like, why is it fair for like, so we have rights here
• 5:45
  are are in Europe or whatever where that other places are
• 5:49
  lacking. And to me, I'm always like, why
• 5:51
  is it fair for one person to be allowed to do something and act
• 5:55
  somewhere in one place just because they're born there,
• 5:59
  whereas in another they're not? It makes me quite sad, makes me
• 6:02
  quite angry. Anyway, we'll get into that.
• 6:05
  But I think the books are good or the.
• 6:07
  So I think the stories are good and I like her writing style.
• 6:12
  And yeah, the five that I read, they're pretty memorable and I
• 6:15
  think I like some of the themes and stuff in them, but I think
• 6:18
  it's quite bleak. I absolutely adore the love that
• 6:21
  you can feel from the translator that she's poured into this to
• 6:25
  make sure that like 1 the novel is translated but isn't losing,
• 6:29
  you know, it's cultural references and that in it like,
• 6:33
  oh, I just absolutely love it. And it's maybe have even more
• 6:35
  appreciation for translators, you know, that task of trying to
• 6:40
  get you to understand the culture or things or maybe not
• 6:42
  understanding and making me fall in love in the story.
• 6:45
  It's just amazing. I yeah, I thought it was really
• 6:48
  like, I wish more books did that because it was so lovely to read
• 6:52
  that at the end and be like, oh, This is why I've made this
• 6:54
  decision. Some of it is about the italics
• 6:56
  and the fact they're not used, which is something I noticed
• 6:58
  when I started reading it. I was like, these words.
• 7:01
  Yeah. Usually when people put words
• 7:03
  from another language in, they italicize them, but I do think
• 7:07
  that kind of wrecks the flow and it kind of gives them more of an
• 7:09
  emphasis. And that wouldn't naturally be
• 7:11
  the way it is in the story. But you also can't directly
• 7:14
  translate them. And I was pretty lucky in the
• 7:17
  fact that when I read it the first time, I had underlined all
• 7:21
  the words. I googled and like written the
• 7:23
  meaning on the page. So I was like, oh.
• 7:25
  You're CHEAT SHEET. I know my word for prayer map.
• 7:27
  I know my I'm grand was kind of like much quicker.
• 7:34
  Well, not much, not much, but I don't think there's that many
• 7:36
  words and they're repeated a lot.
• 7:37
  So it's like once you learn the words, you're like, OK, you
• 7:41
  know. But yeah, no, I love that
• 7:43
  translators note and the stuff that she was saying about being
• 7:47
  from a different cast and. Yeah, and the stuff that they
• 7:51
  were both saying about like the fact that it's just for all
• 7:55
  women and like, I thought that was really lovely and.
• 7:59
  Yeah, because there's like a note in the back about high mush
• 8:04
  stacks, right? Even is considered really like
• 8:07
  progressive like a progressive protest in literary circles and.
• 8:11
  It kind of almost came across as activism, like the stories like.
• 8:14
  Yeah, massively. Yeah, you got a real I.
• 8:17
  Absolutely love that, and in particular back to like her
• 8:22
  writing style because it has this blend of like empathy and
• 8:25
  dark humor. And I absolutely love dark
• 8:28
  humor. So I was like, this is hard.
• 8:31
  And then there's something in it to make me laugh.
• 8:33
  So I really appreciate it that like over time, the novel kind
• 8:38
  of like had all that blend through it for me.
• 8:41
  So this week we have the thoughts of Zara from Zaz Lou
• 8:45
  Reed's on Instagram. Heartlamp is one of those short
• 8:48
  story collections I wish I could read again for the first time.
• 8:51
  Not only was it witty, serious and poignant, but it was also
• 8:54
  really clever. Bonhomish Talk really plays with
• 8:57
  power dynamics, womanhood and family in a patriarchal society.
• 9:02
  And on the surface the collection might seem a little
• 9:04
  bit basic, but the stories are deceptively complex whereby they
• 9:08
  show women subjected to abuse and mistreatment kind of
• 9:13
  everyday, but the stories also show how resilient and powerful
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  the women really are. I think it's really important
• 9:20
  for lesser known languages to be translated into English and for
• 9:23
  us as readers to be exposed to them as well.
• 9:27
  Canada is such a lyrical language, it kind of reminds me
• 9:30
  of my mother tongue of Urdu, which there were kind of
• 9:34
  untranslated bits of within the book and it was a joy to kind of
• 9:38
  see that I'm to read in the translators note how carefully
• 9:41
  the translator, Deeper Busby, had considered this whilst
• 9:44
  translating. I've seen some people kind of
• 9:47
  say the book missed the mark for them or it didn't sit well with
• 9:50
  them. But I think it's also important
• 9:52
  to remember that lived experiences from countries and
• 9:55
  communities we're not used to being exposed to are really
• 9:58
  important to hear. Musharraf really shines a light
• 10:01
  on Muslim communities in India through her work.
• 10:05
  And I think especially considering the current
• 10:07
  political and social climate, it's imperative that these
• 10:10
  stories are highlighted to us instead of those that we see in
• 10:13
  the media. I think overall Kind of Heart
• 10:16
  Lamps are really strong collection of stories and a
• 10:19
  really welcome addition to kind of the book prize community.
• 10:23
  I really, really hope that Ben and Mushtaq and Deepa Bashti get
• 10:27
  their flowers for all the work that they've done and kind of
• 10:30
  continue to do. And although kind of I don't
• 10:33
  think it's going to win the International Booker, I think
• 10:36
  that it's a solid, solid entry for the shortlist.
• 10:39
  I mean, great as usual. I love that was one of the
• 10:43
  things that I mean really sticks with me.
• 10:45
  And like when she mentions like hearing different viewpoints
• 10:48
  from across the world, I think it's really important to me the,
• 10:51
  the, the thing that sets novels and stores and books are writing
• 10:55
  apart from all other media is that you get to live, you know,
• 10:59
  all these different lives, these different viewpoints.
• 11:01
  And, and like, we will never know what it's like to be, I
• 11:05
  mean, I don't think any of us will ever know what it's like to
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  be a Dalit Muslim woman living in India.
• 11:10
  I can always speak for myself here.
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  But hearing or reading that viewpoint is so enlightening.
• 11:17
  And you can like learn so much that then you'd bring into your
• 11:20
  own life. And I think that's the power of
• 11:21
  books. Like anything, this book in
• 11:22
  particular, it's home. The strength behind writing.
• 11:25
  Yeah, 100 like 100%. I I just find it so like exactly
• 11:30
  what she's saying and she's maybe come from like a different
• 11:33
  perspective. She's so right.
• 11:34
  I was just nodding along to like everything she was saying there
• 11:37
  because I was like, that's, that's pretty.
• 11:39
  Like it's a really nice. I mean, we, we had this this
• 11:42
  conversation before we even started recording this, that
• 11:45
  like, is there a disconnect? Like some of us are feeling like
• 11:48
  a disconnect from the, the like experiences?
• 11:51
  Like is this book relatable to us?
• 11:54
  Some of us have more relatability from it.
• 11:57
  But at the end of the day, I don't know if a book is
• 11:59
  necessarily meant to be relatable.
• 12:01
  I think you can find, you know, experiences and emotions in it
• 12:05
  that that match your own, but it doesn't need to just because
• 12:08
  we've we've never, you know, been to a Muslim ceremony or
• 12:11
  anything like this. It doesn't matter.
