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3.25 AVERAGE
3.25 AVERAGE
I liked the underlying theme of reason vs. faith. In fact, if the book featured more of the debate between the two dead philosophers, I probably would've enjoyed it more. But the story itself just didn't do it for me. It was dry and boring, as others have mentioned, like reading a text book. It took me a long time to finish this book (the only reason I did is because mama didn't raise no quitter), because my mind kept wandering while reading it. I didn't care about any of the characters, except maybe the mayor and the baby which was the most interesting story line in the book in my opinion.
There is a lot of genius in this book. Unfortunately, this book just wasn't for me.
There may be some light spoilers in this review.
Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights reads like a fairy tale chronicling the events "over one thousand years ago," in which the jinni wage war on logic and reason in an attempt to settle a thousand-year-old debate: will fear drive humans to worship deities? The story maintains this level of absurdity throughout, and the jinni characters are just as whimsical as they are unlikeable, except for a few. Beneath all the absurdity there are many layers, intricately woven, some more subtle than others. This is really a story about societies and governments, rich and poor, oppressed and oppressors. It's a story about sacrifice, the pettiness of humans, love, and causes. It's a story about what both fear and love can drive people to do, and within it there are loud echos of some of the events unfolding in the world today.
Salman Rushdie chooses to use a writing style that displays the absurdity, whimsy, and fast-paced nature of the jinni that are oppressing the world. He uses run-on sentences, omits commas and other punctuation, ignores quotation marks, and rambles, interjecting many details that may or may not be relevant. I paid close attention to the first couple chapters, trying to retain as many details as I could, but soon realized that the efforts were fruitless as the narration jumps around through history, introducing new characters with their own complex swaths of backstory. I'm under the impression that this style was fully intentional, and it does give the story a certain unique character, but to me it was incredibly hard to read and stay focused on the events that were unfolding. To my disappointment I found that my mind kept wandering off no matter how hard I tried to bring it back into the story.
I think that there are a lot of great merits to this book, and others in my book club absolutely loved it, but the writing style simply wasn't for me. To me it was hard to read and stay focused. The underlying messages and themes were fairly blatant, although there are more subtle themes hidden beneath those layers as well. This would be a great book for discussion and great for reading in light of current world events.
There may be some light spoilers in this review.
Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights reads like a fairy tale chronicling the events "over one thousand years ago," in which the jinni wage war on logic and reason in an attempt to settle a thousand-year-old debate: will fear drive humans to worship deities? The story maintains this level of absurdity throughout, and the jinni characters are just as whimsical as they are unlikeable, except for a few. Beneath all the absurdity there are many layers, intricately woven, some more subtle than others. This is really a story about societies and governments, rich and poor, oppressed and oppressors. It's a story about sacrifice, the pettiness of humans, love, and causes. It's a story about what both fear and love can drive people to do, and within it there are loud echos of some of the events unfolding in the world today.
Salman Rushdie chooses to use a writing style that displays the absurdity, whimsy, and fast-paced nature of the jinni that are oppressing the world. He uses run-on sentences, omits commas and other punctuation, ignores quotation marks, and rambles, interjecting many details that may or may not be relevant. I paid close attention to the first couple chapters, trying to retain as many details as I could, but soon realized that the efforts were fruitless as the narration jumps around through history, introducing new characters with their own complex swaths of backstory. I'm under the impression that this style was fully intentional, and it does give the story a certain unique character, but to me it was incredibly hard to read and stay focused on the events that were unfolding. To my disappointment I found that my mind kept wandering off no matter how hard I tried to bring it back into the story.
I think that there are a lot of great merits to this book, and others in my book club absolutely loved it, but the writing style simply wasn't for me. To me it was hard to read and stay focused. The underlying messages and themes were fairly blatant, although there are more subtle themes hidden beneath those layers as well. This would be a great book for discussion and great for reading in light of current world events.
Once upon a time, in our own time...
