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mldias 's review for:
The Ground Beneath Her Feet
by Salman Rushdie
This was my third foray into Salman Rushdie (the first two being "The Satanic Verses" and "The Enchantress of Florence"). What made this reading experience so pleasurable, beyond the exquisite and sometimes raw prose, was being familiar enough with Rushdie's work now to recognize a few universal themes. Perhaps most notable are the following three:
1) Estrangement from India. India itself is alternately protagonist and antagonistic, sometimes driving away the main characters, but also sometimes reeling them back in. Wherever they flee, she is a reality they will never escape. In this novel, Rushdie examines in some depth the concept of detachment from the East (i.e., "disorientation").
2) The "goddess vs. property" conceptualization of women (p. 486). In Rushdie's novels, particularly this one, women harness remarkable power. Reminiscent of Kawabata's "The House of Sleeping Beauties", the woman becomes "an empty receptacle, an arena of discourse, and we can invent her in our own image, as once we invented god" (p. 485). The male characters pour their entire selves into women like Vina or the Florentine enchantress, women whom they idolize. In this case, Vina becomes that "empty receptacle" for Ormus' and Rai's hopes, failures, desires, passions, expectations, shortcomings, disappointments, neuroses, etc., just as the sleeping beauties do for the old men in Kawabata's story. In fact, it is not just Ormus and Rai who use Vina this way--the entire world, captivated by her singing and atypical candor in the press, makes Vina its "empty receptacle". Even in death, she continues to function as the tabula rasa for various therapists, religious gurus, theorists, philosophers, and pundits--all of whom seek both to derive greater meaning and profit from her untimely death.
3) Doubles, twins, doppelgangers, and mirror images. The end chapters of this book are densely populated with Vina lookalikes and impostors. Ormus is haunted by his dead twin brother, Gayomart, who offers him visions of songs yet to be written and glimpses into alternate realities that torment him to no end, ultimately driving him mad. Mirror imagery throughout the story reinforces these dualistic themes.
Ultimately, this is the story of a very flawed, human love, something the narrative tells us explicitly. Ormus and Vina hurt many people throughout the course of their stormy on-again-off-again courtship--perhaps themselves most of all. Rai is the only character who escapes the destructive triangle, emerging not only with life and limb, but with a tamer, more humane version of Vina (Mira Celano). He achieves happiness with Mira that he could not with Vina--while Vina shunned the notions of fidelity and marriage, Mira craves them. And, perhaps most importantly, he does not have to share her body and soul with Ormus Cama.
1) Estrangement from India. India itself is alternately protagonist and antagonistic, sometimes driving away the main characters, but also sometimes reeling them back in. Wherever they flee, she is a reality they will never escape. In this novel, Rushdie examines in some depth the concept of detachment from the East (i.e., "disorientation").
2) The "goddess vs. property" conceptualization of women (p. 486). In Rushdie's novels, particularly this one, women harness remarkable power. Reminiscent of Kawabata's "The House of Sleeping Beauties", the woman becomes "an empty receptacle, an arena of discourse, and we can invent her in our own image, as once we invented god" (p. 485). The male characters pour their entire selves into women like Vina or the Florentine enchantress, women whom they idolize. In this case, Vina becomes that "empty receptacle" for Ormus' and Rai's hopes, failures, desires, passions, expectations, shortcomings, disappointments, neuroses, etc., just as the sleeping beauties do for the old men in Kawabata's story. In fact, it is not just Ormus and Rai who use Vina this way--the entire world, captivated by her singing and atypical candor in the press, makes Vina its "empty receptacle". Even in death, she continues to function as the tabula rasa for various therapists, religious gurus, theorists, philosophers, and pundits--all of whom seek both to derive greater meaning and profit from her untimely death.
3) Doubles, twins, doppelgangers, and mirror images. The end chapters of this book are densely populated with Vina lookalikes and impostors. Ormus is haunted by his dead twin brother, Gayomart, who offers him visions of songs yet to be written and glimpses into alternate realities that torment him to no end, ultimately driving him mad. Mirror imagery throughout the story reinforces these dualistic themes.
Ultimately, this is the story of a very flawed, human love, something the narrative tells us explicitly. Ormus and Vina hurt many people throughout the course of their stormy on-again-off-again courtship--perhaps themselves most of all. Rai is the only character who escapes the destructive triangle, emerging not only with life and limb, but with a tamer, more humane version of Vina (Mira Celano). He achieves happiness with Mira that he could not with Vina--while Vina shunned the notions of fidelity and marriage, Mira craves them. And, perhaps most importantly, he does not have to share her body and soul with Ormus Cama.