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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
I was so uninterested in this book through the last ~200 pages that I had to literally force my eyes along the lines. A lot of funny/quirky/clever bits, but it just goes onnn and onnnn until you just don't care anymore.
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is my third Rushdie book and it is definitely my favourite so far. I went in knowing absolutely nothing about the plot except that it got Rushdie a death sentence in the form of a fatwa. And after getting through the first 2ish extremely confusing pages I was totally on board.
Something I cherish about all his books is his unique writing style. It's a really challenging read, hard to understand at times, and I had to use my translator more than a few times for some words I had never heard in English before, but when you are prepared to weather that storm it is a joy to read. Extremely funny at times, but never vulgar in the way you might fear it to be, wonderfully sentimental in sad moments and for me a joy to read in moments where our main characters struggled immensely with themselves. There is an about 2 page long analysis of the book within the book towards the end of it, which was absolutely delightful to read.
I loved the story and the many convoluted sub-plots where you were never really sure what was real and what wasn't and how exactly everything will go together. And I really like Saladin Camcha, the main character. He was exactly the kind of protagonist I would hope to get from a novel like that. By no means a good man, a deeply troubled character with so many issues to work through, who has a good many faults he has to overcome, and still someone that you feel you can understand. Someone that is made human despite all their flaws, because the world is not black and white.The last chapter of the book of him returning to his hometown Bombay, was quite an emotional read.
My only criticism is that I wish Salman Rushdie would somehow write better female characters. His male characters are so well- rounded and so human, but that is a quality I find lacking in many of the female characters, as they are seemingly always protrayed in relation to some man. They never quite stand on their own, the way the men in this novel do.
Something I cherish about all his books is his unique writing style. It's a really challenging read, hard to understand at times, and I had to use my translator more than a few times for some words I had never heard in English before, but when you are prepared to weather that storm it is a joy to read. Extremely funny at times, but never vulgar in the way you might fear it to be, wonderfully sentimental in sad moments and for me a joy to read in moments where our main characters struggled immensely with themselves. There is an about 2 page long analysis of the book within the book towards the end of it, which was absolutely delightful to read.
I loved the story and the many convoluted sub-plots where you were never really sure what was real and what wasn't and how exactly everything will go together. And I really like Saladin Camcha, the main character. He was exactly the kind of protagonist I would hope to get from a novel like that. By no means a good man, a deeply troubled character with so many issues to work through, who has a good many faults he has to overcome, and still someone that you feel you can understand. Someone that is made human despite all their flaws, because the world is not black and white.
My only criticism is that I wish Salman Rushdie would somehow write better female characters. His male characters are so well- rounded and so human, but that is a quality I find lacking in many of the female characters, as they are seemingly always protrayed in relation to some man. They never quite stand on their own, the way the men in this novel do.
inspiring
medium-paced
DNF at 37%. This just wasn't for me. Rushdie is very talented and the prose is lovely but the story is just... very strange. I couldn't connect with it and it's long enough to not be worth pushing through, for me. I'm glad I tried it so I could understand the significance though.
adventurous
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
been reading this with Brian for months and feels sad to say goodbye. an epic of magical realism - so big, so fluid, so theatrical, so smart, so irreverent, so profound, so multi-faceted, so wide-reaching, so wild, so playful, so woven with influences from various countries, languages, religions, history, culture. for a book that deals with angels and devils, assimilation and individuality, rebirth and self-creation, migration and home, London and Bombay, dream and reality, Rushdie avoids any neat dichotomies in favor of complexity, of fluidity, of absurdity. this is so many things I love in a book and it was a delight to read.
This book was unusual. It was long and winding with lots of narrative stories to keep up with. I didn't find myself rooting for any character, and was mostly disappointed by the book. I had heard such good things about it, but it was mostly just weird. People turning into angels, people turning into demons, and lots of loud, bossy women and chauvinistic men.
I’m really glad that I finally got into this after several failed attempts over the years. It’s not perfect nor my favorite of his novels, and I probably missed a lot of the references (a theme for my reading this year as in Moby Dick, Borges), but despite the flaws, complexity, and challenge, or maybe because of them, the whole of this one in particular is greater than the sum of its parts. It’s worth your time and attention, and it will make you think, hard.
This seems the kind of polemical book that merits either 1 star or 5, depending on the reader's position. I have always heard much about the controversy surrounding Rushdie's most identifiable novel, but I must admit it was not what I expected. For starters, I was under the misapprehension that one of them was an angel and the other a devil, and at the very end of the story the audience discovers the whole time they had the two backwards. Admittedly, this is not far from the truth, but nor is it the full story. What I found instead was a complex tale of magical realism involving two Bollywood stars. Where is the line between right and wrong? How does evil grow? These questions and more get unpacked in long ass paragraphs. This book is not for the faint of heart—you'll never find it on Booktok, but maybe that's for the best. For those who try, they will find a magnificent prose and a captivating story.
Quotes: "his father said to him: 'See now. You pay your way. I've made a man out of you.' But what man? That's what fathers never know. Not in advance; not until it's too late." A quote made especially poignant given the last section of the novel on which I won't say any more to avoid spoilers.
"Do devils suffer in Hell? Aren't they the ones with pitchforks?"