Back in the 12th century, disgraced philosopher Ibn Rushd has a love affair with Dunia, who he thinks is a young woman of Jewish descent, but is actually a princess of the jinn. In these far-off days there are slits between the world of the jinn and our own world, and the jinn sometimes interfere with humanity, often wickedly, but Dunia is unusual in that she falls in love with a human and has children with him – many children, sometimes twelve or more at a time. Ibn Rushd is a highly intelligent rationalist, but manages not to notice the oddity of this. Centuries later, not far in the future from our own time, the slits between the jinn world and our own have been lost for many years and Dunia's descendants have spread throughout the world, unaware of their jinn heritage. But after a great storm lashes the world, strange things begin to happen – people finding their feet no longer touch the ground, people being struck by lightning and finding themselves afterwards possessed of strange powers, people suffering from what are either terrifying hallucinations or perhaps even more terrifying reality. It appears the jinn are back...
The story is told by the humans of the far future, a thousand years from now. As they point out, after such a length of time they can't be completely sure about the details of what happened but the tale they tell is the one that has been passed down to them over the intervening centuries. This is a wonderful device for Rushdie to look at some of the sillinesses of our own time as if from a great distance, allowing him to compress our complicated interlinked world down to a manageable size. And he ranges widely, through philosophy, politics, religion, terrorism, the importance of words, language and stories, optimism and pessimism, the disconnect of modern humanity from the planet, and so on. It's all handled very lightly, though, with a tone of affectionate mockery more than anything else. And, much to my surprise, it's deliciously funny – had me laughing aloud many times at his razor-sharp satire of many of the things we take so seriously.
Religion takes a beating. I'm new to Rushdie, but am of course aware of his history of upsetting the lunatic end of Muslim fundamentalism. But I found him quite even-handed really – he mocks all religions equally! And yet, although I believe he classes himself as an atheist, I felt quite strongly that it is formalised religion he's mocking rather than faith itself. There is an ongoing debate in the book between Ibn Rushd and Ghazali, another philosopher, (and both of them real 12th century philosophers), on whether it is ever possible to reconcile reason and faith – indeed, whether one should even try. Though for a good part of the book I felt the tone is pretty pro-reason, in the end it seems as if he pulls back a little – a suggestion that reason may win but that it might turn out to be something of a hollow victory in the end. As an atheist, the book didn't offend me – the tone is not nearly as arrogant and dismissive as the worst of the ranting atheist fringe achieves - but I suspect I might have struggled with it a bit if I were a person of faith – any faith.
However, religion aside, he has lots of fun with less contentious subjects. There's some brilliant satirising of politics, totalitarianism, world financial institutions and so on and, on a more intimate level, of love, sex, and human relationships in general. Extremely well written, with incredible long rambling sentences that wander all over the place but always manage to find their way to their proper destination in the end – although just occasionally this reader had forgotten where we were heading by the time we got there. It's really a tour de force performance, hugely entertaining while also being deeply thought-provoking. There are references to philosophers and history, but also to the various mythologies of the world, some of which I got and many more of which went flying over my head as fast as a jinn on a magic carpet. But it didn't matter – the book makes sense internally whether the reader gets the references or not – catching the odd one or two just gives that extra little glow of satisfaction. He parades his huge knowledge and intelligence blatantly, but with such warmth that the trailing reader feels caught up in his wake rather than left behind.
As to the actual story, I'm already seeing it being referred to as magical realism. Not in my opinion – this is satire masquerading as a fairy tale. There's nothing real about it on the surface – all the reality is hidden below the story, the top layer is purely magical. As with the best fairy tales, it all comes down ultimately to a battle between good and evil. The first three-quarters are deliciously light, full of intelligence but wrapped in a layer of warmth and humour. The last quarter becomes somewhat grimmer and, for me, loses a little of the magic. Rushdie's previously light touch becomes a shade more heavy-handed and the philosophising becomes a little repetitive as if to be sure his points have been made. But the dip is short and it all comes together again in a satisfying ending.
