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A review by scifimagpie
The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
4.0
This was an interesting one - I think it would have blown my mind when I was a bit younger, but now, I was a bit too conscious of some of its tricks. The prose is gorgeous, and the characters are well-realised, with an effortless mastery of language.
Lots of sensory details crop up, and the omniscient narration has a distinct voice, while still allowing for peeks into the minds of individual characters.
The ending wraps up the mystery in kind of a post-scripty way, though, and it felt a bit abrupt somehow? There is also something kind of languid and oddly fluffy about the tone of the whole book. The namedropped classical heroes are worked in well, and they're fair, not overly idealised portrayals, but the female characters just felt like queens on a chessboard somehow--powerful and interesting, yet somehow two-dimensional. Even Jodha, the imaginary queen, just doesn't get as much realisation and time as she could.
Over all, it was a wonderful book, but it was missing something I can't put my finger on.
Lots of sensory details crop up, and the omniscient narration has a distinct voice, while still allowing for peeks into the minds of individual characters.
The ending wraps up the mystery in kind of a post-scripty way, though, and it felt a bit abrupt somehow? There is also something kind of languid and oddly fluffy about the tone of the whole book. The namedropped classical heroes are worked in well, and they're fair, not overly idealised portrayals, but the female characters just felt like queens on a chessboard somehow--powerful and interesting, yet somehow two-dimensional. Even Jodha, the imaginary queen, just doesn't get as much realisation and time as she could.
Over all, it was a wonderful book, but it was missing something I can't put my finger on.