he Forlorn Lover by Hussain Haider Zaidi is unlike most contemporary Pakistani novels. Gothic in tone, it grapples with fundamental questions of love, life, society and death, linking characters who are all burdened by their own enigmas and the weariness of the physical world. Unlike much recent Pakistani fiction, the novel does not engage with ideas of marginalisation or subalternity; nor does it present colonialism as the root cause of its characters’ suffering. This appears to be a deliberate choice on the author’s part.

The novel begins as a simple love story. Its opening chapters depict a calm and peaceful society, much like that portrayed in many Pakistani television plays. Such dramas often present an idealised vision of urban and rural life before a single incident transforms harmony into conflict. Zaidi follows a similar pattern. What begins as an ordinary romance gradually takes a darker, almost magical turn. Gradually, the mystery deepens, tensions mount and an atmosphere of unease settles over the narrative.

Although The Forlorn Lover is, at heart, a tragic love story, it also touches on an Epicurean lifestyle. This may be intended to ease the novel’s emotional intensity and offer the reader a brief respite, although that is open to debate. Through the use of magical realism, Zaidi ultimately mystifies both love and thanatophobia.

The novel and its author dwell extensively on two themes: suffering and death. The narrative repeatedly asks whether suffering is inseparable from life, whether it is inevitable and whether the two are, in fact, synonymous. It also raises the question of death: is it an escape from suffering or its antidote? These are philosophically and theoretically charged questions.

Philosophers, writers and thinkers have approached them from various historical, cultural and ideological perspectives, yet no universally acceptable answer has emerged. From the idea of the will to suffer to questions of “how much we [women] bear while reading a male creative author,” the answers remain subjective, personal and contextual. Writers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett explored suffering in depth, but none arrived at a definitive answer. Instead, their work continued to oscillate between scepticism, existentialism, uncertainty, doubt, transience, meaninglessness, purposelessness and defiance.

What begins as an ordinary romance gradually takes a darker, almost magical turn. 

In some places, The Forlorn Lover reads almost like a cartography of love, death, graveyards, graves and lovers. Rather than simply narrating events, it frequently pauses to describe and interpret them. The novel can also appear overtly opinionated at least in some episodes. The accumulation of commentary and pervasive fear in such scenarios can diminish the reader’s engagement.

Many mystery novels resolve the horror of specific events through defamiliarisation, drawing the reader into the narrative rather than overwhelming them. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, the Booker Prize-winning novel by Shehan Karunatilaka, is one such example. Its murdered protagonist is granted seven months to unravel the mystery of his death. As he journeys through the city in a rubbish trolley in search of his killers, the novel remains grotesque yet never makes the reader feel trapped by fear or in direct communion with death. The Forlorn Lover, by contrast, creates a more immediate sense of dread, prompting the reader to wonder whether the same fate might befall them. Some of its scenes are particularly graphic and steeped in horror.

The novel also asserts its South Asian identity through its engagement with the concept of karma, one of its central themes. As a philosophical idea deeply rooted in South Asian religious and cultural traditions, karma shapes the novel’s exploration of love, suffering and death.

The Forlorn Lover is, therefore, an important read for those interested in the darker contours of love, fear and suffering, rendered in often graphic detail. It invites readers to reflect on the significance of death, presenting it as the only possible antidote to human suffering.

The Forlorn Lover

Author: Hussain Zaidi

Publisher: Nigarishat

Publishers

Pages: 384

Price: Rs 2,000

The reviewer is pursuing a PhD in English literature.