The Golden House by Salman Rushdie (to be published, September, 2017)

Very Good Summery of The Golden House from The Times of India

"How does one live amongst one’s fellow countrymen and countrywomen when you don’t know which of them is numbered amongst the sixty-million-plus who brought the horror to power, when you can’t tell who should be counted among the ninety-million-plus who shrugged and stayed home, or when your fellow Americans tell you that knowing things is élitist and they hate élites, and all you have ever had is your mind and you were brought up to believe in the loveliness of knowledge, not that knowledge-is-power nonsense but knowledge is beauty, and then all of that, education, art, music, film, becomes a reason for being loathed, and the creature out of Spiritus Mundi rises up and slouches toward Washington, D.C., to be born. What I did was to retreat into private life—to hold on to life as I had known it, its dailiness and strength, and to insist on the ability of the moral universe of the Gardens to survive even the fiercest assault.".  - from The Golden House by Salman Rushdie

The Golden House by Salman Rhusdie will probably be hailed as the first great novel depicting the despair felt throughout the reading life world (no doubt the same or worse feelings have been generated in artistic and other segments of society but I can only speak about the feelings of those of us who cherish literature above all as it is what I know).  If Rushdie, this is the fifth of his novels upon which I have posted, never wins The Nobel Prize it will be a tribute to the power of the petro dollar.

I know as soon as The Golden House is published it will be written about throughout the literary press.  A new Salman Rushdie novel is a major event.  I am not inclined to summarize the "story line" in great detail.  Basically it centers on an incredibly wealthy older man with three sons who is forced to relocate from his ancestral home in Mumbai, he still has to think to avoid saying "Bombay" by the ramifications of his past corruptions catching up with him to New York City.  How he got so wealthy is a bit shrouded in mystery. He lives in NYC in a development called "The Gardens", which is inhabited by people very much like the trump family.  The family patriarch is in his early seventies, he has a much younger trophy wife.  The scenes are split between NYC and Mumbai.  There is a very interesting treatment of the terrorist attack on the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, a symbol of opulence.  

The story is told be a neighbor of the Golden family, a filmmaker, who decides to make a movie about the family.  We get to know Mr. Golden and his sons well.  It was impossible for me not to see Golden's sons as meant to bring to mind those of trump.  The wife might as well be a very expensive prostitute, Golden cannot get her pregnant and in an intriguing subplot the filmmaker begins an affair with the wife, she gets pregnant and the child is thought by Golden to be his.  

Rushdie depicts trump mercilessly in all his completely self centered shallowness, devoid of any culture, the champion of those who worship the ignorant or maybe use those the people who voted

for him to safe guard their own status, preying on and abandoning their followers as soon as they are no longer needed.  Of course I do not see any trump supporter actually reading The Golden House so it will only impact those who already despise what he has brought forth.

I love the lush language of Rushdie, his descriptions are so vivid, his imagination so powerful.  I also really liked all of the literary and classic cinema references made by the narrator.  

The Golden House is everything a supreme literary work of art should be.

I don't doubt there are deep meanings in this work,cultural allusions and historical references that I missed on my first reading.

I am very thankful to have been kindly provided a review copy of this book.

Mel u

I will be very curious to see how it is received.

Salman Rushdie

Photo: © Syrie Moskowitz

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Salman Rushdie is the author of twelve novels—Grimus, Midnight’s Children (for which he won the Booker Prize and the Best of the Booker), Shame, The Satanic Verses, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, The Moor’s Last Sigh, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Fury, Shalimar the Clown, The Enchantress of Florence, Luka and the Fire of Life, and Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights—and one collection of short stories: East, West. He has also published four works of nonfiction—Joseph Anton, The Jaguar Smile, Imaginary Homelands, and Step Across This Line—and co-edited two anthologies, Mirrorwork and Best American Short Stories 2008. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. A former president of PEN American Center, Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for services to literature

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie (forthcoming, 2015)

If Salman Rushdie never wins the Nobel Prize it Is a tribute to the power of the Petro-Dollar.

I have read several novels and short stories by Salman Rushdie.  He is a master of linguistic pyrotechnics, magic realism with a world class building imagination.  I was very happy to be recently given a digital review copy of his latest novel, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights.  It is pretty much entirely a work in the tradition of magic realism.  

