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A review by megan_eightball
The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
4.0
This books takes its time getting to its point, which made it controversial at bookclub. We agreed that it was not a page turner. Its characters meander across countries and Rushdie takes his time describing scenes and anecdotes along the way, poetically and with humor but not with urgency. It's good for sitting down and immersing oneself. It's not good bus reading, and those who tried to skim got confused by the windy sentence structures, profusion of characters, and dubious reliability of the narrator. I thought it was beautifully written, and worth slowing down to savor.
In the end, I found the characters were sympathetic, but it was only in the latter half of the book that they were developed enough for me to start caring about what happened to them. I found the character of the king to be the most deeply developed, and his choices interesting.
There was a whole lot of magical realism, paired with characters who exaggerate. I enjoyed the fairytale quality that it produced.
It was Arabian Nights-ish, where it seemed to be many episodes and anecdotes that loosely fit together to eventually answer a mystery. A chapter a night before bed might have been an ideal way to read it. I wouldn't have executed the storyteller midway.
In the end, I found the characters were sympathetic, but it was only in the latter half of the book that they were developed enough for me to start caring about what happened to them. I found the character of the king to be the most deeply developed, and his choices interesting.
There was a whole lot of magical realism, paired with characters who exaggerate. I enjoyed the fairytale quality that it produced.
It was Arabian Nights-ish, where it seemed to be many episodes and anecdotes that loosely fit together to eventually answer a mystery. A chapter a night before bed might have been an ideal way to read it. I wouldn't have executed the storyteller midway.