How Salman Rushdie is Fitting In

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bobbo

Member
Jul 12, 2006
17
70
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Bowie, Texas
You know me: avid reader of Steve King since the sixth grade, for good or ill--and I've followed the man and his singular voice for these thirty-plus years or so, as a constant source of great fiction, essays and the like. Luckily for me, the man has not been stingy in his tendency to share his favorite authors and their favored works with us, the Constant Readers; his recommendations and reflections of all that is good, great, and/or bad-but-enjoyable has not failed to suggest literally dozens of fine writers with excellent chops and a flair for excellent storytelling: Lovecraft. Ellison. Ed McBain. Westlake. Straub, and Rob Bloch, and Bradbury! Oh my...

I recently came across a "Stephen King's Favorite Ten Books" list, and was not surprised to see Rushdie's The Satanic Verses there, and being someone who can testify that my taste might be well described as at least fleetingly akin to that of our Uncle Stevie, I trotted on down to the Bowie Public Library to see if a copy rested there--alas, Dr. Sleep was devoured very quickly after its initial release, and we've a month or three until the next King novel arrives for consumption, so, what the hey? I've done a lot worse on my own--reading piles of Anne Rice and Hunter H. Thompson and those old mid-80s 007 retreads by poor old dead John Gardner. Though I've enjoyed all of them, there's a shabby nobility in admitting that when in crisis, I go to a professional, Jack: I've always wondered how Stephen King would react (and what would his retainer cost?), if he was aware that I've kept him in my own selfish employ as a "fiction stylist" since the 80s, when he encouraged me to unearth some of the old short fiction by Harlan Ellison, via his piece on horror writing in the excellent Danse Macabre...

But alas, my local public house of borrower's copies does not include the notorious The Satanic Verses. What I found instead was an interestingly titled and cover-illustrated novel called Shalimar the Clown. "Hmm," I thought. "Well, let's give it a go."

Seven weeks later (not a proud pace by any means, but my reading is down to a half-hour a day or so--I'm busy, man!), I'm fifty pages from the conclusion of what has been a very interesting, quite poetically sound fable of hope and consequences, told against the backdrop of a more than four decades' worth of one decidedly non-nuclear family's origins and conflicts, in sometimes very funny, often times spiritually irrelevant, and almost always somewhat neurotically tragic adherence to tradition at the cost of understanding. Sounds confusing, I know--but listen, I'm no critic, just an everyday, "common" lover of fiction, and that's my best attempt at describing what I think Mr. Rushdie has given me to work with...

Thus far I've been surprisingly pleased with the work in general, and I can recommend Shalimar the Clown to any adventurous reader who isn't "put off" by scores of hard-to-pronounce character names and locales, and who won't mind the author really taking frequent opportunities to let the words take on a dancelike lilt of their own, to really play with the language; think Pete Straub in Koko or A Dark Matter and you'll have a pretty concise idea of what Rushdie is capable of. As for the story, like I said: while perhaps not a barn-burner, there is at least one mosque and several villages that wind up firebombed into oblivion, and their devastation--and that of the characters who come to life in this story--is not something you'll walk away from unaffected, I'll wager.

Just my two cents; give it a go if you're out of stuff to read, and let me know if Shalimar the Clown is something you'd call worth the investment of a bit of time and a place in your heart, Constant Reader. I'll keep an eye out for ya.


Okay,
Bobbo
 

skimom2

Just moseyin' through...
Oct 9, 2013
15,683
92,168
USA
I have a hard time with Rushdie. I struggled through The Satanic Verses (and ended up liking it) and The Enchantress of Florence (meh), and am slogging through Fury, but The Ground Beneath Her Feet utterly defeated me. I've had a go at that one several times, and I just can't do it. I thought it would be easier than some of his others, as I'm a music fiend & it's a sort of rock and roll fable, but...Sigh.

I'm a smart person, but with Rushdie feel dumb and slow because I JUST DON'T GET WHAT ALL THE SHOUTING IS ABOUT. Tell the damn story, man! Spanish and Portuguese writers love their imagery and the roll of words, too, but they remember that in the tussle, story should be paramount. Rushdie seems like style over substance, to me.
 

Dana Jean

Dirty Pirate Hooker, The Return
Moderator
Apr 11, 2006
53,634
236,697
The High Seas
I have a hard time with Rushdie. I struggled through The Satanic Verses (and ended up liking it) and The Enchantress of Florence (meh), and am slogging through Fury, but The Ground Beneath Her Feet utterly defeated me. I've had a go at that one several times, and I just can't do it. I thought it would be easier than some of his others, as I'm a music fiend & it's a sort of rock and roll fable, but...Sigh.