It is a book for strong fans of the author, not neophytes.  The concept of the book is interesting, there are lots of satirical references, and delightful sentences.  I am not feeling like writing an elaborate account of the book so below is the publisher's description.

"From Salman Rushdie, one of the great writers of our time, comes a spellbinding work of fiction that blends history, mythology, and a timeless love story. A lush, richly layered novel in which our world has been plunged into an age of unreason, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights is a breathtaking achievement and an enduring testament to the power of storytelling.
 
In the near future, after a storm strikes New York City, the strangenesses begin. A down-to-earth gardener finds that his feet no longer touch the ground. A graphic novelist awakens in his bedroom to a mysterious entity that resembles his own sub–Stan Lee creation. Abandoned at the mayor’s office, a baby identifies corruption with her mere presence, marking the guilty with blemishes and boils. A seductive gold digger is soon tapped to combat forces beyond imagining.
 
Unbeknownst to them, they are all descended from the whimsical, capricious, wanton creatures known as the jinn, who live in a world separated from ours by a veil. Centuries ago, Dunia, a princess of the jinn, fell in love with a mortal man of reason. Together they produced an astonishing number of children, unaware of their fantastical powers, who spread across generations in the human world.
 
Once the line between worlds is breached on a grand scale, Dunia’s children and others will play a role in an epic war between light and dark spanning a thousand and one nights—or two years, eight months, and twenty-eight nights. It is a time of enormous upheaval, in which beliefs are challenged, words act like poison, silence is a disease, and a noise may contain a hidden curse.
 
Inspired by the traditional “wonder tales” of the East, Salman Rushdie’s novel is a masterpiece about the age-old conflicts that remain in today’s world. Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights is satirical and bawdy, full of cunning and folly, rivalries and betrayals, kismet and karma, rapture and redemption."  From Penquin House

I am glad I got this book for free.  I do not feel able to suggest those not really into Rushdie invest money and time in the novel and for sure it is not a first Rushdie read.  It was a fun story but did get a bit tedious in stretches.  If this had been my first Rushdie work I am not sure I would have finished it.  

Ambrosia Boussweau 

European Correspondent 

The Reading Life

Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (2008, 576 pages)

Reading Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (Bombay, 1947) was a very challenging experience for me.It is so rich in imagery and has so many complex layers of meaning as to be almost overwhelming. It is a very powerful post colonial work.   The real glory in the work is in the amazing power of the language and the imaginative power of the text.   I saw the footprints of Joyce and Pynchon all over this book.  Much of the book is about the relationship of England to India.   This is my third Rushdie novel.  I have previously read his The Empress of Florence and Midnight's Children.  

If Rushdie never wins the Nobel Prize, it will because of the power of the petro-dollar.  

I think the best approach to Rushdie is to just read his works, let his powerful intoxicating prose roll over you and leave trying to figure it out to a second read.   Satanic Verses is a very high level work of art, if you can focus on it in the way I suggest a great pleasure to read.

 

Mel u

"The Prophet's Hair" by Salman Rusdie

"The Prophet's Hair" by Salman Rushdie (1981, 21 pages)


"The Prophet's Hair" is the first short story by Salman Rushdie that I have read.  It is one of the most interesting and exciting stories I have read in a while.   I have previously read and posted on two of Rusdie's (1947, Bombay) novels Midnight's Children and The Enchantress of Florence.    Rushdie has received most of the top literary awards short of The Nobel Prize.   He has become very well known outside of the literary world because of the reaction that his Satanic Verses produced.


I love both of these books.   Here is what I said about the prose of Rushdie in The Enchantress of Florence.




As I read this work, at times I marveled at the fireworks of the language.   At times I was really quite amazed.    It is hard to find something easily comparable.   Yes at times I did find it almost too lush and rich.   Imagine a 25 layer cake made by 25 of the best Parisian pastry chefs with each layer a different flavor made with no expense spared and you get some of the idea of it.    Now imagine as you eat the cake you notice small round balls of something mixed in.   Maybe it is opium maybe it is goat waste or even a poison that will produce a spectacular disease that everybody else in the court will marvel at as it overtakes you.    Maybe even it is a magic potion that will transform you in ways beyond imagination.

