The Wasted Vigil
Quotes from the Book
Women joked amongst themselves: 'Why do you think a bride cries on her wedding day? It's for the love that this marriage is putting an end to for all eternity. Men may think a woman has no past- "you were born and then I married you"- but men are fools.
There are times in this life when a person must do or say things he doesn't want to. Human beings and chains, it is the oldest acquaintanceship in the world.
Nothing is an accident: it's always someone's fault; perhaps-but no one teaches us how to live with our mistakes. Everyone is isolated, alone with his or her anguish and guilt, and too penetrating a question can mean people are not able to face one another the next day.
All great artists know that part of their task is to light up the distance between two human beings.
The neighbourhood is a place of...intrigue and emotional espionage, where when two people stop to talk on the street, their tongues are like the two halves of a scissor coming together, cutting reputations and good names to shreds.
There is nothing that torments Satan more than the sight of a faithful in prayer.
A lie does not become truth just because ten people are telling it.
He would drift through the house in search of the coolest spot to read through the long summer afternoons that had a touch of eternity to them, altering the arrangement of his limbs as much for comfort as for the fear that his undisturbed shadow would leave a stain on the wall.
Watch on YouTube
About Nadeem Aslam
More by Nadeem Aslam
The Wasted Vigil
The Blind Man's Garden
About the book
If Gabriel García Márquez had chosen to write about Pakistani immigrants in England, he might have produced a novel as beautiful and devastating as Maps for Lost Lovers.
Jugnu and Chanda have disappeared. Like thousands of people all over England, they were lovers and living together out of wedlock. To Chanda’s family, however, the disgrace was unforgivable. Perhaps enough so as to warrant murder. As he explores the disappearance and its aftermath through the eyes of Jugnu’s worldly older brother, Shamas, and his devout wife, Kaukab, Nadeem Aslam creates a closely observed and affecting portrait of people whose traditions threaten to bury them alive. The result is a tour de force, intimate, affecting, tragic and suspenseful.
Book details
- First published
- 2004
- Author
- Nadeem Aslam
- Genre
- Fiction
- Goodreads rating
- 3.78 (3k ratings)
Keep reading
The Shadow of the Wind
The Blind Man's Garden
The Jewel in the Crown
The Clockmaker's Daughter
Alias Grace
City of Stairs
The Luminaries
The Illusion of Separateness
The High Mountains of Portugal
The Woman in the White Kimono
The Lacuna
The Screwtape Letters
Middlemarch
Desperate Remedies
A Luminous Republic
A Room with a View
White Teeth
Life... Love... Kumbh...
Are We There Yet?
The Wasted Vigil
A Tale of Love and Darkness
Fall of Light
Death Watch
Identity
The Shadowglass
The Devils
In Search of Lost Time
The Golden Tresses of the Dead
The Signature of All Things
The Island of Missing Trees
The Darkness That Comes Before
The Lives of Others
Red Sister
The Fall of Babel
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Embers
One Way Street And Other Writings
There Are Rivers in the Sky
The Kite Runner
A Widow for One Year
Fugitive Pieces
Shame
Natchez Burning
From the Corner of His Eye
The Devil Takes You Home
Jane Steele
The Grace of Kings
The Death of the Heart
Chain of Thorns
The Secret Lives of People in Love
Aphorisms on Love and Hate
Ghosts of Harvard
Lud-in-the-Mist
The Blythes Are Quoted
The Cat's Table
Varina
Familiaris
1Q84
The Spy
The Crossing

