International Booker long list always bring some amazing books whose existence I would never have known about. This one is a mixture of Marquez and RuInternational Booker long list always bring some amazing books whose existence I would never have known about. This one is a mixture of Marquez and Rushdi's varients of magical realism set in Iran. There might be a few imperfections and there are a few things I didn't fully understand but I loved most of it.
If you like reading about book lovers, you will love it, and there are Iranian fantasy creatures and ghosts and there are love stories and it is a novel about political and social atmosphere of Iran and there are ghosts and there is also a needlessly and ridiculously long sentence - just like this one but far bigger and the prose is simply beautiful. Sometimes it seemed that Azar was trying to use all literary devices ever invented but this is definitely one of best novels from among the few I have read from Iran....more
Rushdie's novels have some motifs that repeat a lot - broken families spread across the worlds, references to Bollywood, Hollywood, political figures,Rushdie's novels have some motifs that repeat a lot - broken families spread across the worlds, references to Bollywood, Hollywood, political figures, sci-fic, other literature and alll sorts of other cultural figures, socio-political commentary etc. He is an amazing author, incredible story teller - that is, when he does have an incredible story to tell, as with Midnight Children but most of his lesser novels barely hold togather because of chaotic ways he has, almost exploding with amount of world he wants to contain in them.
What might probably make it one of his better books is that chaos are basically a theme within the novel - trying to reflect the chaos of our modern world, where satire becomes real, the elections of two world's biggest democracies are won by the persons who most manage to entertain the public most, musicians win Nobel prize for literature, the wars for peace, defense departments buying weapons of mass destruction, the examples go on and on but I am in no mood to be eloquent. Rushdie does a good job to show those chaos.
The theme of worlds of fiction and reality merging togather is another theme which though hardly originally is very well done - not only Brother's (the author-protagonist in book) world show mergance with that of Quichotte, the character of his novel - and their similarities with one another, but but Rushdie himself has similarities with characters of his novel - there are many instances but the most powerful of them is that Brother's prose style is same as that of Rushdie. Look at this quote about Brother, the other protagonist of the story:
"He knew that other writers could make masterpieces out of accounts of tea parties (e.g., the Mad Hatter’s) or dinner parties (e.g., Mrs. Dalloway’s) or, if you were Leopold Bloom, out of a day spent walking around a city while your wife was being unfaithful to you back home, but Brother had always needed blood. It was an age of blood, not of tea, he told himself (and others, from time to time)."
I can see why booker people short listed this book after ignoring last couple of Rusdhie's works.
To be honest, my problem with this book was opposite of problem I normally have with books - it was too small, it needed to be much bigger, much, much bigger to contain the whole world and provide a proper growth to themes it touches only superficially. Quichotte and his son needed more adventures to accomplish the amobitious project this book had taken. It seems to me that authors, especially ones who are very successful feel compelled (or actual pressure from publishers) to release a book every couple of years, and launch the books which might still have much more potential. If only books were like mobile apps that could be updated with improvements after their release!
Some quotes: ▪ Sometimes the story being told was wiser than the teller.
▪ One made the finest cloth one could with such skills as one had, accompanied by, one hoped, the humility lacked by Arachne when she challenged Athena and insulted the gods. (However, if it was true that Arachne’s tapestry, which showed how the gods had abused humans, especially Zeus with all his rapes, was superior to Athena’s, then she was all for Arachne, and vengeful Athena, spidering her opponent, didn’t come out of the story at all well.) But now, discontinuity ruled. Yesterday meant nothing and could not help you build tomorrow. Life had become a series of vanishing photographs, posted every day, gone the next. One had no story anymore. Character, narrative, history, were all dead. Only the flat caricature of the instant remained, and that was what one was judged by.
▪ “It builds up, the resentment. It piles up like New York garbage. Then something comes along and gives it a shove and after that, get out of the way of the avalanche if you can.”
▪ I’ve been writing about the end of the world, he thought, and what I was really doing was imagining death. My own, masquerading as everyone else’s. A private ending redescribed as a universal one.
