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3.25 AVERAGE
3.25 AVERAGE
I think Rushdie is one of the best storytellers alive. And, when he appears on one of my favorite political talk shows, he always has something insightful to say (usually as comedic relief for the tedious left/right fight taking place). Therefore, I was really excited to read “Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Night.” I know he can be a challenging read and this novel is no exception. And there were times when the get through some of the tougher bits paid off. But overall, I did not enjoy it as much as I have other Rushdie novels. There were many parts that had me giggle – specifically when commentary about our current global predicament was mentioned in the story. And several passages I read aloud to my husband because the shear brilliance of language use made me wanting to share how fun his writing can be. But there were more parts of the book that were tedious and long-winded that detracted from the larger story – and it seemed like it was taking too long to get to that larger story.
I’m still a fan of Mr. Rushdie but I wouldn’t recommend a newcomer to start with this book. And I wouldn’t deter fans from reading it either. Just be prepared that it may be as awesome as you were expecting. I'm giving it a 3 (liked it) because overall, I did. I was hoping for a 5.
I’m still a fan of Mr. Rushdie but I wouldn’t recommend a newcomer to start with this book. And I wouldn’t deter fans from reading it either. Just be prepared that it may be as awesome as you were expecting. I'm giving it a 3 (liked it) because overall, I did. I was hoping for a 5.
At times very beautiful and a wonderful tale but it gets bogged down by wordiness at times and the part about skin in the future is very weird and unnecessary. Also paragraphs make things readable, just saying.
More like 2.5 well written as always but the story never really reached out and grabbed me.
Rushdie's fantasy is a thinly veiled treatise against the trends that currently are turning our world into global conflict: religion against religion, men against women, man against the earth, God and reason. It is also filled with the power of love and how myth has created a way of understanding what it means to be human. The story is told by an unknown future historian looking back at the War of the Worlds that occurred a thousand years before. Facts and conjecture are put forth to describe the conflict between the jinn of the Fairyworld and our own world as the wall between these two worlds is sundered. Rushdie's writing is poetic and powerful. I highly recommend it.
I think Rushdie had a great time writing this book. As a result, I had a great time reading it. It wasn't my favorite of his, but it was a joy to experience his sense of humor and his craft.
Rushdie spins a good yarn. Though he often pauses to card the wool of lengthy and dry exposition, every time he gets that yarn spinning again that’s forgiven.
Less forgivable are his frequent falls into sexism. Old Uncle Salman has an idea of gender and sexuality that came from the 20th century. Of course sexism’s roots are buried far earlier, and it would be great if it could go back to the antediluvian ditches of despotism whence it came, but this is not a story of time travel. It is a magical realistic story and travel between realities happens, but unfortunately, no outmoded ways of thinking are really sent back to their origins, optimistic epilogue notwithstanding. We have to wait for time to accomplish change in its usual way, transforming individuals or gradually removing them from our presence. Since I don’t look forward to the day when we lose this brilliant storyteller, I hope he’ll be transformed and suddenly become able to see and squirm at the sexism that saturates his stories.
But if you’re feeling strong, in that kinda mood where Maria could sing, “Tonight, tonight,” and you wouldn’t want to yell at her for hanging all her hopes for happiness on one dumb boy instead of getting out and having an actual life tonight, but you’re strong enough to just say yeah, dumb part of the story but let’s get on with the story all the same… if you can let the outmoded role off your back like duck’s water, then enjoy Salman’s spinning, letting the snags slide by. I just think a book written in this millennium ought to do better.
The sad outmoded attitudes are so securely snagged and woven into the story, it’s hard to pick out one thread as an example, but here’s a random phrase: “But at least there had been no physical or sexual violence…,” Salman writes of one period, in one place, in his novel. That is a strange little “or.” He goes on, “…no one had been killed or raped….” So, in case we would have assumed that by “sexual violence” he meant non-physical sexual violence, no, there’s the clarification, rape. Well, violence of any kind has psychological as well as physical effects, and it’s all bound up together, but while rape is psychological as well as physical torture, in what sense could rape be seen as not physical? Sorry for my convoluted phraseology there. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around what Rushdie was thinking when he wrote, "no physical or sexual violence." Probably he didn't see what was wrong with his own sentence.
As for consensual sex in this book, it includes a powerful jinn male “being serviced by his cohort,” of females. What the females, the jinnia, desire isn’t important. We’ve already been told they can be bought, these females, despite the fact that they themselves are powerful enough presumably to obtain any wealth they might want without having to perform —- I mean, right? In a society of all-powerful beings, can there be real prostitution?
Yes, alas, it’s all two opposing genders. And I do mean opposing. “Man is born afraid. Of the dark. Of the unknown. Of strangers. Of failure. And of women.” Although Rushdie places these words in the mouth of a “dark ifrit” rather than his more evolved narrator, he does nothing to refute them.
And then there’s homosexuality. Actually, no, there isn’t. Nobody seems to be gay. Wait, I spoke too soon. We meet no lesbians, but we are told in passing that some lesbian sex is tolerated by the jinn. And then we briefly meet one token gay jinn, useless for fighting but useful as a spy, who makes a brief appearance or two--just walk-ons--and is quickly sent away, flamboyance unharmed, when things are about to get really ugly.
One fighter avenges crimes against women, but she’s a “bad girl.” Would it even be a spoiler to guess she’ll come to a bad end? And as for a forgettable philosopher who seems to exist only to be wealthy, desirable, and mildly endangered—right up through the 1000th night she’s introduced not only in scene after scene but multiple times within a scene as “the lady philosopher,” although “philosopher” is not a gendered title, because of course without her being mentioned again as The Lady Philosopher (or once she’s partnered off, as “His Lady Philosopher”), we might otherwise forget who she was.