• 12:12
  It it kind of the writing carries it.
• 12:16
  I kind of massively think that it's kind of like, so if you if
• 12:20
  you belong to like, I'm going to say probably any of the
• 12:23
  Abrahamic religions and there is that strong theme of like gods
• 12:29
  on top. And then the next person is the
• 12:31
  man in the family. That's not unfamiliar.
• 12:35
  Like, if you think about it, so many places in the world are
• 12:39
  Abrahamic religions, you know, actually like you're talking
• 12:43
  about like most of the people in the world grew up with these
• 12:47
  kind of similar legal things and similar like this is this is
• 12:52
  where the basis of our culture comes from.
• 12:55
  So it's like, it's so everywhere like and it's just, it's just
• 13:01
  different for this specific community.
• 13:03
  And, and it was lovely to kind of, well, not lovely.
• 13:05
  It was actually quite horrific to read about how women are in
• 13:11
  that particular zone. And I think we are lucky maybe
• 13:13
  in Europe. I think you were saying earlier,
• 13:15
  Colin, it's like we have all these secular laws that save us
• 13:19
  from that. And I think the book is very
• 13:22
  much talking about women who are falling through these cracks.
• 13:25
  And something that I had noted from all the stories, I feel
• 13:28
  like, well, not actually all of them, but but most of the
• 13:31
  stories, I think that something that come came across to me was
• 13:35
  it was like these men have like wives, mothers and sisters who
• 13:40
  are completely dependent on them.
• 13:42
  And they like with most, they're not raised to believe that
• 13:47
  women's issues or anything to do with women is any important.
• 13:50
  So they just have no importance to it.
• 13:52
  They don't listen to their stories.
• 13:53
  They don't care about them. They're not important to them.
• 13:55
  That's not what they're raised to believe or raised to
• 13:58
  understand. So then when they come into
• 14:01
  difficulties or their lives are, you know, when they need help,
• 14:06
  they don't care. They've got other things that
• 14:08
  they're doing because they're not.
• 14:10
  And it's not really necessarily their fault because they're just
• 14:12
  not raised to be that way. But it's like these women then
• 14:16
  fall through the cracks and they can fall so far like
• 14:21
  destitution, death, poverty, like horrific things are
• 14:25
  happening to these women. But the men are always able to
• 14:27
  kind of like rationalize it using like the Quran.
• 14:31
  And I think that happens like people, you know, religious
• 14:34
  people would rationalize it with the Bible or like, I imagine we
• 14:37
  all have more knowledge of that kind of side of things than we
• 14:41
  would have of Islam. I'm speaking for myself here,
• 14:43
  but from. What Lucy is saying is that this
• 14:47
  for me, I have never read any, I think Indian fiction or like
• 14:51
  Indian Muslim fiction. And what I think you're getting
• 14:54
  at, Lucy, is that even though it's like a different cultural
• 14:58
  representation in the novel, there is something relatable as
• 15:01
  being a woman, like, in that way of like that.
• 15:05
  Even though we have all these rights, we learned throughout
• 15:08
  history all the things that women have had to fight for,
• 15:12
  especially in like, the Westernized world.
• 15:14
  Yeah, to even get where we are today.
• 15:17
  And at times, I couldn't relate in a way to some of the women
• 15:20
  because I got always brought up to be, like, such a feminist and
• 15:25
  like, I always fight, like, always have this fight in me.
• 15:28
  And I went to an all girls school and like, I thought like,
• 15:32
  oh, feminism is so like, right. And like I just had this thing
• 15:36
  where I never thought I would experience, you know, any sexism
• 15:41
  or anything like that. And as an adult, yes, I have.
• 15:45
  But I feel like a novel like this would be so inspirational
• 15:49
  for a young woman. Like he is maybe like in those
• 15:53
  cultures or maybe, and I know it's hard because you want to
• 15:56
  respect probably when you're living in that culture, you want
• 15:58
  to respect the culture and it means something to you and you
• 16:01
  don't want to step out of like binds and quotation marks.
• 16:04
  But it's also that like it could be inspirational for people who
• 16:07
  maybe want to push the boundaries a tiny bit or move
• 16:10
  that glassy linen away from women in these situations.
• 16:14
  So at the start I really struggled.
• 16:16
  I was like, oh, like things like the names and like I couldn't
• 16:19
  figure out who was who. But then when you're when I read
• 16:22
  a bit more into like on her and like what her writing, then I
• 16:26
  was like, oh, she hits on all these topics that we've dealt
• 16:29
  with before or experienced in her life.
• 16:32
  So I think it really like some of the stories I think really
• 16:36
  hit like hard and I really appreciate like her work.
• 16:40
  Yeah, I mean, it makes me think, like, Lucy, you had said, like,
• 16:43
  you know, all the kind of situations here with these women
• 16:46
  are restricted and we are like, you know, our countries have had
• 16:50
  the same situation. It makes me think, remind me a
• 16:53
  lot of Clark Keegan's small things like these.
• 16:57
  I mean, mostly because the Maglen laundry is like that's
• 17:00
  something in the past that we're like, oh, we never, you know,
• 17:03
  we've moved past that. And that's kind of like we would
• 17:05
  never treat women like that, you know, ever again or whatever.
• 17:09
  But it just shows that this is like been happening all across
• 17:12
  the world. I'm sure maybe we've moved,
• 17:14
  moved beyond that. I don't know if we if it's been
• 17:17
  absolutely perfect. And I'm sure there's still
• 17:19
  access sexism and institutions and religious institutions in
• 17:23
  particular. But I think this book just shows
• 17:27
  how prevalent like like religion, like how religion can
• 17:33
  have like such a strong hold on like gender roles and and power.
• 17:39
  I studied women in gender studies class and one of the
• 17:44
  specific topics that we had learnt about was how Westerners
• 17:50
  were going to the Middle East and trying to make the women
• 17:55
  fight for feminism. But we're doing it in a
• 17:59
  Westernized way, which was not what the women in the Middle
• 18:04
  East wanted. And it was a field feminist
• 18:09
  movement because it was a white savior moment of trying to push
• 18:16
  our ideals on to the these people from a completely
• 18:20
  different culture. I think that this book is
• 18:23
  successful in being its own feminist movement and within the
• 18:28
  culture. And it's clearly coming from
• 18:32
  within and it's not being forced on to.
• 18:36
  And it's not a westernized version of feminism.
• 18:38
  It's their own natural, organic type of feminism.
• 18:43
  I think you hit honor. And it's like, what Bonnie is
• 18:45
  like wanting us together is that this, like these short stories
• 18:49
  evoke an emotional response from us in that way of like, we hate
• 18:55
  to see these women suffering. We hate them to see that they're
• 18:59
  like at the mercy of these men. And it's this idea that one
• 19:02
  thing that really hit me was like, I didn't know this idea of
• 19:05
  like having four wives. And it's the idea that like,
• 19:09
  they, like the men could be able to walk away and like, and yes,
• 19:14
  you could fight and try and have like, take the responsibility.
• 19:17
  But it's this idea that you could be, you could give your
• 19:21
  all to this man and bear the children that he wants.
• 19:23
  And yet that's still not enough. I just.
• 19:27
  Yeah. There was something, I don't
• 19:28
  know if you guys felt the same way, but there's I can't
• 19:31
  remember which story. It's either the second or the
• 19:32
  third story. So basically there's a woman
• 19:36
  whose husband has left her and she is going to the and now I'm
• 19:40
  going to pronounce this completely wrong.