▪ When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished,” Czesław Miłosz once said
▪ He said he was trying also to write about impossible, obsessional love, father-son relationships, sibling quarrels, and yes, unforgivable things; about Indian immigrants, racism toward them, crooks among them; about cyber-spies, science fiction, the intertwining of fictional and “real” realities, the death of the author, the end of the world. He told her he wanted to incorporate elements of the parodic, and of satire and pastiche. Nothing very ambitious, then, she said. And it’s about opioid addiction, too, he added.
▪ Haven’t you heard about British doctors?” she said. “They don’t like giving their patients medicines for what ails them. They think medicine is bad for sick people.”
▪ Everyone wanted youth now. How tedious that was! Young Indiana Jones. Young Han Solo. Young Sherlock Holmes. Young Dumbledore. Any minute now there would be a mini-series about the young Methuselah. As an older person he wanted the trend to be reversed. How about Old Sex in the City? Old Friends? Old Girls? Old Gossip Girl? Old Housewives? Old Bachelors? How about old models on the runway? (Victoria, after all, had lived to be a very old queen, and no doubt still, in her old age, had her secrets.) Sure, The Golden Girls, okay. But that was just one show. How about Old Simpsons? How about an Old Fonz in Happy Days Got Older?
▪ He now understood that this loosening was perhaps not only physical but also ethical, that when violence was done to a person, then violence entered the range of what that person—previously peaceable and law-abiding—afterwards included in the spectrum of what was possible. It became an option....more
Even if you leave alone magical realism, there is a hint of Marquez in this author's prose. If that doesn't sell the book, I don't know what will. JusEven if you leave alone magical realism, there is a hint of Marquez in this author's prose. If that doesn't sell the book, I don't know what will. Just look at this:
"After two days in the hospital, Komar asked to be taken home and said firmly to Mameh, “Don’t call for any more doctors. I’m healthy enough to wait for my grave to be dug.”
"The city government was said to have given him a plot of land in the heroes’ cemetery as a reward for his service, something he described as an invitation to die quickly. "
The references to classics and mythological tales celebrate storytelling traditions. In fact, the story itself is a retelling of an ancient myth.
The story itself, told in a non-linear manner and from a shifting point of view, though is very simple - that of two dysfunctional families. The tiger seemed to me no more than symbol of repressed anger of a kid over domestic violence (child becomes tiger the way Bruce becomes hulk) and mistreatment of his mother and about how hard and violent instincts of a community which has found peace after long period of violent disturbances and wars; find new ways to show up (animal hunting games, fighting games for youth, domestic violence). The post-war atmosphere shows up as a theme in many other ways (the retired major, rusted samurai swords, the army needing local criminals to have their fun with etc. )
Another motif is people believing that things are coming out of them used to show people showing shock at themselves/ their own behavior (the way hulk refused to be identified with the other guy). While the tigress coming out of a man is an obvious example, the other example would be that of his sister:
Every morning her chest size seemed to have expanded overnight, a thought that sometimes made her wonder if a separate woman wasn’t starting to emerge from the teenage girl. "
Other beautiful lines :
" It was almost dark when the sandy red soil finally covered him. The gravedigger slowly stepped on this soil, but didn’t make it too compact, as a mandatory precaution lest the dead should be resurrected. "
"He also had a feeling that the baby was a girl because, as people said, that’s how it is when a woman suddenly becomes exceptionally beautiful during pregnancy. "
You know how people say that some books are ahead of their time. I think Woolf's Orlando is a book which probably won't be understood for another decaYou know how people say that some books are ahead of their time. I think Woolf's Orlando is a book which probably won't be understood for another decade or so.
The sudden change of Orlando's sex and his several centuries old existence along with/her very easy acceptance of those things rings of magical realism. The fantastic bit that of Orlando's living through several centuries is used to develop the book into what looked like a poem on the spirit of Time. Through different ages, Orlando tastes the life and literary trends of each time, herself changing and maturing over tim, and all this is portrayed in Woolf's beautiful prose.