The "The Prophet's Hair"  is set sometime in the last century in Srinagar, in Kashmir.   It is told sort of in the style of an Aladdin's tale.   The central characters are a wealthy money lender indifferent to the laws of his  Islamic faith, his son, his daughter who adopts modern ways to his chagrin, and his long suffering wife.   The man is totally preoccupied with business.   As the story opens his son, a pampered obviously rich young man, is venturing into the roughest part of the city, looking for a great thief.   He is led into a terrible area and mugged.   I do not want to say why as that would spoil too much of the plot.   Something happens in the father's life that causes him to become extremely devout and conservative in his observation of religious life.   He disowns his daughter for going in public without a veil.   He begins to treat the customer of his business in a terrible harsh way, as he never did before.     For the first time ever he hits his wife.    I really do not want to tell more of the plot of this story.

The fun of this story, and fun is the first word I would use to describe it, is in the contrasts of the lives of the wealthy family and those in the thieves quarter and in just the pleasure in the wondrous prose style of Rusdie.

This story first appeared in The Guardian in 1981.   I read it in The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories.


I am considering purchasing a Kindle edition of Satanic Verse and I would appreciate input from all who have read it.  

Mel u

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (1981, 533 pages)

Every since I read The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie I knew I wanted to read a good  more of his work.   A bit of research seemed to indicate the consensus best work by Rushdie is Midnight' Children (1981, 531 pages).    The novel won the very prestigious Booker Price in 1981 and in 2008 was voted "the best of the Booker award books".   Rushdie has won nearly every award short of the Nobel Price for literature.    When Jov of Bibliojunkie announced she would be hosting a Read Along from 12 November to 13 December I decided this was my push to read Midnight's Children.   




This will be my second and final post on Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie.      (My first post is here.)
I began reading this book in conjunction with a read-a-long being hosted by Jovenus of Bibliojunkie.    I finished the book about  a week ago but then my primary Internet carrier, Sky Cable of The Philippines, went down for a week.   We still have service here in the house but it is at a rate too low for me to wish to post using it.   I now have two other completed books waiting to be reviewed and plans to write a number of year end/first of the year type posts so I am keeping my final post on this wonderful novel simple and short.

I am keeping this post very brief.   In my first post on the book I saw Midnight's Children  as kind of a meditation on the nature of historical truth, a commentary on ancient Indian Metaphysical systems and a look at post WWII Indian history from the ground floor

Reality is a question of perspective;  the further you get from the past the more concrete and plausible it seems, but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible...illusion is itself reality.

The prose in Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie is a marvel itself.   A lot of the point of the book is in the trying to experience it,  not in the trying to come up with a  paraphrasing of the novel one could put in a term paper or literary journal.

I really enjoyed this book and will look forward to reading more of Rushdie's novels in the years to come.

There are a number of great posts that can be found via the link to the read-along that will help you enjoy the novel.

Mel u

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Part 1 of the Read Along on Midnight's Children by Salman Rusdie-

Hosted By JoV of Bibiliojunkie

" For ignorance is the first requisite of the historian—ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the highest art. Concerning the Age which has just passed, our fathers and our grandfathers have poured forth and accumulated so vast a quantity of information that the industry of a Ranke would be submerged by it, and the perspicacity of a Gibbon would quail before it."  Lytton Strachey

Every since I read The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie I knew I wanted to read a good bit more of his work.   A bit of research seemed to indicate the consensus best work by Rushdie is Midnight' Children (1981, 531 pages).    The novel won the very prestigious Booker Price in 1981 and in 2008 was voted "the best of the Booker award books".   Rushdie has won nearly every award short of the Nobel Price for literature.    When Jov of Bibliojunkie announced she would be hosting a Read Along from 12 November to 13 December I decided this was my push to read Midnight's Children.    I confess what I liked best about The Enchantress of Florence was the sheer beauty of the prose and the presentation of Indian history in the work.    I want very much to increase the depth of my knowledge of the history of India and who better to learn from than Salman Rushdie.    I will quote my comments on the prose of Rusdie so readers can get a feel for why I like it:




Imagine a 25 layer cake made by 25 of the best Parisian pastry chefs with each layer a different flavor made with no expense spared and you get some of the idea of it.    Now imagine as you eat the cake you notice small round balls of something mixed in.   Maybe it is opium maybe it is goat waste or even a poison that will produce a spectacular disease that everybody else in the court will marvel at as it overtakes you.    Maybe even it is a magic potion that will transform you in ways beyond imagination.