• 19:41
  The Muta Wally who's like the chief of the like kind of Muslim
• 19:47
  area and he, he's basically not, he's not that fast and he
• 19:51
  doesn't really care about her that much.
• 19:52
  But her husband's laughter, he her children are like dying from
• 19:58
  starvation and he's like still being horrible to her in the
• 20:02
  street and he's like treating her with like such disdain.
• 20:05
  In that story Black Cobra, there's like this woman who is
• 20:08
  kind of like she's read the Quran and she knows loads about
• 20:11
  it and she keeps being like, you need to stand up for your rights
• 20:15
  to this woman. Like you need to like this is
• 20:17
  where the Quran says this. This is where the Quran says
• 20:19
  that. This is like all these things
• 20:21
  that are in the Quran that are extremely forward thinking about
• 20:24
  women and have all these provisions for when society it
• 20:27
  goes wrong for women. So she's like, you have these
• 20:30
  rights in the Quran. You have the right to the same
• 20:32
  amount of treatment between all of this man's wives.
• 20:36
  You have the right that he doesn't leave you.
• 20:38
  And it almost doesn't matter that all these things are in the
• 20:43
  Quran because the middle Wally, it's like he he's not
• 20:45
  interested. So it doesn't matter.
• 20:47
  And then I mean, I don't want to spoil it too much, but like her
• 20:50
  child dies and like, like really horrific and she's left
• 20:54
  completely impoverished. And it's like, I almost thought
• 20:57
  was Bonnie putting herself as this what?
• 20:59
  Because she's this woman who's like in this community who's
• 21:02
  trying her best to like legally help women and do all these
• 21:07
  things for women. And it's like, do you think
• 21:09
  that's a bit of a self insert of her?
• 21:11
  Like for this woman who's trying to be like you, you know, you
• 21:16
  have all these things and Muslim law, like, you don't have to not
• 21:19
  be a Muslim, but there are. It's terribly informing people
• 21:23
  almost that, yeah, like the misreading of text.
• 21:26
  I mean, that happens in, you know, even in, you know,
• 21:29
  Christianity. It's misread all the time.
• 21:31
  Like there's all those the people will always throw those
• 21:34
  quotes about man shall not lie with man odd about like, you
• 21:38
  know, anti LGBT rhetoric or whatever.
• 21:41
  But those are all out of context, the actual context of
• 21:44
  what it is. It's all about worshipping a
• 21:45
  God, like a different type of God in a way, but but it's all
• 21:51
  like mixed into this and people misread it and take what they
• 21:53
  want from it. And I, I think like the in the
• 21:57
  story heartland, like like talking about this all, it makes
• 21:59
  me really, really angry. Like, I think all of this makes
• 22:02
  me really quite mad because I I just think like, how sad, how
• 22:08
  how hard it must be for these women to survive in these, in
• 22:11
  this sort of world, especially in the one Heartland where
• 22:15
  again, spoilery. But at the end of it, like, this
• 22:20
  woman's like husband is leaving her.
• 22:21
  And she then is like left like with the shame or this mark.
• 22:26
  And they pretty much tell her like, she should kill herself.
• 22:31
  Yeah, yeah. They like push her to this.
• 22:33
  So at the end, she's like, well, I guess so.
• 22:35
  Like, I mean, she she grapples with this for a bit and she's
• 22:38
  going to light herself on fire and such a dark scene to read.
• 22:42
  Yeah. And she's like, pouring.
• 22:45
  Yeah, well, she's pouring, pouring kerosene all over
• 22:48
  herself. And I think, like, again, Banu
• 22:52
  is maybe putting herself into the story in a way because this
• 22:54
  her daughter comes to save her and says, just because you're
• 22:59
  that to those people, to me, you're still my mother and
• 23:02
  you're still, you know, worth something.
• 23:05
  Yeah, that's actually that stories based on her own
• 23:07
  experience. Depression.
• 23:10
  Yeah. And after I read that, that hit
• 23:11
  like 10 times harder. I really felt like because that
• 23:15
  that story to me read like a Horror Story because her family.
• 23:18
  And this is also because you were talking about the Magdalene
• 23:20
  Laundries earlier calling. And it's kind of like the idea
• 23:23
  that your family completely a bit like if you're a man, you
• 23:26
  can always just get a job, move somewhere else and live this
• 23:29
  other life. But you're completely, your
• 23:31
  family is the only thing keeping you from, like, complete
• 23:35
  destitution to these women's lives.
• 23:37
  And her family is completely turned on her, which really did
• 23:40
  remind me of like, the Magdalene Laundries where your families
• 23:42
  just imprisoned you. Yeah.
• 23:44
  Nothing. So it was, I felt like that was
• 23:46
  really like an emotional thing. But also at the end, because of
• 23:50
  the way it was built up, you honestly just felt so much
• 23:52
  despair for her. I was almost like, oh, she's not
• 23:55
  like, because it ends up where she is, as Khan was saying, like
• 23:58
  she's maybe about to kill herself.
• 24:00
  Well, she is about to kill herself.
• 24:01
  And her daughter steps in and you're almost like, I don't want
• 24:04
  this to be too dark, but you're almost like, I don't know which
• 24:07
  it like it's still bad. Is it better?
• 24:09
  Yeah, yeah. Nothing's changed.
• 24:12
  I know it's really my story, but you're like, Oh my God, I don't
• 24:15
  know. It was just so.
• 24:16
  That's why it makes me so angry because there's no escape.
• 24:19
  There's literally no escape for these women.
• 24:21
  And like, and The thing is, I think the religion in the used
• 24:25
  in this way, it's a cage for everyone, not just the women,
• 24:27
  but also the men. These men are also now stuck in
• 24:30
  these roles and and they're, you know, being told that they have
• 24:33
  this control, but a lot of those men probably don't.
• 24:36
  Do, you know, want that? I mean, I don't know if this
• 24:38
  comes up in other stories, but in the ones I read, I didn't
• 24:41
  really see any evidence of it. But I'm just like thinking of it
• 24:43
  from the other side like but religion when it's used this
• 24:47
  strictly and this like conservatively leads to an
• 24:52
  imprisonment of both both sexes. I don't know if you read this
• 24:57
  chapter, Colin. I don't remember which one it
• 25:00
  is, but the one about the circumcisions.
• 25:03
  Oh yeah, yeah. Oh.
• 25:04
  Yeah, that was one of the most brutal things.
• 25:07
  And I think it really that chapter stood out to me or that
• 25:11
  short story stood out to me as it felt like it was more about
• 25:16
  the the boys than the women in that story.
• 25:20
  And I know that it it followed the mother's relationship with
• 25:25
  her, her son and stuff, but. Yeah.
• 25:29
  I think that one was more on like the socio economic of like
• 25:33
  rich versus per kind of thing. But I actually know when you
• 25:36
  talk about it, the gender roles exactly.
• 25:39
  As well, I was like, this is brutal.
• 25:41
  And I like to summarize. Basically there was 18 kids who
• 25:46
  were staying at this house during summer and this woman
• 25:51
  thought, what am I going to do with them?
• 25:53
  I know I'm going to get them circumcised.
• 25:57
  I know that was a really strange form of childcare, that was
• 26:02
  she's basically like, I don't want to have to deal with all
• 26:04
  these boys running about the house.