This is also supposed to be a sort of tribute/love-letter to Woolf's friend, Vita, I don't know how.
However what was hardest for me to digest (really hard) was that Orlando didn't notice the change of her sex for several days (really, really hard.) And (s)he only noticed it when (s)he started getting in touch with other people, and his/her further experiences to seem to validate the theory that gender behavior is induced by social expectations (rather than something inherent), a nurture thing rather than nature. I don't think such a theory existed at the time the novel was written. Even the best psychologists like Freud thought the gender differences are inherent in sex.
Even now, we tend to use the words 'sex' and gender' interchangeably. Psychologists differentiate between two, sex is a biological characteristic determined by one's private parts while gender is a social construct includes all the attributes (stereotypes, roles, behavior etc) that society expects from people of each sex.
Thus male and female are sexes, while masculinity and feminity are genders. Too technical, isn't it!.Woolf was pointing the difference between two and proposing that gender is a social construct (something society conditions us into though tools like clothes, language etc.), so loved by feminists, quarter a century before the term 'gender role' was coined. And she does it in subtle and, at times, hilarious manner.
Still, I think it is too big an exaggeration to say Orlando won't notice the change for days. Any guy will smell a difference when he wakes up one day and .. lo, he has breasts ... I mean obviously ......more
"All language is a set of symbols whose use among its speakers assumes a shared past."
.... and so there must be things beyond describing po
"All language is a set of symbols whose use among its speakers assumes a shared past."
.... and so there must be things beyond describing powers of language. What if some day you were to come across a thing or an experience who is nothing like shared past? The human impulse to communicate must find a let out, and where mere words are not enough we need poetry:
Daneri’s real work lay not in the poetry but in his invention of reasons why the poetry should be admired.
Daneri, like most good poets, didn’t invent reasons, he found them - found them in the inexplicable Aleph.
Borges is not only talking about nature of language or importance of poetry, he also seems to be speculating why the descriptions of supernatural are so vague or strange:
“How, then, can I translate into words the limitless Aleph, which my floundering mind can scarcely encompass? Mystics, faced with the same problem, fall back on symbols: to signify the godhead, one Persian speaks of a bird that somehow is all birds; Alanus de Insulis, of a sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere; Ezekiel, of a four-faced angel who at one and the same time moves east and west, north and south.”
And...
“Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Its use for the strange sphere in my story may not be accidental. For the Kabbalah, that letter stands for the En Soph , the pure and boundless godhead; it is also said that it takes the shape of a man pointing to both heaven and earth, in order to show that the lower world is the map and mirror of the higher; for Cantor’s Mengenlehre , it is the symbol of trans- finite numbers, of which any part is as great as the whole.”
Again, if Borges and Daneri who have seen Aleph find themselves doubting the reality of same (perhaps an intellectual fear (fear of being ourselves insande makes us doubt anything we experience beyond that shared past), how can a reader who has but their words is supposed to believe in its existence?
Anyways, Daneri’s is taken from DANte aleghERI and like the great poet – he suffers a hell in being exposed to the inexplicable Aleph; puratory (which comes from author’s little lie) and paradise (latter success).
But why should Daneri find that sudden success? Borges stories are like little riddles in which everything strange has a beautiful explanation and that explanation is probably hinted at somewhere else in the story itself. Daneri’s obsession finds a mirror in narrator’s obsession for Beatriz Viterbo – and there lies the answer. The doubt created by narrator has same effect on Daneri that death of Beatriz had on narrator; it made him feel easy – when object of one’s obsession is set beyond possibility of possession, it doesn't kill the obsession itself (or it couldn't really be a strong obsession in first place) but it does ease one's mind about thinking of possibilities to possess. Daneri probably just stopping try too hard too hard to interpret Aleph.
“...now that she was dead, I could devote myself to her memory, without hope but also without humiliation.