Lip service is paid to women’s rights and briefly even to gender reassignment of sorts, as theoretical possibilities, but lip service is all. No tongue and definitely no muscle. Ew. Sorry for those two icky sentences. It’s the book talking.
So, creepy old Uncle Salman tells a great, sweeping story, but I’m not looking to him for my bedtime story and he sure enough ain’t gonna tuck me in. I'm going to go read a book by a woman, about a woman, for everyone.
Less forgivable are his frequent falls into sexism. Old Uncle Salman has an idea of gender and sexuality that came from the 20th century. Of course sexism’s roots are buried far earlier, and it would be great if it could go back to the antediluvian ditches of despotism whence it came, but this is not a story of time travel. It is a magical realistic story and travel between realities happens, but unfortunately, no outmoded ways of thinking are really sent back to their origins, optimistic epilogue notwithstanding. We have to wait for time to accomplish change in its usual way, transforming individuals or gradually removing them from our presence. Since I don’t look forward to the day when we lose this brilliant storyteller, I hope he’ll be transformed and suddenly become able to see and squirm at the sexism that saturates his stories.
But if you’re feeling strong, in that kinda mood where Maria could sing, “Tonight, tonight,” and you wouldn’t want to yell at her for hanging all her hopes for happiness on one dumb boy instead of getting out and having an actual life tonight, but you’re strong enough to just say yeah, dumb part of the story but let’s get on with the story all the same… if you can let the outmoded role off your back like duck’s water, then enjoy Salman’s spinning, letting the snags slide by. I just think a book written in this millennium ought to do better.
The sad outmoded attitudes are so securely snagged and woven into the story, it’s hard to pick out one thread as an example, but here’s a random phrase: “But at least there had been no physical or sexual violence…,” Salman writes of one period, in one place, in his novel. That is a strange little “or.” He goes on, “…no one had been killed or raped….” So, in case we would have assumed that by “sexual violence” he meant non-physical sexual violence, no, there’s the clarification, rape. Well, violence of any kind has psychological as well as physical effects, and it’s all bound up together, but while rape is psychological as well as physical torture, in what sense could rape be seen as not physical? Sorry for my convoluted phraseology there. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around what Rushdie was thinking when he wrote, "no physical or sexual violence." Probably he didn't see what was wrong with his own sentence.
As for consensual sex in this book, it includes a powerful jinn male “being serviced by his cohort,” of females. What the females, the jinnia, desire isn’t important. We’ve already been told they can be bought, these females, despite the fact that they themselves are powerful enough presumably to obtain any wealth they might want without having to perform —- I mean, right? In a society of all-powerful beings, can there be real prostitution?
Yes, alas, it’s all two opposing genders. And I do mean opposing. “Man is born afraid. Of the dark. Of the unknown. Of strangers. Of failure. And of women.” Although Rushdie places these words in the mouth of a “dark ifrit” rather than his more evolved narrator, he does nothing to refute them.
And then there’s homosexuality. Actually, no, there isn’t. Nobody seems to be gay. Wait, I spoke too soon. We meet no lesbians, but we are told in passing that some lesbian sex is tolerated by the jinn. And then we briefly meet one token gay jinn, useless for fighting but useful as a spy, who makes a brief appearance or two--just walk-ons--and is quickly sent away, flamboyance unharmed, when things are about to get really ugly.
One fighter avenges crimes against women, but she’s a “bad girl.” Would it even be a spoiler to guess she’ll come to a bad end? And as for a forgettable philosopher who seems to exist only to be wealthy, desirable, and mildly endangered—right up through the 1000th night she’s introduced not only in scene after scene but multiple times within a scene as “the lady philosopher,” although “philosopher” is not a gendered title, because of course without her being mentioned again as The Lady Philosopher (or once she’s partnered off, as “His Lady Philosopher”), we might otherwise forget who she was.
Lip service is paid to women’s rights and briefly even to gender reassignment of sorts, as theoretical possibilities, but lip service is all. No tongue and definitely no muscle. Ew. Sorry for those two icky sentences. It’s the book talking.
So, creepy old Uncle Salman tells a great, sweeping story, but I’m not looking to him for my bedtime story and he sure enough ain’t gonna tuck me in. I'm going to go read a book by a woman, about a woman, for everyone.
Three stars for my personal enjoyment and an additional star because I understand that he is an esteemed author of our time and I think a lot of the storytelling was too dense for my brain, but that’s not his fault.
Overall, a very interesting and imaginative account of religion vs. reason. His sentence-construction was different and has to be read in a rhythm kind of like you would read a poem. Not all of the content was necessary to drive the story forward, but it was a fairly quick read nonetheless.
Overall, a very interesting and imaginative account of religion vs. reason. His sentence-construction was different and has to be read in a rhythm kind of like you would read a poem. Not all of the content was necessary to drive the story forward, but it was a fairly quick read nonetheless.
Not my favorite Rushdie, but an enjoyable trip through 1001 nights of chaos at the hands of mischievous jinni and jinnia. Fans of Haroun or Luka might consider this novel a graduate-level extension of those works.
This book was not for me. I did not care for the genre and found myself reading the same paragraph over and over.
adventurous
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
While extremely beautifully written in places this novel also jumps all over with very little transition, which I realize was intentional, but this also made it quite hard to follow at times. There were many minor characters, time and death were inconsequential so it was hard to keep everything straight apart from a few major incidents. Even the main characters seemed more like minor characters because we never really spent enough time with anyone for characterization. This was more of a conceptional theological debate that had some plot and characters than a typical novel just trying to tell it's own story. I really enjoyed parts and I loved some of the writing but this one was a bit hard to get through because I kept having to go back to straighten out my timeline and characters. Probably not a good starter Rushdie novel but if you're a fan you'll likely enjoy this one.