• 26:06
  I'll circumcise them. That'll keep them occupied for
• 26:09
  the next month. Apparently boys usually get
• 26:12
  circumcised to age 9, but there was one boy, the oldest was 13
• 26:17
  and everyone was laughing at him because he was not circumcised
• 26:20
  whenever he like had to take his underwear off and it was just
• 26:24
  like he was being humiliated. And then they actually describe
• 26:28
  how the circumcision happens with putting bamboo like stock
• 26:34
  over the head and then like pulling the foreskin up around
• 26:38
  it. And then they take a blade and
• 26:40
  slice. Around it.
• 26:41
  So the IT will like fall off and the boys are literally screaming
• 26:46
  and it's just literally boy after boy after boy is screaming
• 26:51
  and they're being held down and then they're just laying out on
• 26:54
  a floor and where they basically like fall unconscious because of
• 27:00
  the pain. And I was just like, this is
• 27:02
  horrific. That story really spoke to me,
• 27:05
  maybe because I'm, I'm a man and I not that I could relate with
• 27:11
  the circumcision part, but I could relate with the fact that
• 27:15
  the brutality of, of having your body taken by religion and like
• 27:24
  you don't have any say in it and things being forced upon you
• 27:28
  because of religion. I just thought that that was
• 27:31
  very stark. Can I tell you right.
• 27:34
  So out of the entire short stories I read, um, Heartlamp is
• 27:38
  probably one of my favorites in particular.
• 27:41
  Um, there's like, can I just read out the like the two lines
• 27:44
  that I really like. They're really simple, but I
• 27:46
  really love them. So um, they said as evening
• 27:50
  started to lose its light lamps for lit around the house.
• 27:53
  But the lamp in May my Bruins heart had been extinguished a
• 27:57
  long time ago and I just love that metaphor.
• 28:00
  Like it literally hit so. Hard.
• 28:03
  It was so sad reading that bit like you kind of felt so gutted.
• 28:07
  I think there's so much of this story is so many of these
• 28:09
  stories. Sorry.
• 28:10
  We're just so like the frustration, the anger, and like
• 28:16
  you. Just.
• 28:17
  And then I think maybe this is some, and I do want to say this
• 28:20
  is an issue against the book, but it was just like, I was kind
• 28:22
  of like, can I be more annoyed? I'd be more angry.
• 28:27
  Like I felt very like, and this is maybe what you were saying
• 28:30
  earlier, Colin is like 1 narrative would have maybe been
• 28:34
  like, I don't know, maybe it would have been a better way of
• 28:37
  doing this. But I knew if I read these short
• 28:39
  stories in like a collection, I'd be like, wow, that was
• 28:42
  amazing. Like so many of them and like
• 28:45
  the humor as well. Just threw out it was.
• 28:48
  I really enjoyed them. I thought they were.
• 28:49
  You know what one thing that I noticed just while we were just
• 28:52
  talking about heart lamp and in that quote you read like she and
• 28:56
  her at the end of the story is going to set herself alight and
• 29:00
  almost in like how these lamps are being lit.
• 29:02
  And I I really like that kind of thing of like she's like setting
• 29:06
  herself on fire to make this like beautiful.
• 29:10
  Do you know? I don't know if it's beautiful,
• 29:11
  but this like light, you know, I like something good can come
• 29:16
  from this in a way that that kind of felt like what I was
• 29:19
  going for. Like she's like, I don't know,
• 29:22
  in a way of like she's not extinguished anymore.
• 29:24
  She's like she or being set free.
• 29:28
  I mean, burning yourself to death sounds the most horrific
• 29:30
  way. But this idea that she would
• 29:33
  just be this bright light, but this idea of well as well, like
• 29:37
  her daughter, like come into her and talking to her and that
• 29:41
  like, not that I I have experience if there was like
• 29:44
  that particular situation, but it made me think about an
• 29:46
  experience for my life where like we've just had like a bad
• 29:50
  period and it's like, don't do this.
• 29:51
  Like, or you maybe someone else who's read this book or
• 29:55
  experienced other things has had that one thing with someone
• 29:57
  where it's like, don't do this. Like we need you, we love you
• 30:00
  kind of thing. And it just really touched so
• 30:04
  hard. You know, weirdly, one of the
• 30:06
  one of the short stories that really stuck to me was High
• 30:08
  Heeled Shoe. Yeah, yeah.
• 30:11
  Like there's this. I.
• 30:14
  Think her name is Aretha. I I'm obviously not pronouncing
• 30:18
  her very well, but she's the pregnant lady and her husband.
• 30:22
  Well, that doesn't explain the whole story, but her husband
• 30:24
  basically forces her to put on these high heels shoes at one
• 30:28
  point. And the.
• 30:31
  And there's this description of like the the lady can hear her
• 30:37
  unborn child to talk to her in a way of like, oh, mom, you're
• 30:40
  like putting too much pressure on me, you know, And that's like
• 30:43
  the weight of these like the shoes.
• 30:46
  And I just, I just had so much love for this lady because she
• 30:53
  was just doing like her typical role, you know, Yeah, producing
• 30:57
  children, which also got me on to that idea of like in this
• 31:00
  novel, it's still the same thing of like women's worth is
• 31:04
  associated with childbearing, but the love that she had for
• 31:09
  this unborn child. And also she's trying to like,
• 31:12
  uphold her what her husband wants, like.
• 31:14
  I yeah, I thought that story was so like almost it was, it's kind
• 31:19
  of bizarre, but it definitely like was in that theme of like
• 31:23
  there's something really awful happening to this woman and her
• 31:26
  husband's just like so overcome with like he's really angry at
• 31:30
  his brother about something and it's like he can't really think.
• 31:34
  I think there's some really like excellent parts of that.
• 31:36
  I'm just going to do a Hannah and read somewhat.
• 31:41
  It was. I don't really know if I
• 31:42
  understand 100% what this means, but she's basically at the end
• 31:47
  she's wearing those high heels and she's like walking.
• 31:50
  She's heavily pregnant but she's also really ill and pregnant and
• 31:54
  everyone's left her. So she's on her own and she's
• 31:57
  walking in these high heels and she knows she's doing damage to
• 32:00
  herself and she can like feel it throughout her body.
• 32:03
  She starts to fall and she grabs onto this man and she they
• 32:08
  mentioned she's never come face to face with a strange mom
• 32:11
  before in her life. So like there's this element of
• 32:13
  like horror from that. And then he's like, you need to
• 32:17
  take your shoes off. And she says these are devil
• 32:19
  shoes. Even if I remove them, I'll have
• 32:21
  to wear them again and again. And I don't really, I'm not 100%
• 32:25
  sure if I know what that means, but I kind of interpreted it as
• 32:28
  like she actually, in a metaphorical way, can never take
• 32:32
  these shoes off because she's always going to be a woman and
• 32:35
  she's always going to like almost mean nothing to her
• 32:37
  husband. Yeah.
• 32:39
  To me that stood out completely separate from the rest of the
• 32:42
  stories. It did feel a little maybe more
• 32:44
  wacky than the other stories, and one of my criticisms of that
• 32:50
  story was that it just felt like it went on too long and it was
• 32:54
  just page after page after page of her trying to walk in these
• 32:58
  high heels. That chapter stood out to me is
• 33:01
  like the fetishization of women and how men basically have these
• 33:09
  fetishes that they expect women to uphold.
• 33:12
  And even when women are doing their their job and that's
• 33:17
  expected within this culture of having a child, they are still
• 33:22
  expected to also carry out the fetishization of that that men
• 33:30
  desire. I.