*
"So foolish did his ideas seem to me, so pompous and so drawn out his exposition, that I linked them at once to literature and asked him why he didn’t write them down."
The themes like loneliness, inability to communicate with loved ones, unrequited love, growing up and split personalities; are age old themes for noveThe themes like loneliness, inability to communicate with loved ones, unrequited love, growing up and split personalities; are age old themes for novelists; have almost become cliches. While it doesn't mean they should no longer write about them, merely bringing in those themes in itself is not enough. Merely throwing in a beautiful paragraph every now and than is not enough, one should feel those things
'Sputnik Sweatheart' has, first things first, nothing to do with the space carrier. It is just a love story. Sumire (female) loves Miu (a married woman) and K (male) loves Sumere; than one day Sumer disappears - this forms first half of story. The pages building Sumer's character as a strugling novelist and social outcast are the best ones but, for the rest the story just doesn't click. You are always expecting something awesome to happen in just next chapter but it never happens. K, the narrator, is annoying with his boring banter.
And so Sumire disappears. K is called to Greece to provide whatever help he can give. He rambles on for about ten pages about how he packed his things, how managed to skip his work, his journey to Greece and his thoughts during the time - and obviously none of this advances the story. In fact, at least a fourth of book if not more, is just useless details describing random people, things and places that characters come across. It looked like author was trying to make it to length of 200+ pages - which wouldn't have been problem if he had spent those pages in trying to make you feel about characters. K was correct when he said he is not a good writer.
And so Sumire disappears but the reason behind her disappearance is not a case in mystery but more about magical realism. Instead of taking story forward, we are told about pasts of the characters. The problem is I was no longer able to feel anything for any of them. I just couldn't care for them. If you want me to feel passion of your characters; show it to me rather than telling about it.
Magical realism works only if you could feel ('feel' not 'understand') its poetical value. This time I didn't feel a thing. It wasn't a bad story but the narration is just too unimpressive....more
In the very first chapter, I was reminded of Midnight Children because of Oscar's conversational tone of narrative - samOnions and Potatos
In the very first chapter, I was reminded of Midnight Children because of Oscar's conversational tone of narrative - same as that of Saleem Shinai. Once MC was in my mind couldn't help locating similarities - both narrators start their stories with the first meeting of their maternal grandparents, both like talking about sex, both of them feel need to hide from the world (Oskar in grandmother's skirts, Shinai in laundry box) etc. Still there are enough differences, MC is more magical realism, Tin Drum is more about unreliable narrator
Unreliable Narrator
Why would you consider a narrator unreliable ? He is out of mind or delusional, he is a habitual liar, he is full of inferiority or superiority complexes, he had lied to you before, he is full of guilt. Oscar fulfills all these conditions. The book begins with lines:
"GRANTED: I AM an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight."
He has lied to his family half his life. He himself corrects lies he has told you half a book before - putting an asterisk on everything he says. He tells you he deliberately stopped growing - and faked an accident to provide the world reason for that. The fact that a lot of information comes from his drum is not too much satisfying either. He is using both first-person pronouns and his name to talk about himself - at times in the same sentence.
Hence you must take everything he says with a pinch, correction a bowl full of salt. It is funny to see how whenever you find a reason to doubt a declaration he wants to maintain, he would run to explanations - as if he was telling you his story face-to-face and had seen you rise your eye-brow in doubt.
His schizophrenia, self-obsession, and complexes though won't stop him from being witty - every page of the book has some really witty play of words on it. At times, it gets a bit trying but Oscar is too busy showing off to care about your time.
War and War guilt
I look for the land of the Poles that is lost to the Germans, for the moment at least. Nowadays the Germans have started searching for Poland with credits, Leicas, and compasses, with radar, divining rods, delegations, and moth-eaten provincial students' associations in costume. Some carry Chopin in their hearts, others thoughts of revenge. Condemning the first four partitions of Poland, they are busily planning a fifth; in the meantime flying to Warsaw via Air France in order to deposit, with appropriate remorse, a wreath on the spot that was once the ghetto. One of these days they will go searching for Poland with rockets. I meanwhile, conjure up Poland on my drum. And this is what I drum : Poland's lost, but not forever, all are lost, but not forever, Poland's not lost forever.
