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A review by elerijane
Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie
3.0
After a day to reflect I’m still not sure how to feel about this book, might be more of a 3.5 but I’m undecided. Firstly, the story was so interesting and strange and like nothing I’ve read before, in a good way. The mythology was rich and cleverly woven into the human side of the story, which created a sort of magical realism that was really well done. Throughout, Rushdie presents some fascinating and thoughtful commentary on heroism, religion and society.
Yet it also took at least 100 pages for me to begin enjoying it, and even then I didn’t really connect to any characters. It was as if every time I was close to connecting, he pulled them away from reach and took the story to someone else. This made it really difficult to stay interested and want to pick it back up again because, while I wanted to know how the story progressed, there was nobody to I was particularly rooting for or attached to, until it was too late for this to even matter. Some characters were also quite underused, while others were given more time than they deserved. The writing style was mostly lovely to read, but I think sometimes his attempts to be clever made it seem more pretentious than necessary, as the story itself was enough. This is why I leave this book confused, because I’m in no way disappointed by the story, maybe even pleasantly surprised, but nearly everything else lets that down for me.
Yet it also took at least 100 pages for me to begin enjoying it, and even then I didn’t really connect to any characters. It was as if every time I was close to connecting, he pulled them away from reach and took the story to someone else. This made it really difficult to stay interested and want to pick it back up again because, while I wanted to know how the story progressed, there was nobody to I was particularly rooting for or attached to, until it was too late for this to even matter. Some characters were also quite underused, while others were given more time than they deserved. The writing style was mostly lovely to read, but I think sometimes his attempts to be clever made it seem more pretentious than necessary, as the story itself was enough. This is why I leave this book confused, because I’m in no way disappointed by the story, maybe even pleasantly surprised, but nearly everything else lets that down for me.