• 33:32
  So I guess I think I took like a different meaning from I don't,
• 33:35
  I don't know. So I get what you mean because
• 33:38
  of the like shoes and the foot kind of thing.
• 33:40
  It was a bit like a long that kind of fetishization.
• 33:43
  But I kind of got the idea that there was something, I don't
• 33:47
  know the correct term for this, but like maybe mentally wrong
• 33:50
  with him. Like he wasn't like he, he was
• 33:53
  going through some kind of like breakdown because.
• 33:57
  It did like the jealousy and rage of his brother succeeding.
• 34:01
  Is he in Saudi Arabia or? Something because it didn't
• 34:04
  really scream like like like sexual fetishization to me at
• 34:09
  all. It kind of just seemed like
• 34:11
  there's some kind of something else going on with him from.
• 34:14
  Or like the idea to the shoes to me.
• 34:16
  Or like entrapment and not like trapped forever in hell.
• 34:20
  Yeah, and I think of like walking through heels.
• 34:22
  Yeah, there's there was another part of that story that like
• 34:25
  it's a really simple quote, but I was just like, this just sums
• 34:28
  up the whole thing. And so basically she's this is
• 34:33
  before the she's in the shoes, but she's like going through a
• 34:37
  lot of pain. She's like in agony with this
• 34:39
  like she's got a really bad cough.
• 34:42
  She's not well and she's pregnant.
• 34:44
  And basically it's like her husband noticed her condition,
• 34:48
  but he did not give out a priority, which is just like
• 34:51
  everything in this story. It's like woman has trouble.
• 34:54
  Man completely ignores, doesn't give A and then the next part
• 34:59
  it's like his brother. He's also in the story.
• 35:01
  He notices it too, Like he notices how I'll his
• 35:03
  sister-in-law is. And then he's like, but for his
• 35:06
  anger towards his younger brother and his fear of his
• 35:09
  wife, if not for those two things, he would have taken her
• 35:11
  to hospital and sell himself and ensured she got rested and
• 35:15
  recovered. So it's like he's able to
• 35:17
  recognize there's something wrong with this woman, but he's
• 35:19
  still like, oh, well, my bitterness towards my brother
• 35:22
  will stop me from doing all these things to help you.
• 35:25
  It just, it was just like such AI was really like, and it is
• 35:29
  just throughout all these stories, it's like the just
• 35:32
  complete disregard for women. It's just like.
• 35:38
  It honestly made me feel like we're like a token or something
• 35:42
  of like once we're used up or once they've got what they need
• 35:46
  from us, we're passed a lot of like, you know, you're passed
• 35:50
  inside, you know, left out to die and they go get someone new
• 35:55
  and the cycle repeats and repeats and repeats.
• 35:58
  Yeah, like it's just, yeah, it really got me.
• 36:02
  And yeah, because. The one the last story be a
• 36:06
  woman once. Oh Lord, that's.
• 36:07
  Brilliant. I really love.
• 36:09
  Absolutely fantastic. Yeah.
• 36:11
  The fact that the title of that short story is also the last
• 36:14
  line, it's just made me feel some sad.
• 36:17
  Like this woman, like, and their husband is like, oh, you don't
• 36:20
  give me like ₹50,000 Like, you're never going to see.
• 36:24
  Is it her grandmother ever again?
• 36:27
  And then once she gets sick, he's like, OK, I'm going, bye.
• 36:30
  I'm leaving. Yeah, the children.
• 36:31
  And I'm going to get myself a new wife like.
• 36:35
  And it's so sad about like, she has no access to her family.
• 36:37
  And I think that that's so scary as well.
• 36:39
  It's like she can't see her. She doesn't know what's happened
• 36:41
  to her parents. Her mom's died.
• 36:42
  Her husband doesn't tell her. Her mom husband doesn't let her
• 36:45
  go and see her mom's body. It's just so so I thought this
• 36:49
  one story was quite funny, but it's, even though it's not that
• 36:52
  funny, it's like, yeah, dark humor.
• 36:54
  But it's like this story where I think it's called Fire Rain or
• 36:58
  rain fire or something like that.
• 36:59
  But it's like, oh, yeah, yeah. It's like the middle Wally again
• 37:02
  is like almost a main character. He's the main character.
• 37:04
  And he's like, his son is really ill.
• 37:07
  And it's the story starts with him seeing his wife, like,
• 37:11
  tending to his son on the floor, and he just kicks her because
• 37:14
  he's so angry at her for like, no reason.
• 37:17
  He's getting really swept up with this whole scandal that's
• 37:20
  happened because of his position, like in the mosque.
• 37:23
  It's like he's getting swept up with this Muslim woman, sorry,
• 37:29
  Muslim man who's been fined and he's been buried in a Hindu
• 37:33
  grave. So he then that's obviously
• 37:37
  extremely awful to him and awful to the people.
• 37:41
  And it's like everyone all of a sudden tries to support him to
• 37:44
  get this man put into a Muslim grave and he just forgets about
• 37:49
  his wife and his ill son completely.
• 37:52
  But like the way she's written it, it's like you're kind of
• 37:55
  like wondering about this, like you forget about her too.
• 37:59
  Like I think that she does that throughout the stories.
• 38:01
  It's like you, you can forget about the women and you're like
• 38:04
  stuck in like the man's like the petty things that they're
• 38:07
  involved in. And then at the end, she always
• 38:09
  just hits you over the head with, oh, something awful has
• 38:12
  happened to like the woman. But also that story, I found it
• 38:16
  really funny when it's like, so they make this big scene and
• 38:20
  they get him from the Hindu grave to the Muslim grave.
• 38:23
  And the guy that they think is dead is like dancing at his own
• 38:27
  funeral and he's like drunk. And you're just like, oh, so
• 38:31
  like it was just so ridiculous. And the story was, I thought if
• 38:34
  I read that short story in like a collection of short stories, I
• 38:37
  think I would just, it's just brilliant.
• 38:39
  It's all the things. It was so good.
• 38:42
  Did anyone read I Know This? You've already read the A Taste
• 38:46
  of Heaven? Yeah.
• 38:48
  Where the child gives Is it be Daddy like the Pepsi and then
• 38:53
  she kind of like thinks it's a drink haven't drink of having.
• 38:56
  And then so one of the discussion points was why do you
• 39:00
  think B Daddy had such a strong reaction to the Pepsi and
• 39:03
  bluntly went along with what the children were saying?
• 39:06
  And. Just I don't know, I have to
• 39:09
  say. I see that story that's really
• 39:11
  actually made me feel a bit sick is so horrible.
• 39:14
  It's like the the the like delusion of that woman was just
• 39:20
  so soul destroying. It was so.
• 39:22
  Hard listen, the delusion is that she was drinking Pepsi, not
• 39:25
  Pepsi Max. We're passing Pakistan, yeah,
• 39:29
  but it's also the part where is it the child is like getting
• 39:31
  into debt almost, because he's going to buy all this Pepsi all
• 39:35
  the time. Yeah, Do I thought it was quite
• 39:37
  funny. Is like some of the stories are
• 39:38
  really didactic and you feel like they're going in a certain
• 39:40
  direction and you're like, this is the moral to the story.
• 39:43
  And yeah, you almost like you can follow them through.
• 39:45
  And then she does just I herself just through such a curveball.
• 39:49
  And I felt like that was just such a curveball.