War as such doesn't show up much in the book except a few chapters it contains no soldiers and guns. I don't think concentration camps were mentioned even once.
There are some allegorical elements - Oscar's mother (the source of harmony in his world) dies at onset of war, Oscar polish uncle (whom he calls his biological father) dies when Poland falls to Russians and his German father dies with fall of Germany trying to swallow Nazi party pin. Wartime madness mostly shows up in sexual madness.
Oscar's is attracted alternatively to Rasputin and Goethe in R-G-R-G sequence which seems to show Germany's WWI-peace-WWII-peace sequence.
During the war, Oscar gain popularity as an artist who could break glasses through his voice (showing how much Germans loved being shouted at) while after war it is his drumming (the creative art) that gets prominence.
An entire credulous nation believed, there's faith for you, in Santa Claus. But Santa Claus was really the gas man.
However this book uses war references in a different context just as some fiction books refers to classics. Oskar is a dwarf with a glass-breaking voice - and in one scene is seen shouting at enchanted people (can you imagine some dwarf with a loud, destructive and seductive voice?).
His favorite toy is Tin Drum - a common sight in war times, for armies marched on sound of drums. His mother was a nurse and he too has a fetish for nurses, red cross nurses; another common sight in WWII. He may as well have served as war Mascot. Like Oscar's drumming, It could have been a more enchanting book for people who have lived through the war - unlike me who has to google out everything.
Oscar doesn't much like Hitler, but he has a love-hate relationship with Jesus (Hitler's title 'Fuhrer' literally means guardian; so does the word 'Christ') - depending upon his mood he doesn't believe in Jesus, believes in Jesus, is a messenger of Jesus, is Jesus himself, is father of Jesus etc. In another scene, our dwarf hero is seen leading his street gangs to invade church (Hitler brought down synagogues).
The later half of the book is full of symbols of war guilt. Besides German father's death in trying to swallow Nazi pin, we have Oscar's fall in an open grave (mirroring German fall at end of war) and working as gravestone architect (too many dead in war) but no symbol is as prominent as hunchback he develops when he chose to grow-up (just a little) at the end of war. He models for painters often portrayed entirely in black with an increasingly larger hunchback while painters completely ignored his blue eyes ( comment on the complete negative portrayal of Germany after the war?). Onion cellar club showed how having lived through war, people were so full of remorse, they were out of tears and needed to peel onions to be able to weep.
An aggressive indifference
The clash between art and war is a constant theme:
They are coming," he whispered. "They will take over the meadows where we pitch our tents. They will organize torchlight parades. They will build rostrums and fill them, and down from the rostrums, they will preach our destruction. Take care, young man. Always take care to be sitting on the rostrum and never to be standing out in front of it."
Beethoven's big painting in Oscar's house has to give up its supreme position when Oscar's parents had to put in Hitler's painting. Beethoven was an artist and was deaf, deaf to the Hitler shouting in front of him. That somewhat sums Oscar's attitude towards war. He is indifferent to what happens around him, somewhat like Albert Campus and his Stranger - but in Oscar, this indifference is too aggressive, almost insane. He refused to grow up because he thought grownups were evil and he is constantly running away from the world, looking for solitude - in grandma's skirts, under the table his three parents are playing cards on or inside some almirah. When there is firing going outside, Oskar spends his time playing cards inside. He risks his claimed biological father's life for a new drum - repeatedly. He betrays both his fathers and his street-gang-followers to save himself. When his whole family is facing a life threat, he is too busy watching the trail of ants on ground.
This indifference attracts an equal indifference from us. It is really difficult to sympathize with this guy. At times he seems to be trying to make it difficult for us to relate to him - this book can be a thousand things, but it is definitively not a melodrama.