I'm a smart person, but with Rushdie feel dumb and slow because I JUST DON'T GET WHAT ALL THE SHOUTING IS ABOUT. Tell the damn story, man! Spanish and Portuguese writers love their imagery and the roll of words, too, but they remember that in the tussle, story should be paramount. Rushdie seems like style over substance, to me.
Try listening to it on audio. I find books that I just can't hook into always work better as an audio. That was the Scarlet Letter for me. wow. That thing was all sorts of slog. I started it 3 times and just couldn't do it. So, got the audio and managed to listen to the whole unabridged snore fest.
 
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skimom2

Just moseyin' through...
Oct 9, 2013
15,683
92,168
USA
Try listening to it on audio. I find books that I just can't hook into always work better as an audio. That was the Scarlet Letter for me. wow. That think was all sorts of slog. I started it 3 times and just couldn't do it. So, got the audio and managed to listen to the whole unabridged snore fest.

HAHA! Maybe I'll try that with his next one. Or maybe he'll never connect for me & I should give up & move on. Lots of writers & lots of books out there, and not every one is a good 'fit' for everyone :)
 

EMARX

Well-Known Member
Feb 27, 2009
2,970
15,757
I have attempted at least three of Rushdie's novels, and have yet to finish one. I always feel as if I'm missing some inside information that is crucial to understanding and enjoying his stories. Like skimom said, they don't all fit.
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
87,651
358,754
62
Cambridge, Ohio
Salman-Rushdie.png
 

Kurben

The Fool on the Hill
Apr 12, 2014
9,682
65,192
59
sweden
I have a hard time with Rushdie. I struggled through The Satanic Verses (and ended up liking it) and The Enchantress of Florence (meh), and am slogging through Fury, but The Ground Beneath Her Feet utterly defeated me. I've had a go at that one several times, and I just can't do it. I thought it would be easier than some of his others, as I'm a music fiend & it's a sort of rock and roll fable, but...Sigh.

I'm a smart person, but with Rushdie feel dumb and slow because I JUST DON'T GET WHAT ALL THE SHOUTING IS ABOUT. Tell the damn story, man! Spanish and Portuguese writers love their imagery and the roll of words, too, but they remember that in the tussle, story should be paramount. Rushdie seems like style over substance, to me.
I'm with you there Skimom. I also struggled through the Satanic verses, reasoning that a book that gets banned must at least be powerful in what its saying. I thought it was OK not more. Have tried another of his, dont rememberthe title. but never made it to the other side and thats a rarity with me. One that i really like is the Turkish author Orhan Pamuk. Way better than Rushdie in my opinion. Don't know the english titles but i try translating the swedish titles to english. "My name is Red" and "The Black book" is really good.
 

Ebdim9th

Dressing the Gothic interval in tritones
Jul 1, 2009
6,137
22,104
Of course I haven't actually read Rushdie, only listened to him on-line... I'll check out both him and Pamuk....
 
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Ragan

Free-Zone Committee Reject
Aug 3, 2011
620
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Idaho
I have a hard time with Rushdie. I struggled through The Satanic Verses (and ended up liking it) and The Enchantress of Florence (meh), and am slogging through Fury, but The Ground Beneath Her Feet utterly defeated me. I've had a go at that one several times, and I just can't do it. I thought it would be easier than some of his others, as I'm a music fiend & it's a sort of rock and roll fable, but...Sigh.

I'm a smart person, but with Rushdie feel dumb and slow because I JUST DON'T GET WHAT ALL THE SHOUTING IS ABOUT. Tell the damn story, man! Spanish and Portuguese writers love their imagery and the roll of words, too, but they remember that in the tussle, story should be paramount. Rushdie seems like style over substance, to me.

He does seem to love painting a picture more than getting to the point. And he certainly made me feel better about my use of commas and run-ons, with his paragraph-spanning sentences using 5 or more commas. But I just started on Verses and read a small part of it. It's not exactly smooth sailing...

Try listening to it on audio. I find books that I just can't hook into always work better as an audio. That was the Scarlet Letter for me. wow. That thing was all sorts of slog. I started it 3 times and just couldn't do it. So, got the audio and managed to listen to the whole unabridged snore fest.

I'm not a fan of audiobooks, but I do have Verses from an audiobook bundle. If I can't get into it, I might just listen to that and see if it works when spoken.
 

Neesy

#1 fan (Annie Wilkes cousin) 1st cousin Mom's side
May 24, 2012
61,289
239,271
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Some of those who were after him might like that comparison, considering Stanley Kubrick has passed on....
Hmmm - that is right. I think Stephen King said something about that in an interview somewhere once (how Stanley's passing would affect
the rights to the screenplay?)

Sorry - could not find it, but here is an interview where he talks about first speaking with Kubrick: