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novemah 's review for:
Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights
by Salman Rushdie
***SPOILERS***
This was a fun read, and there were parts that I did like, but I didn't feel entirely satisfied by it. Like with Midnight's Children, I like Rushdie's writing style and the slightly non-linear storytelling. There were some funny bits that make fun of how cynical and disillusioned New Yorkers can be: even as these fantastical things are happening, New Yorkers are like, "Meh, it's probably just a promo for some movie/opera/product." I like the recurring theme that our identities are informed by the stories we tell about ourselves and who we are can also affect how we tell a story (like that cliche about how history is written by the victors). I think the part that didn't satisfy me entirely was the idea that humans are be better off without religion, and I'm not convinced it's that simple. I definitely think that humans are better off without religious *extremism*, but the problem is not religion itself, it's that humans are tribalistic and we often hurt people who aren't like us. Even if religion didn't exist, we would just find other ways to divide ourselves into groups like by skin color or language or class. Anyway, the idea that if humans just "grew out" of religion and everything would be better just didn't feel right, so the ending just didn't work for me.
This was a fun read, and there were parts that I did like, but I didn't feel entirely satisfied by it. Like with Midnight's Children, I like Rushdie's writing style and the slightly non-linear storytelling. There were some funny bits that make fun of how cynical and disillusioned New Yorkers can be: even as these fantastical things are happening, New Yorkers are like, "Meh, it's probably just a promo for some movie/opera/product." I like the recurring theme that our identities are informed by the stories we tell about ourselves and who we are can also affect how we tell a story (like that cliche about how history is written by the victors). I think the part that didn't satisfy me entirely was the idea that humans are be better off without religion, and I'm not convinced it's that simple. I definitely think that humans are better off without religious *extremism*, but the problem is not religion itself, it's that humans are tribalistic and we often hurt people who aren't like us. Even if religion didn't exist, we would just find other ways to divide ourselves into groups like by skin color or language or class. Anyway, the idea that if humans just "grew out" of religion and everything would be better just didn't feel right, so the ending just didn't work for me.