• 39:51
  It was like, I didn't see at the start of this story that we were
• 39:55
  going to go into an old woman who is subsiding on Pepsi from
• 39:59
  your life. Like I'm a boy going in debt.
• 40:02
  I was like, I don't. I didn't expect that from the
• 40:04
  start of this story. I didn't know that was going to
• 40:06
  go there, maybe. The reason she's going along
• 40:09
  with this whole drink of heaven is maybe it's just that down to
• 40:11
  like elderly age or dementia or some other psychological factor
• 40:15
  and this is her coping. I just thought I was so sad.
• 40:18
  It was so sad. It's like The thing is just like
• 40:22
  because I know like with people with Jim mentioned, I think
• 40:25
  we've talked about this before possibly, but like same music
• 40:29
  and stuff that can be common. Is it Pepsi is her common thing.
• 40:34
  I did that one. I'm not going to lie, confused.
• 40:38
  There was one story I was so confused that so it was like
• 40:41
  soft whispers. So it's basically about a nine
• 40:44
  year old girl on her birthday. Oh yeah.
• 40:47
  So she's talking to all these adults at the start and you and
• 40:50
  I feel like the intention is that like she's a child, she
• 40:54
  doesn't understand. So she keeps saying I don't
• 40:55
  really know what they mean. And I was like, I don't think I
• 40:57
  know what they mean either. She was being intentional and I
• 41:03
  wasn't supposed to understand it.
• 41:04
  But I read that story twice and I still was like, I think I'm
• 41:08
  too sick to know what's going on.
• 41:09
  But but in some strange way it did help because I did feel like
• 41:13
  an 8 year old child when I read it because I was like talking
• 41:16
  and I don't know what's happening.
• 41:18
  The short stories are a way of enriching and preserving this,
• 41:23
  like oral traditions of Canada, Urdu and Arabic.
• 41:29
  So is it just like a different style that we're used to?
• 41:33
  But one of my things, right? Yearly stories, OK.
• 41:37
  And they hit hard and they're emotional and they get you to
• 41:39
  think about all these issues. And then you get like the second
• 41:42
  last I think, story where the guy is like obsessed with the
• 41:46
  cauliflower. Is it?
• 41:48
  Yeah. And you're like, what is the
• 41:50
  meaning? Like to be fair, I really like
• 41:52
  cauliflower, so I. I get it.
• 41:54
  Yeah, I completely understand. It's a normal guy.
• 41:57
  I mean, I think the point in that book and sorry, in that
• 42:00
  story, it's like this guy is just a normal guy.
• 42:04
  Like he seems like, you know, he's a teacher and he's, he's,
• 42:07
  well, regard it anyway. I mean, long and short of it,
• 42:10
  this man is abusing his future wife.
• 42:13
  Uh, and. It just.
• 42:15
  Oh yeah, I forgot that part. Yeah, I think the whole point is
• 42:17
  that like, I think, I think this is the thing.
• 42:20
  He's also, I mean, there's something not right with him,
• 42:22
  obviously, like if he's, you know, obsessing over this dish
• 42:25
  and he needs this, a woman to make this dish exactly how he
• 42:29
  wants it. Uh, but I think that that just
• 42:32
  kind of highlights the power imbalance here of like a man can
• 42:35
  kind of get away with this. And, and they've gone like he's
• 42:39
  in, uh, in his like, umm, they get him like kicked out of his
• 42:45
  mosque, his local mosque. And I think he has a job doing
• 42:49
  something in the, in the mosque. I can't remember, but they kick
• 42:52
  him out and he, uh, you know, that still doesn't stop him.
• 42:56
  Like they can't that that's it. Like they then go to this lawyer
• 42:59
  to try and get her to do something about it.
• 43:01
  But it just shows how how powerless these women are.
• 43:04
  Like just because he is requesting this dish, he gets
• 43:06
  away with what he wants. You know, it's a strange, it is
• 43:09
  a strange story. I love that you're reminding me
• 43:12
  of what the story was really about, because all day today
• 43:14
  I've been like cauliflower it. Sounds delicious.
• 43:18
  I mean, I've had cauliflower like today and yesterday.
• 43:22
  I'm a big I, don't I. Love cauliflower, I love it.
• 43:24
  Yeah, I mean unsung hero. I'm a broccoli fan, not a
• 43:28
  cauliflower one. Reppin the cruciferous.
• 43:30
  The cruciferous family. I had to ask you guys.
• 43:35
  I'd of all all the short stories, like I know that's not
• 43:37
  all of us have finished them all, but I know all the short
• 43:40
  stories. Which one has been your
• 43:42
  favorite? Lucy, give us give us your best
• 43:45
  show. I think they're all really good.
• 43:47
  So yeah, I think I've I've said the ones that really stuck out
• 43:52
  to me. I think that are on the kind of
• 43:53
  theme that I feel like I've been talking about.
• 43:55
  We're like fiery and black cobras heart lamp and be a woman
• 44:01
  once. Oh Lord, and but like I'm I find
• 44:06
  it hard to say that I really didn't enjoy any.
• 44:08
  I mean, I suppose I think that the shroud was maybe quite like
• 44:13
  I knew where it was going kind of, and that was maybe one that
• 44:17
  I was a wee bit like if I was going to say my least favorite,
• 44:20
  but I find it hard to say my least favorite about it.
• 44:24
  What do you think, Colin, are the ones you've read so far?
• 44:26
  Is there one that sticks out to you?
• 44:28
  I think Heartland, I think I can see why it's been chosen as the
• 44:33
  like the lead story in a way, and at least the title has been
• 44:36
  been chosen for. I think it kind of hits home the
• 44:39
  main themes that that like that Banu is going for with this
• 44:43
  collection. Yeah, Besides that, the other
• 44:47
  ones I think I like, as weird as it is, I like the Arabic teacher
• 44:52
  and the Gobi Manchuri. It is a strange one, but I love
• 44:56
  cauliflower so. So you know I'm.
• 44:59
  Going to have to start asking everyone for their cauliflower
• 45:01
  recipe so I can get on this hype train.
• 45:04
  What did you think Aaron? What's your What's out of the
• 45:07
  ones you've read so far? So honestly, all of these ones
• 45:11
  that everyone's mentioning I skimmed through.
• 45:16
  I could not get engaged with it and I do have to admit that I
• 45:20
  missed some of the elements of of what were discussed.
• 45:26
  I don't know why, but some of these short stories just did not
• 45:29
  capture my attention, and hearing you discuss them makes
• 45:36
  me regret that I missed out on these elements.
• 45:41
  Yeah, I I don't even know why. I I honestly think this is maybe
• 45:46
  a weird one because we haven't mentioned it, but the one that
• 45:48
  really stuck out to me was A Decision of the Heart, which was
• 45:52
  about the man who has a wife and his mother.
• 45:56
  And I think that's the one and where the the wife and the
• 46:01
  mother do not get along with each other.
• 46:04
  Basically the wife is like an abusive partner and anytime that
• 46:09
  the husband does anything to look after his mother, she is
• 46:13
  verbally abusive towards him. And then she starts to turn
• 46:19
  almost physically abusive where she drops a watermelon and then
• 46:24
  fires it against a wall, umm to like anger him.
• 46:28
  And then he starts to beat her. He beats her a few times and the
• 46:33
  IT gets very violent between the two of them.