I wasn't sure whether I'd get along with the book at all, having previously started and abandoned another couple of Rushdie's books many years ago, but this one surprised and delighted me – a book that could be read on many levels and that I'm sure would reveal even more on each re-reading. I wondered all the way through whether it was deeply profound or pretentious twaddle – I suspect it may be a bit of both, but if it is pretentious twaddle then it's immensely entertaining and intelligent pretentious twaddle, and that works just as well for me as deeply profound. Perhaps I'll try some of his other stuff again...
4½ stars for me, so rounded up.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Random House.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Back in the 12th century, disgraced philosopher Ibn Rushd has a love affair with Dunia, who he thinks is a young woman of Jewish descent, but is actually a princess of the jinn. In these far-off days there are slits between the world of the jinn and our own world, and the jinn sometimes interfere with humanity, often wickedly, but Dunia is unusual in that she falls in love with a human and has children with him – many children, sometimes twelve or more at a time. Ibn Rushd is a highly intelligent rationalist, but manages not to notice the oddity of this. Centuries later, not far in the future from our own time, the slits between the jinn world and our own have been lost for many years and Dunia's descendants have spread throughout the world, unaware of their jinn heritage. But after a great storm lashes the world, strange things begin to happen – people finding their feet no longer touch the ground, people being struck by lightning and finding themselves afterwards possessed of strange powers, people suffering from what are either terrifying hallucinations or perhaps even more terrifying reality. It appears the jinn are back...
“We” are the creature that tells itself stories to understand what sort of creature it is. As they pass down to us the stories lift themselves away from time and place, losing the specificity of their beginnings, but gaining the purity of essences, of being simply themselves. And by extension, or by the same token, as we like to say, though we do not know what the token is or was, these stories become what we know, what we understand, and what we are, or, perhaps we should say, what we have become, or can perhaps be.
The story is told by the humans of the far future, a thousand years from now. As they point out, after such a length of time they can't be completely sure about the details of what happened but the tale they tell is the one that has been passed down to them over the intervening centuries. This is a wonderful device for Rushdie to look at some of the sillinesses of our own time as if from a great distance, allowing him to compress our complicated interlinked world down to a manageable size. And he ranges widely, through philosophy, politics, religion, terrorism, the importance of words, language and stories, optimism and pessimism, the disconnect of modern humanity from the planet, and so on. It's all handled very lightly, though, with a tone of affectionate mockery more than anything else. And, much to my surprise, it's deliciously funny – had me laughing aloud many times at his razor-sharp satire of many of the things we take so seriously.
He was a big man like his father with big competent hands, a thick neck and hawkish profile and with his Indian-Indian complexion and all, it was easy for Americans to see the Wild West in him and treat him with the respect reserved for remnants of peoples exterminated by the white man, which he accepted without clarifying that he was Indian from India and therefore familiar with a quite different history of imperialist oppression, but never mind.
Religion takes a beating. I'm new to Rushdie, but am of course aware of his history of upsetting the lunatic end of Muslim fundamentalism. But I found him quite even-handed really – he mocks all religions equally! And yet, although I believe he classes himself as an atheist, I felt quite strongly that it is formalised religion he's mocking rather than faith itself. There is an ongoing debate in the book between Ibn Rushd and Ghazali, another philosopher, (and both of them real 12th century philosophers), on whether it is ever possible to reconcile reason and faith – indeed, whether one should even try. Though for a good part of the book I felt the tone is pretty pro-reason, in the end it seems as if he pulls back a little – a suggestion that reason may win but that it might turn out to be something of a hollow victory in the end. As an atheist, the book didn't offend me – the tone is not nearly as arrogant and dismissive as the worst of the ranting atheist fringe achieves - but I suspect I might have struggled with it a bit if I were a person of faith – any faith.