"'So [Billy] says to me, do you want a mink? I say, Billy, don't buy me things, but he says, who's talking about buying? Have a mink. It's business.' They had been in New York again, and Billy had hired a stretched Mercedes limousine 'and a stretch chauffeur also'. Arriving at the furriers, they look like an oil sheikh and his moll. Mimi tried on the five figure numbers, waiting for Billy's lead. At length he said, You like that one? It's nice. Billy, she whispered, it's forty thousand, but he was already smooth-talking the assistant: it was Friday afternoon, the banks were closed, would the store take a cheque. 'Well, by now they know he's an oil sheikh, so they say yes, we leave with the coat, and he takes me into another store right around the block, points out the coat, and says, I just bought this for forty thousand dollars, here's the receipt, will you give me thirty for it, I need the cash, big weekend ahead.' – Mimi and Billy had been kept waiting while the second store rang the first, where all the alarm bells went off in the manager's brain, and five minutes later the police arrived, arrested Billy for passing a dud cheque, and he and Mimi spent the weekend in jail. On Monday morning the banks opened and it turned out that Billy's account was in credit to the tune of forty-two thousand, one hundred and seventeen dollars, so the cheque had been good all the time. He informed the furriers of his intention to sue them for two million dollars damages, defamation of character, open and shut case, and within forty-eight hours they settled out of court for $250,000 on the nail. 'Don't you love him?' Mimi asked Chamcha. 'The boy's a genius. I mean, this was class.'" GOD I loved this story. I was cracking up all the while.
"An iceberg is water striving to be land; a mountain, especially a Himalaya, especially Everest, is land's attempt to metamorphose into sky; it is grounded flight, the earth mutated – nearly – into air, and become, in the true sense, exalted."
"But she'd never shaken off the feeling of being damaged by her ignorance of Love, of what it might be like to be wholly possessed by that archetypal, capitalized djinn, the yearning towards, the blurring of the boundaries of the self, the unbuttoning, until you were open from your adam's-apple to your crotch: just words, because she didn't know the thing."
"'Who are you?' he asked with interest... 'Ooparvala,' the apparition answered. 'The Fellow Upstairs.' 'How do I know you're not the other One,' Gibreel asked craftily, 'Neechayvala, the Guy from Underneath?'" I studied Hindi-Urdu for an entire school year just to get an immense amount of satisfaction upon recognizing those words. के ऊपर? के नीचे? वाला? हाँ यार मैं हिंदी-उर्दू बोलती हूँ। Of course this was also made interesting by the ambiguity over whether the figure was Ooparvala or Neechayvala. Much to consider.
"if love is a yearning to be like (even to become) the beloved, then hatred, it must be said, can be engendered by the same ambition, when it cannot be fulfilled."
Quotes: "his father said to him: 'See now. You pay your way. I've made a man out of you.' But what man? That's what fathers never know. Not in advance; not until it's too late." A quote made especially poignant given the last section of the novel on which I won't say any more to avoid spoilers.
"Do devils suffer in Hell? Aren't they the ones with pitchforks?"
"'So [Billy] says to me, do you want a mink? I say, Billy, don't buy me things, but he says, who's talking about buying? Have a mink. It's business.' They had been in New York again, and Billy had hired a stretched Mercedes limousine 'and a stretch chauffeur also'. Arriving at the furriers, they look like an oil sheikh and his moll. Mimi tried on the five figure numbers, waiting for Billy's lead. At length he said, You like that one? It's nice. Billy, she whispered, it's forty thousand, but he was already smooth-talking the assistant: it was Friday afternoon, the banks were closed, would the store take a cheque. 'Well, by now they know he's an oil sheikh, so they say yes, we leave with the coat, and he takes me into another store right around the block, points out the coat, and says, I just bought this for forty thousand dollars, here's the receipt, will you give me thirty for it, I need the cash, big weekend ahead.' – Mimi and Billy had been kept waiting while the second store rang the first, where all the alarm bells went off in the manager's brain, and five minutes later the police arrived, arrested Billy for passing a dud cheque, and he and Mimi spent the weekend in jail. On Monday morning the banks opened and it turned out that Billy's account was in credit to the tune of forty-two thousand, one hundred and seventeen dollars, so the cheque had been good all the time. He informed the furriers of his intention to sue them for two million dollars damages, defamation of character, open and shut case, and within forty-eight hours they settled out of court for $250,000 on the nail. 'Don't you love him?' Mimi asked Chamcha. 'The boy's a genius. I mean, this was class.'" GOD I loved this story. I was cracking up all the while.
"An iceberg is water striving to be land; a mountain, especially a Himalaya, especially Everest, is land's attempt to metamorphose into sky; it is grounded flight, the earth mutated – nearly – into air, and become, in the true sense, exalted."
"But she'd never shaken off the feeling of being damaged by her ignorance of Love, of what it might be like to be wholly possessed by that archetypal, capitalized djinn, the yearning towards, the blurring of the boundaries of the self, the unbuttoning, until you were open from your adam's-apple to your crotch: just words, because she didn't know the thing."
"'Who are you?' he asked with interest... 'Ooparvala,' the apparition answered. 'The Fellow Upstairs.' 'How do I know you're not the other One,' Gibreel asked craftily, 'Neechayvala, the Guy from Underneath?'" I studied Hindi-Urdu for an entire school year just to get an immense amount of satisfaction upon recognizing those words. के ऊपर? के नीचे? वाला? हाँ यार मैं हिंदी-उर्दू बोलती हूँ। Of course this was also made interesting by the ambiguity over whether the figure was Ooparvala or Neechayvala. Much to consider.
"if love is a yearning to be like (even to become) the beloved, then hatred, it must be said, can be engendered by the same ambition, when it cannot be fulfilled."
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I loved it. Actually Was about to give up on the book in the first few pages and im happy that i didnt as it gets so much better. its brilliant