• 46:37
  I I'm not saying it's a great story, but it's the one that
• 46:41
  stuck out to me the most. My favorite 1 was Heartland and
• 46:44
  like if I had to choose, I know we touched it earlier about, I
• 46:48
  think some of us struggled about the different cultural
• 46:51
  differences in that. And not necessarily that a novel
• 46:55
  has to be relatable, but I think if there is something in a novel
• 46:59
  that's relatable or it peaks like an interest of mine, then
• 47:04
  there's something that really sticks out for me and makes me
• 47:07
  love it even more. So the interaction at the end
• 47:11
  between the mother and the daughter just really stuck to
• 47:15
  me. And I think, yeah, it's really
• 47:18
  just stayed with me. So I think I recall that one.
• 47:21
  My favorite out of them. Do you think Heart Lap is a good
• 47:24
  title? Is it a Colin title?
• 47:26
  I like I like it, but I actually think again, it's quite hard to
• 47:31
  like read like name a short story collection, but I think
• 47:34
  maybe a more fitting title would just be using one of the other
• 47:36
  titles and I think be a woman once, Oh Lord, would be
• 47:41
  actually. Quite a good.
• 47:42
  Title for the collection because I think again, that hits home
• 47:45
  like. While that story wasn't
• 47:46
  necessarily my favorite one, I think it still hits home the
• 47:50
  idea of like this, how this religion is impacting these
• 47:56
  women and how if if this God, I can't even Rab Rab, I'm not even
• 48:01
  going to try to pronounce it. If this God was born a woman,
• 48:05
  then they would have a better understanding.
• 48:06
  Maybe women would be treated better.
• 48:08
  So I think that's why maybe it would be a better title for this
• 48:10
  collection. But I do think Heartland kind of
• 48:13
  stands out. And that was like my favorite
• 48:14
  story in the collection, So no shade.
• 48:18
  So I think that there's almost a disconnect with this book and me
• 48:23
  as a reader, I don't want to speak for the rest of you, but
• 48:27
  for me to get into the book and to understand what's happening,
• 48:33
  it almost felt like a fantasy or a sci-fi story.
• 48:36
  And because we were being introduced to a world, a
• 48:40
  culture, religion that I'm not personally familiar with, which
• 48:47
  is similar to to fantasy world, but in a fantasy novel, they
• 48:52
  know that the reader is not familiar with, with this setting
• 48:56
  because it's brand new. It's it's from the imagination
• 48:58
  of the author. So they slowly explain things
• 49:03
  and and you're provided with full understanding.
• 49:06
  While this book is clearly not written for Western readers and
• 49:12
  I think it it very much is written for the people in South
• 49:18
  India and so is that what they can get these perspectives, I
• 49:24
  felt lost at multiple points throughout.
• 49:29
  I was confused. I do appreciate the cultural
• 49:33
  references and I think it it really for me is interesting to
• 49:38
  get an insight into that. But maybe I'm a little bit of a
• 49:42
  dumb reader and I need my hand held a little bit so I can
• 49:47
  understand things a little easier.
• 49:50
  I don't know if the rest of you thought that way, but I think
• 49:52
  that might be. I think the fault might be me in
• 49:56
  the reading, not the actual text itself.
• 50:00
  Yeah, I guess I probably couldn't disagree more, but
• 50:05
  yeah, like I think there was a couple of times where they
• 50:08
  mentioned like a prayer map, but I don't think it was like, wow,
• 50:11
  this is a different world. I didn't feel like a Mars.
• 50:17
  Also, it just seems wild to me that you think I'm baffled.
• 50:23
  I think I think using the keeping the those things in
• 50:27
  without like spanning on them too much adds like a level of
• 50:29
  authenticity and like like you say, like you don't think it's
• 50:32
  written for like a white like European audience.
• 50:35
  I I don't really like. I think, yes, she's writing this
• 50:39
  from her point of view, but I don't think that alienates or
• 50:41
  leaves out another another complete audience.
• 50:44
  Like think about like some of the greatest like works of
• 50:47
  fiction, like classics are read all over the world, translated
• 50:50
  into like, you know, hundreds of languages.
• 50:52
  And like, sure, they might not be completely relatable, but
• 50:56
  it's still you're still reading other people's experiences to
• 50:58
  experience more of what like beyond what you could, what you
• 51:02
  can experience. And I think Banu probably is
• 51:06
  writing for the people, yes, for herself as well, but she's also
• 51:09
  probably writing so other people are informed and can experience
• 51:13
  her own her own experience. It's like writers don't aim to
• 51:16
  just keep it, you know, within they're trying to get it
• 51:20
  without, you know, they're trying to spread, spread their
• 51:24
  stories all over. Yeah, I think at the start I was
• 51:27
  almost maybe feeling a bit like iron of like thinking that oh, I
• 51:32
  can't like the relatability or the cult.
• 51:34
  There's a cultural like differences.
• 51:36
  And then I was like, why is that?
• 51:37
  Because I have to start like the last few years, I've really got
• 51:42
  into translated fiction, but the main thing I read is Japanese
• 51:45
  translated fiction. And obviously I'm not going to
• 51:47
  relate to everything that a Japanese person goes through or
• 51:50
  their cultural experiences. And then I was like, no, I need
• 51:53
  to immerse myself in this novel more.
• 51:54
  And I think that this is the opportunity for me to expand
• 51:59
  beyond Japanese translated novels and, and get more into
• 52:04
  like these types because I think there's more out there that I
• 52:08
  can learn. I think that's what I took from
• 52:09
  this novel the most. There's more like cultural
• 52:12
  things I can learn, more experiences like.
• 52:16
  I don't know if anyone else felt that way.
• 52:18
  I thought it was, I don't know. I just really thought it was
• 52:20
  quite straight, like not like I thought it was quite
• 52:23
  straightforward. I just think every so often they
• 52:25
  use a different word for prayer and like, maybe that's it.
• 52:29
  I just Google it like I don't understand.
• 52:33
  No, I think I get some the efforts up, like that extra
• 52:36
  little bit of effort. Like sometimes I don't
• 52:37
  understand a word. I don't necessarily like run to
• 52:39
  the dictionary. And I think sometimes for me,
• 52:42
  when I'm not in the right mental space to read and there's this
• 52:46
  feeling of there has to be a little extra bit of effort in to
• 52:49
  understand it, then that just makes me get frustrated.
• 52:52
  And it's not the novel's fault. It's me.
• 52:55
  Yeah. And, and that's where I'm coming
• 52:56
  from. I'm, I'm not saying that it's a
• 52:58
  critique of the novel or of the short stories.
• 53:02
  It's a critique of me and, and the way that I read.
• 53:07
  Obviously I'm relatively new to, to reading books and so I'm not
• 53:12
  used to maybe a bit of more of a challenge.
• 53:19
  And it's, it's not necessarily that, oh, there was one word or
• 53:23
  a couple of words that I didn't understand.
• 53:26
  It was a mix of there were phrases that were at some point
• 53:30
  untranslated. There were words obviously I
• 53:33
  could understand with context clues and but just the cultural
• 53:38
  differences and the hierarchy and the just those cultural
• 53:45
  elements, I felt like I was, it's, I was exploring a new
• 53:51
  world. And I don't mean that an
• 53:53
  exoticism kind of way of someone else's culture.
• 53:57
  I just mean it in a way of it's different from the world that I
• 54:00
  live in. And I thought it was very
• 54:02
  interesting, but I did feel a little lost.
• 54:07
  Who is she, you know, because she's obviously written these
• 54:09
  short stories over a long period of time.