However, religion aside, he has lots of fun with less contentious subjects. There's some brilliant satirising of politics, totalitarianism, world financial institutions and so on and, on a more intimate level, of love, sex, and human relationships in general. Extremely well written, with incredible long rambling sentences that wander all over the place but always manage to find their way to their proper destination in the end – although just occasionally this reader had forgotten where we were heading by the time we got there. It's really a tour de force performance, hugely entertaining while also being deeply thought-provoking. There are references to philosophers and history, but also to the various mythologies of the world, some of which I got and many more of which went flying over my head as fast as a jinn on a magic carpet. But it didn't matter – the book makes sense internally whether the reader gets the references or not – catching the odd one or two just gives that extra little glow of satisfaction. He parades his huge knowledge and intelligence blatantly, but with such warmth that the trailing reader feels caught up in his wake rather than left behind.
...for a period of time variously described by different witnesses as “a few seconds” and “several minutes”, the clothes worn by every man in the square disappeared, leaving them shockingly naked, while the contents of their pockets – cellphones, pens, keys, credit cards, currency, condoms, sexual insecurities, inflatable egos, women's underwear, guns, knives, the phone numbers of unhappily married women, hip flasks, masks, cologne, photographs of angry daughters, photographs of sullen teenage boys, breath-freshening strips, plastic baggies containing white powder, spliffs, lies, harmonicas, spectacles, bullets and broken, forgotten hopes – tumbled down to the ground.
As to the actual story, I'm already seeing it being referred to as magical realism. Not in my opinion – this is satire masquerading as a fairy tale. There's nothing real about it on the surface – all the reality is hidden below the story, the top layer is purely magical. As with the best fairy tales, it all comes down ultimately to a battle between good and evil. The first three-quarters are deliciously light, full of intelligence but wrapped in a layer of warmth and humour. The last quarter becomes somewhat grimmer and, for me, loses a little of the magic. Rushdie's previously light touch becomes a shade more heavy-handed and the philosophising becomes a little repetitive as if to be sure his points have been made. But the dip is short and it all comes together again in a satisfying ending.
“...you, Jinendra Kapoor, who can't trace your family history back further than three generations, are a product of that great love, maybe the greatest love there ever was between the tribes of men and jinn. This means that you, like all the descendants of Ibn Rushd, Muslim, Christian, atheist or Jew, are also partly of the jinn. The jinni part, being far more powerful than the human part, is very strong in you all, and that is what made it possible for you to survive the otherness in there; for you are Other too.”
“Vow,” he cried, reeling. “It isn't bad enough being a brown dude in America, you're telling me I'm half fucking goblin too.”
I wasn't sure whether I'd get along with the book at all, having previously started and abandoned another couple of Rushdie's books many years ago, but this one surprised and delighted me – a book that could be read on many levels and that I'm sure would reveal even more on each re-reading. I wondered all the way through whether it was deeply profound or pretentious twaddle – I suspect it may be a bit of both, but if it is pretentious twaddle then it's immensely entertaining and intelligent pretentious twaddle, and that works just as well for me as deeply profound. Perhaps I'll try some of his other stuff again...
4½ stars for me, so rounded up.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Random House.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
My first Salman Rushdie book, but not my last! Great story and beautiful writing. Rushdie creates vivid images of his characters.
adventurous
dark
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I was at a busy time in my life and I wasn’t used to his type of writing style, however I would go back and finish some day.
Two years, eight months and twenty-eight nights is, of course, 1001 nights and we all know about the 1001 tales of the Arabian Nights. At the very least we know Aladdin and Sinbad and Scheherazade and Ali Baba. Rushdie gives us 1001 as a magic number that many things are cycled within, and he gives us the djinn. Most especially he gives us a djinnia (don't ask me the correct spelling - I listened to this on audio) who fell in love with an amazing mathematician way back when, and became a young woman who cohabited with him and produced a large number of descendants.
This book is fascinating and fun. I love Rushdie's manner of speech and his cleverness. And the narrator is excellent.
This book is fascinating and fun. I love Rushdie's manner of speech and his cleverness. And the narrator is excellent.
Sort of a telling of the history of the djinn told through the children of a djinn princess and a human and their lineage and rebirths… fantastical and magical and historical
It took me some time to warm up to this book. It’s reminiscent of The Power.
A fairy tale for adults. My first reaction was "Rushdie is trying his hand at Saramago". A nice little allegory of our times.