The Read Along is structured to match the  sections of the book.    If possible participants are asked to post once a week for four weeks then do a concluding post.   As a sort of mild directive and inspiration Jov has provided us a list of ten possible suggestion points for the first week and first section of the book.   At the end of the read along in post five I will do an overall post on the work but for now I will respond to some of the excellent discussion points of JoV.


1.    The narrator of the  story, Saleem, says he is "handcuffed by history".      I am currently also reading Micheal Holroyd's magisterial biography of Lytton Strachey.   I think the opening lines of his famous work, Eminent Victorians can help us understand what "handcuffed by history"  may mean:

THE history of the Victorian Age will never be written; we know too much about it. For ignorance is the first requisite of the historian—ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the highest art. 

I think I will use these lines from Strachey as kind of a coda for my reading of Midnight's Children.    I think Saleem, not in any sense a classically educated or well read person, is saying two things that may seem contradictory.    Firstly as most unreflective historians he may see himself as only able to write or tell what it true.    He feels himself limited by the truth.   He thinks there is a simple historical truth.    Anyone at all familiar with classical Indian philosophy will know that this view of history as a factual thing one cannot step outside of is contrary to the ancient Wisdom texts of India.    One of the most quoted lines from James Joyce's Ulysses is "history is a nightmare from which i am trying to awake".    The post World Ward II history of  Indian has  nightmare quality for sure as does the vast poverty that coexists with great riches.     In part Saleem wants to escape from what he sees as historical determinism, in part from cultural bonds (there is a reason I am quoting Strachey and Joyce that will become clear later.)    These alleged handcuffs are also his excuses for his failures in life.   The notion of handcuffs of history is contrary to the basic tenants of Hindu metaphysics.    In part this is why Einstein admired Tagore.   On the other side of the question (of course there are many sides) is the notion that assuming the truth is not fully determinate by events and happenings is the escapism of mystics through the eons.  


3.-Discussion Point Number "Unlike many novels, Midnight’s Children is not written using a linear narrative. Why do you think that Rushdie uses this technique, and do you think that it is successful?"


Basically the structure of history is non-linear in the models underlying Midnight's Children.  In this structure    one cannot hope to understand the present without a knowledge of the past and events of the past get their significance from their relationship to the present and the notion of a "present time" is also a historical/literary construct out of a flowing oceanic river of events- linear narrative is necessarily a travesty of the truth.


There are already a number of really good posts on part one of Midnight's Children.     


I will do an "over all" post on the book after I post on the next three sections.    As I post one I will try to explain the references to Strachey and Joyce and hope they will emerge as not just literary name dropping.


Mel u

"The Enchantress of Florence" by Salman Rushdie

The Enchantress of  Florence by Salman Rushdie (2008, 381 pages)

A Lush Account of Court Life in Mughal India  

I have been wanting to read a novel by Salman Rushdie for a long time.    He achieved fame in the non-literary world when he received death threats based on political reactions to his novel The Satanic Verses.    He is the most internationally known author from India, it seems to me.    (I still recall when Kramer mentioned him in a "Seinfeld" episode.   Nobody on the show had actually read his book but they had heard of him.)    Rushdie has received nearly every well known literary award short of the Nobel Prize.

The Enchantress of Florence is set in the late 16th century.   It takes place in part in the Florence of the Medici and in part in northern India in the court of Akbar, the greatest Mughal emperor.   Both of these cultures are nearing their zenith.    The tie to the two areas is a mysterious blond male visitor from Florence who claims to be related to Akbar the Great.     The language of this work is very lush.    The focus is on court life in both of the capitals.    We get a feeling of what it was like to be the emperor (it had a lot of perks such as a huge harem).    His oldest sons are already very corrupted by their power and Akbar feels they may well kill him one day and turn on each other.