On the size of the book
You may think that with over 550 pages or this long review, it is a long book - do not be deluded by that; through its witty pose, it becomes a much, much, much longer book, almost Dickens long. Like Dickens, Grass seemed to have perfected each chapter separately with too much detail and wit, rather than trying to keep a natural flow which makes you go to next chapter as soon as you finish one....more
When guys like Borges and Gabriel Marcuez have sung praises of a book (see description above ) you kind of know that you are going to love it. This boWhen guys like Borges and Gabriel Marcuez have sung praises of a book (see description above ) you kind of know that you are going to love it. This book introduced the world to magical realism or at least built the way to it. The writing is so beautiful that it goes easy to eyes even when narration keeps jumping up and down the time stream. The themes are death, hope and retribution. Parameo means barren land which seems to go against anti-hero's nature until fate hit him.
Words like Holocaust, Slavery, War etc. loose over time the terror they should inspire upon one's mind. Reminding us about what these evils feel like Words like Holocaust, Slavery, War etc. loose over time the terror they should inspire upon one's mind. Reminding us about what these evils feel like is one important role art plays. Toni Morrison does exactly that in this book, and in a effective way.
Past
She starts her story in the middle when slavery is already banned and biggest horrors have already passed. however this is not a happily-ever-after. In fact, for people who have been slave (or to generalize suffer miserably in anyway) for any significant period of time; it is impossible to find a perfect happiness -there will always be ghosts of past to torment; slapping the Disney idea out of park of possibilities. In this case, we actually have a real ghost of past (the Hindi word for 'ghost' and 'past' is same).
Within very fist few pages Morrison takes art's ability of creating compassion to a new level as she makes us feel that dark past within our skins in which residents of 124 live; even if, like Denvar, we are ignorant of its details. It is scary and un-ignorable, almost visible - the characters are trying not to 'look' at it, which is understandable given its darkness:
"To Sethe, the future was a matter of keeping past at bay."
We remember 'rememory' this past as Morrison brings us details in (irritatingly unannounced) flash-backs. A normal narration of events would have left readers only memories of darkest events, and we wouldn't have realised what it feels like to be a slave for all your life. The book works so brillantly because you could see the depravity felt in the smallest things and how much would those tragedies shadow any happiness that may fall in victim's way.
The past does figuritively become alive in form of Beloved, all flesh and bones. ""She reminds me of something. Something, look like, I'm supposed to remember." Although these are Paul D's words, they give experience of many people with Beloved. She was there or was a sort of metaphor of one's efforts to get over dark pasts. You can't run away from it, you need to accept it. The residents of 124 did - and they all come out of the thing better. Of course it hurt a little but Anything dead coming back to life hurts.
Slavery
How much bad do a life have to be, if a loving mother choose to kill her children rather than have them live it?
But what is slavery? It is being effectively reduced and compared to animals. It is not being allowed to love freely:
"Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to lo ve just a little bit; everything, just a little bi t, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one."
Being fueled by Morrision's prose, I could go on rambling but Baby Suggs' very first thoughts upon being freed seem to do it brillantly:
What for? What does a sixty-odd-year-old slavewoman who walks like a three-le gged dog need freedom for? And when she steppe d foot on free ground she could not believe that Halle knew what she didn't; that Halle, who had never drawn one free breath, knew that there was nothing like it in this world. It scared her. Something's the matter. What's the matter? What's the matter? she asked herself. She didn't know what she looked like and was not curious. But suddenly she saw her hands and thought with a clarity as simple as it was dazzling, "These hands belong to me. These my hands." Next she felt a knocking in her chest an d discovered something else new: her own heartbeat. Had it been there all along? This pounding thing? She felt like a fool and began to laugh out loud. Mr. Garner looked over his shoulder at her with wide brown eyes and smiled himself. "What's funny, Jenny?" She couldn't stop laughing. "My heart's beating," she said. And it was true.