• 54:10
  And it's like, who is she writing them for?
• 54:12
  And I originally when I started reading them, I kind of was
• 54:14
  like, is she writing them to like maybe appeal to like men
• 54:17
  and maybe make them understand like what it's like for a woman
• 54:21
  in this world or what it's like for a woman specifically in this
• 54:23
  area? And I kind of got to the
• 54:25
  conclusion, yeah, I don't think that that she is.
• 54:27
  I think she's trying to maybe empower women in the area to
• 54:31
  understand their like how unfair it is to them.
• 54:35
  Another book that I was kind of thinking about a lot when I was
• 54:39
  reading Heartlamp, but I don't know if any of you guys have
• 54:41
  read it, but it's Tenant of Wildfeld Hall, which is an, an
• 54:45
  Bronte book. So it's basically about this
• 54:47
  woman who she's very Christian and she, she marries a man.
• 54:54
  This is like the 1800s and she marries a man.
• 54:56
  And because she's so uneducated, it's like she's like, I suppose
• 54:59
  back in the day, like men could go out and live in the world and
• 55:02
  she can't, you know, because she's a woman, she's just kind
• 55:04
  of limited to her understanding of what's going on in the world.
• 55:08
  So she marries this man and he ends up being like abusive,
• 55:13
  horrible to her. But because she's submitted to
• 55:16
  him when she marries him by saying that and in front of God,
• 55:19
  she's no kind of forced to live this life where he's not obeying
• 55:24
  the Bible and he's not living like this life.
• 55:27
  But because he's her husband, it doesn't matter anymore.
• 55:30
  It's like she has to and she just had like, it's kind of very
• 55:34
  similar to a lot of the stories in this book.
• 55:36
  It's the time of the week, guys. What are you going to read the
• 55:38
  book? I kind of controversially asked
• 55:42
  Aaron first. I just want to see his low
• 55:44
  score. Well, I honestly, I started this
• 55:49
  thinking this is going to be a two out of five, but accepting
• 55:55
  that I missed elements and overlooked a lot of the themes,
• 56:01
  I'm going to bump it up to a three.
• 56:03
  And I know that's not a huge bump, but I still wasn't
• 56:09
  captured in in every single story.
• 56:12
  I I don't know if that was completely me or or if it was
• 56:16
  issues that I had with the writing and but yeah, I'm going
• 56:19
  to give it a three out of five and it's not what do you for me?
• 56:24
  I don't think it's going to be a winner.
• 56:26
  OK, Lucy, what do you think? I feel like Lucy and Iron are
• 56:30
  most controversial figures. So I absolutely loved it.
• 56:32
  I was really moved by it. I'm going to give it a four.
• 56:35
  And I do. And I knew because it's like, I
• 56:38
  feel like it's because it's a short story collection and
• 56:41
  because I think the writing is amazing, but there is just that
• 56:44
  thing that pushes it to like a there's a limit to how good.
• 56:48
  Yeah, I think. I think it's if this was, if a
• 56:52
  couple of those stories were in like a short story competition,
• 56:56
  100% I would be like, they deserve it.
• 56:59
  Like, because they are really amazing and I know I would
• 57:01
  really enjoy them if they were like dispersed through a
• 57:04
  collection or something. But yeah, just you, you don't
• 57:09
  really get to the you, just a through line with one character.
• 57:14
  I think is is the best way to tell fiction.
• 57:16
  Sorry, Banner. Colin, what do you think?
• 57:20
  This week I. Mean building up but but both
• 57:23
  Aaron and Lucy have said I think yeah, I'm not like short stories
• 57:27
  they're not really my like my go to and I think that's going to
• 57:31
  affect the score and also I haven't read all of them so I
• 57:33
  feel it feels almost wrong giving it like a full rating.
• 57:37
  I, I mean, I'm going to go with a tentative 3 out of five
• 57:40
  because while the story, some of the stories I really did like,
• 57:43
  there are others that didn't quite reach me as much.
• 57:45
  And this is the problem with this short story collection.
• 57:48
  You kind of have to read it for the whole as opposed to an
• 57:50
  individual story. Some of these stories like
• 57:52
  Heartland, I'm like, that's five to me, but some of the others
• 57:56
  dragged that down. So yeah, I'm going to give it a
• 57:59
  three out of five. Yeah, for me, I think if you'd
• 58:01
  asked me at the start of the week, it was like a 2.
• 58:03
  But I think that was me because I was in a mood.
• 58:08
  I really loved the book and I loved the message that Banni has
• 58:12
  got across through the selection of the short stories.
• 58:17
  For me, I just think the writing style, at times I just felt
• 58:19
  quite disconnected or I had to reread a few pages to like get
• 58:24
  back in it. Um, so for me this week I am
• 58:26
  going to give it a three. We also have the thoughts from
• 58:29
  Sarah at Zazu Reads on Instagram and she has given us her
• 58:34
  predictions. So I've read the whole shortlist
• 58:37
  for the Tasha Booker and I'm really torn.
• 58:40
  On a personal level, I loved Small Bow.
• 58:42
  I think it's so incredibly important and timely in terms of
• 58:46
  the subject matter. I think it's really well written
• 58:49
  and the translation is really phenomenal and kind of the notes
• 58:53
  and the actual story itself kind of just will stand against the
• 58:58
  test of time. However, I do think on the
• 59:01
  calculation of volume will win. It's a really original story, a
• 59:06
  really well done translation. I mean, who'd have thought
• 59:09
  reading about the same day over and over would be so compelling?
• 59:13
  It's been a really strong year there for translated fiction and
• 59:16
  I don't envy kind of the judges choice and nor do I kind of envy
• 59:20
  having to choose between the books that are on the shortlist.
• 59:24
  It's been a good year. Yeah, I agree with her.
• 59:26
  It has been a really good year for the book.
• 59:28
  And like I think everything's been quite accessible and short,
• 59:31
  which was really like usually there's someones that are
• 59:34
  really. Yes, thank you judges, for
• 59:36
  giving us a nice easy shortlist. Definitely.
• 59:41
  They all could have had like a Theme 1 theme, so it's kind of
• 59:44
  nice. We'll be getting into our
• 59:46
  rankings in tomorrow's episode just ahead of tomorrow evening's
• 59:51
  announcement of the winner. We will be releasing an episode
• 59:55
  tomorrow morning with our rankings of our favorites and
• 1:00:00
  trying to predict who which book we think.
• 1:00:03
  Is going to actually win the award so you can get in touch
• 1:00:07
  with us and share your thoughts on heart lamp and you can do
• 1:00:11
  that on social media. We are on Twitter, Facebook and
• 1:00:15
  Instagram. Just search bookies favorite and
• 1:00:19
  we should show up or just go to the description down below.
• 1:00:22
  Down there you will also find a link to our e-mail address so
• 1:00:27
  you can send us your thoughts. You would love to know your
• 1:00:29
  rankings ahead of the announcement and we will.
• 1:00:33
  We'll share that on social media if you send it to us and tag us.
• 1:00:37
  Lucy, do we have Goodreads? Yes Hannah, we do have
• 1:00:39
  Goodreads. If you look up Goodreads, the
• 1:00:42
  bookies favorite book club, then you will find some of our
• 1:00:46
  excellent reviews. Please give us a like.
• 1:00:49
  We are desperate at this point. Bookies out.
• 1:00:53
  Bookies out. Bye, bye, bye.