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A review by anaiira
The Golden House by Salman Rushdie
4.0
I was going to write an entirely different review - one about how exhausting this book was to read and how pretentious it comes across, while fully missing the underlying point.
Much ado has been made about the comparisons between Nero and Trump, the tragicomedic rise to fame and power. What is much more clever, more subtle, and completely within our cultural blind spot is how René (the narrator) is the DNC. Or he represents the Democratic voters. He is a highly educated, erudite lover of popular and classical culture, of books and travel and film. He is a left leaning artsy type whose closest friends are bohemians and despite never saying anything about leaving New York manages to convey a worldliness obtained from vicarious living.
Far more than superficial stereotypes, Rushdie captures the aura of curiosity that surrounded the typical Democrat reaction to the rise of Trump. There's a sense that Rene is rubbernecking and intruding at the site of a traffic accident, curious about the fires enough to fan the flames yet still desiring some sort of distance and impartiality. His implicit disapproval and mild superiority (maybe it is actually defensive egotism) give him this air of standoffishness, but like iron to lodestone, he is dragged back into the Golden House to observe and dissect the inexplicable. His involvement with Russia was more discrete than the open marriage between Nero and Vasiliya, but more fruitful and more illicit, because it was not meant to be (perhaps echoing the DNC stance on American-Russian relations).
So then, the ending reads as if prophecy (or hope!) for the future. A sappy Hollywood ending where the dictator and the Russian strength backing him are killed by the ghosts of dirty deeds, after those ghosts have killed off any abnormalities in his genetic offspring (those of non-conservative mental, emotional, identities) and the dictator has learned to regret those losses and bemoan his ghosts. The DNC wins back his true love (the Democratic voters) with sweet words and patience and promises to never stray again. And we, the child of the DNC and Russia will be raised bathed by the the love between Rene and Suchitra.
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So yes. I was meant to be exasperated by René, as I am exasperated by the documentarian left leaning media and its consumers, all talk and no action, and what talk there is descends from the ivory tower. Clever. Subtle.
Also brilliant is the section on gender politics and identity. Eminently quotable. "But that is what we are, aliens, all of us. [] The point is to become more precise about the types of aliens we choose to be." And, very Wachowski-like, "To be forced into narrow definitions is a falsehood. To be told, if you are not one thing you are nothing, is to be told a lie."
Much ado has been made about the comparisons between Nero and Trump, the tragicomedic rise to fame and power. What is much more clever, more subtle, and completely within our cultural blind spot is how René (the narrator) is the DNC. Or he represents the Democratic voters. He is a highly educated, erudite lover of popular and classical culture, of books and travel and film. He is a left leaning artsy type whose closest friends are bohemians and despite never saying anything about leaving New York manages to convey a worldliness obtained from vicarious living.
Far more than superficial stereotypes, Rushdie captures the aura of curiosity that surrounded the typical Democrat reaction to the rise of Trump. There's a sense that Rene is rubbernecking and intruding at the site of a traffic accident, curious about the fires enough to fan the flames yet still desiring some sort of distance and impartiality. His implicit disapproval and mild superiority (maybe it is actually defensive egotism) give him this air of standoffishness, but like iron to lodestone, he is dragged back into the Golden House to observe and dissect the inexplicable. His involvement with Russia was more discrete than the open marriage between Nero and Vasiliya, but more fruitful and more illicit, because it was not meant to be (perhaps echoing the DNC stance on American-Russian relations).
So then, the ending reads as if prophecy (or hope!) for the future. A sappy Hollywood ending where the dictator and the Russian strength backing him are killed by the ghosts of dirty deeds, after those ghosts have killed off any abnormalities in his genetic offspring (those of non-conservative mental, emotional, identities) and the dictator has learned to regret those losses and bemoan his ghosts. The DNC wins back his true love (the Democratic voters) with sweet words and patience and promises to never stray again. And we, the child of the DNC and Russia will be raised bathed by the the love between Rene and Suchitra.
---------
So yes. I was meant to be exasperated by René, as I am exasperated by the documentarian left leaning media and its consumers, all talk and no action, and what talk there is descends from the ivory tower. Clever. Subtle.
Also brilliant is the section on gender politics and identity. Eminently quotable. "But that is what we are, aliens, all of us. [] The point is to become more precise about the types of aliens we choose to be." And, very Wachowski-like, "To be forced into narrow definitions is a falsehood. To be told, if you are not one thing you are nothing, is to be told a lie."