"And if you decide not to read anymore, hey, no problem, because you're not the one I was waiting for anyway. But if you decide to read on, then guess"And if you decide not to read anymore, hey, no problem, because you're not the one I was waiting for anyway. But if you decide to read on, then guess what? You're my kind of time being and together we'll make magic!"
‘A Tale of Time Being’ is about a teenage girl, Nao who is going through a lot of suffering –in fact so much suffering that at times you doubt whether the author has gone too far to make her suffer. Nao’s story is being told through her diary which she wants someone to read, and this diary is final discovered and read by Ruth (the author herself).
The story touches a lot of themes including:
1. concept of time being, Zen philosophies (both of which, most of us won’t get completely but whatever you do understand you shall love),
2. Schrödinger’s cat, Quantum physics (we have a lot of those these days. This one could do better without them.)
3. Dōgen’s philosophy (who never impressed me),
4. suicide
5. and relationship which reader develops with a story, among others.
To put it in simply, it is a sort of book where understanding is not same as reading. It could do with a bit of editing in initially chapter relating about Ruth. The last chapter looked like redundant to me – but on the whole it is a beautiful package. Ruth had a point about what she said about September 11. There are some very beautiful passages, writing is innovative, some issues are raised which is nicely done but whats most beautiful is some of most beautiful writing. The poem Nao's grandmother writes towards the end is really moving.
Here, for example, is a paragraph written by Nao in her diary, showing how she is dying to have a conversation:
“Oh well. That’s what’s going on in my world. How about in yours? You doing okay? I don’t know why I keep asking you questions. It’s not like I expect you to answer, and even if you did answer, how would I know? But maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe when I ask you a question like “You doing okay?” you should just tell me, even if I can’t hear you, and then I’ll just sit here and imagine what you might say. You might say, “Sure thing, Nao. I’m okay. I’m doin’ just fine.” “Okay, awesome,” I would say to you, and then we would smile at each other across time like we were friends, because we are friends by now, aren’t we? ...more
Any good children's book comes with an innocence which (like all forms of Innocence) can't be put into words. Travers' Mary Poppkins comes with her spAny good children's book comes with an innocence which (like all forms of Innocence) can't be put into words. Travers' Mary Poppkins comes with her spoonful of sugar has this this sort of innocence. Its beauty is not something you would decode (and later try to mass produce (like so much of YA fiction)but is more like that of a flower to be loved and not to analysed.
The book does make use of what looks like magic realism to keep attention of children but except for that the book is fully realistic - specially beautiful in the way it captures attention of Adullt-young relationship and the ability to see things from child's point of view. If you were a parent and wanted a book to read your kids, this one should be your first choice....more
Fury is quite different from Rushdi's other works - in some ways worse, in some ways better. Unlike Midnight Children, Shame, Moor's last sigh and SatFury is quite different from Rushdi's other works - in some ways worse, in some ways better. Unlike Midnight Children, Shame, Moor's last sigh and Satanic Verses - it is shorter, with lesser character and too weak a story for the master story teller. However the same is made up for by some of most beautiful passages that I have read. It has large passages trying to bring out the sentiment of both Fury and protagonist's love for his son....more
In ‘Moor’s Last Sigh’, Salman Rushdie has captured the spirit of Mumbai city; the way he has done it before with India in ‘Midnight’s children’. ThereIn ‘Moor’s Last Sigh’, Salman Rushdie has captured the spirit of Mumbai city; the way he has done it before with India in ‘Midnight’s children’. There is everything in there which you come to associate with Mumbai - Bollywood, cricket, art, politics, gang war etc.
There are a lot of similarities with Midnight children. Both Saleem Sinai and Moor, for example, have joint families, find themselves attached in multiple ways to history. Midnight’s children though is on more grand scale and is definitely more recognized. In fact, Saleem Sinai’s adopted son also has a minor role to play in ‘Moor’s last Sigh’.
Moor’s last sigh is sorrow he felt which he, who by the way aged twice as fast as a normal person and has a hammer head, felt as he had to leave everything behind. For more than first half, women dominate the scene and among them too, it is mostly Aurora who rules the book. For first one-third part, Moor is not even born.
