September 13, 2005

Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown

Link: Love Under Siege.

Shalimar the Clown

By Salman Rushdie

reviewed by Ron Charles:

Speaking at the Paraty Literary Festival in Brazil this summer, he told the Christian Science Monitor that the events of Sept. 11 "showed me that the stories of the world are hopelessly entwined with each other." Shalimar the Clown exemplifies that entanglement with its vast geographical scope, moving from Kashmir to France to America, and from present to ancient days. A subtler expression of the world's integrated condition, though, is Rushdie's literary dexterity, his ability to cast sections of this novel as different genres. Modern thriller, Ramayan epic, courtroom drama, slapstick comedy, wartime adventure, political satire, village legend -- they're all blended here magnificently.

This contrasts with the negative Michiko Kakutani review of the new Rushdie novel.

Posted by Anupam Chander on September 13, 2005 at 09:12 PM in Globalization | Permalink