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A review by brian_loane
The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence is one of the greatest pieces of “historical” fiction that I have ever read. I use quotes around historical because, while much of the book is indeed based around real characters and events, Rushdie introduces just enough myth and surrealism to divorce his story from total credibility. Rushdie uses this story of Renaissance Italy and India during the reign of Emperor Akbar “The Great” to investigate the phenomenon of globalization that has gripped our world.
Rushdie uses a frame to tell this story. In the beginning of the book, a mysterious and young Italian traveler arrives in the court of Emperor Akbar claiming to be his uncle. The rest of the novel attempts to explain this claim. Throughout the course of the story you will meet fictional characters such as charismatic sailors and soldiers, as well as historical beings like Machiavelli and Vlad Dracul. At the center of the book stands the woman who ties Renaissance Europe to Mughal India: the long-lost princess Qara Koz, known as the Enchantress of Florence.
She is a fascinating character—fiercely independent and deeply romantic. After leaving the Mughal family, she traverses the world. She becomes the lover of a Persian king and helps to rule his empire. Eventually, she falls in love with the warrior Ago Vespucci, and their exciting adventures as lovers dominate the novel. Rushdie weaves a story of great imaginative power through his blending of loads of historical research with fabulistic elements.
Rushdie also uses his story to report on and explore the concept of globalization. How does the world connect? The entire world has become smaller, and this topic has become Rushdie’s favorite to examine, which he does strikingly with the character of the princess. She links two disparate parts of the world together, and her story brings new insight to this period of history.
The writing in this novel is also breathtaking. To get a sense of its magnificence, just read his description of Emperor Akbar (sorry for the length, but it is just so spectacular): “The emperor Abul-Fath Jalaluddin Muhammad, king of kings, known since his childhood as Akbar, meaning “the great,” and latterly, in spite of the tautology of it, as Akbar the Great, the great great one, great in his greatness, doubly great, so great that the repetition in his title was not only appropriate but necessary in order to express the gloriousness of his glory—the Grand Mughal, the dusty, battle-weary, victorious, pensive, incipiently overweight, disenchanted, mustachioed, poetic, oversexed, and absolute emperor, who seemed altogether too magnificent, too world-encompassing, and, in sum, too much to be a single human personage—this all-engulfing flood of a ruler, this swallower of worlds, this many-headed monster who referred to himself in the first person plural.”
Rushdie is a master of storytelling—the great novelist of our time, in my opinion. When you read his work, you feel as though you are being personally addressed, and I always find that when others speak of him, I want to tell them to stop talking about my author. His brilliance manifests itself on every page.
Rushdie uses a frame to tell this story. In the beginning of the book, a mysterious and young Italian traveler arrives in the court of Emperor Akbar claiming to be his uncle. The rest of the novel attempts to explain this claim. Throughout the course of the story you will meet fictional characters such as charismatic sailors and soldiers, as well as historical beings like Machiavelli and Vlad Dracul. At the center of the book stands the woman who ties Renaissance Europe to Mughal India: the long-lost princess Qara Koz, known as the Enchantress of Florence.
She is a fascinating character—fiercely independent and deeply romantic. After leaving the Mughal family, she traverses the world. She becomes the lover of a Persian king and helps to rule his empire. Eventually, she falls in love with the warrior Ago Vespucci, and their exciting adventures as lovers dominate the novel. Rushdie weaves a story of great imaginative power through his blending of loads of historical research with fabulistic elements.
Rushdie also uses his story to report on and explore the concept of globalization. How does the world connect? The entire world has become smaller, and this topic has become Rushdie’s favorite to examine, which he does strikingly with the character of the princess. She links two disparate parts of the world together, and her story brings new insight to this period of history.
The writing in this novel is also breathtaking. To get a sense of its magnificence, just read his description of Emperor Akbar (sorry for the length, but it is just so spectacular): “The emperor Abul-Fath Jalaluddin Muhammad, king of kings, known since his childhood as Akbar, meaning “the great,” and latterly, in spite of the tautology of it, as Akbar the Great, the great great one, great in his greatness, doubly great, so great that the repetition in his title was not only appropriate but necessary in order to express the gloriousness of his glory—the Grand Mughal, the dusty, battle-weary, victorious, pensive, incipiently overweight, disenchanted, mustachioed, poetic, oversexed, and absolute emperor, who seemed altogether too magnificent, too world-encompassing, and, in sum, too much to be a single human personage—this all-engulfing flood of a ruler, this swallower of worlds, this many-headed monster who referred to himself in the first person plural.”
Rushdie is a master of storytelling—the great novelist of our time, in my opinion. When you read his work, you feel as though you are being personally addressed, and I always find that when others speak of him, I want to tell them to stop talking about my author. His brilliance manifests itself on every page.