Moor is at same time somewhat humanized version of Mumbai and an allegory on life of Boabdil, the last moor. Boabdil was also known as Zogobi - the unlucky one; which became protagonist's surname. His looking back in regret after leaving Mumbai perfectly justifies the title. Baodil's mother on seeing him weep had said to him, "Thou dost weep like a woman for what thou couldst not defend as a man." The same remark which Merenda made when Moor refuse to make a useless effort to protect his fellow prisoner, who was introduced in last few pages just to complete the allegory.
Moor's father is a business man who started from spice trade (inherited from Cochin) and then diversified; and his mother is artist – thus showing two faces of city. Mumbai also started as a trade hub (mostly spice trade in the beginning) and is home to artists from all over the country.
Yet again, Rushdi spins the fact and fiction into a magical cobweb. The Moor’s Last Sigh and The Kissing of Abbas Ali Beg are actual paintings based on actual events. There was actually a medical student from Mumbai, who won Ms. Universe contest in 1967 (though similarity ends there).‘Raman Fielding’ (RAMan fielding) is Rushdi’s take on Bal Thackeray (– thus the book was not much liked by later). Both started as cartoonists; went onto become Hindu extremist heads; tried to rewrite the history and both play regional politics.
The book is full of typical Rushdie Masala including references to children’s books, Bollywood histories; family feuds; magical realism and word plays (my favorite being the thing he does with Aurora’s children - Inni, Minni, Mini, Moor.) ...more
"This is a work of fiction. A few liberties has been taken with the historical records in the interests of truth"
With the above warning starts the mos"This is a work of fiction. A few liberties has been taken with the historical records in the interests of truth"
With the above warning starts the most researched of all Salman Rushdie's books. Akbar, his court as well as some other members of royal family are brought to life. Same can be said about European figures of time including Machiavelli, Amerigo, Columbus as well as Vlad III the dracula king.
Magical realism has been used to explain true actions of historical figures which can not be explained otherwise - being very opposite to their character including turn around of Salim's character and the mystery around very existence of Jodha Bai. People are created out of sheer will; ghosts come to life; artists lose their own existence to be a part of their creation and much above all a character created by author himself affects lives of characters all over the globe. Than, there are mandrakes, occult and witch magic; the selection of period too is important because as the author says it was the time when real and unreal were not yet confined to their limits.
It is only Rushdie's genius which makes you digest it all - and if you are not exhausted yet to see its beauty. There are a lot of orgies but they too are a part of general poetry which the story brings out.
Salman rushdie cooks his dish with a lot of orgy and magical realism and either of them give you indigestion,don't be misled by my rating. Another warning would be that to completely appreciate Rushdie's work or to even make a proper sense of it; you will have to sit it through. A rushdi book half read may mean nothing and a Rushdie book fully read is better than ten books.
The way the life of the yellow haired man who will tell Akbar the story of occult queen depends on how well he narrates it reminds you about Arabian nights. It is this very culture- of telling stories which the book celebrates....more
The book is as different from Rushdi's signature epics like Midnight Children and Satanic Verses as possible. There are mere hints of orgies that domiThe book is as different from Rushdi's signature epics like Midnight Children and Satanic Verses as possible. There are mere hints of orgies that dominate other his other books. Also the book is not long like other books. His strengths are however present. One do find Rushdi's love for story telling as well as magical mysticism. There are also some strong metaphors and word plays. It is these very things that make book worth reading. The problem is that there is almost no character development. The story runs almost too fast, more in flashes than in scenes - as such you fail to feel for characters or the thrill of adventure, the book is about. The inspiration from 'video games' is also not my favorite part. One is forced to conclude that Rushdi, despite having a good story to tell (as always) failed to do the justice to the same by failing to give it enough space and 'time' to develop ..... but before we conclude that Rushdi wrote book for his 13-year old son, it may be a fine book for a kid of that age. An easy story running at brisk rate....more
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