Started on: Jan 31st, 2023
Finished on: Mar 19th, 2023
Time to read: 15 hours, 55 minutes
A phenomenally written book! Mr. Rushdie is a master of using metaphors and he went all in in this book. Weaving together multiple narratives, using India’s post-colonial history in a postmodern prose to deliver a magical realism masterpiece, there’s no wonder why this book was awarded as the Best of the Bookers.
In my previous piece about Shame by Mr. Rushdie, I’d written:
Rushdie has a peculiar way with words, an authoritative stance where the sentences bend over backwards to dance to the master’s tunes. He weaves them in and out and creates intricate relationships between the story, storyteller and reader. You need to be acquainted with the history of India and Pakistan, or at least be familiar with the events surrounding the partition, in order to grasp fully what he has set out here to do. The book is filled with brilliant uses of metaphors and similes, creating a parallel universe of Pakistan during the tumultuous years after partition. The sentences are measured and precise, neatly packed with an intricate plot and the social commentary (with a tinge of satire) leading you towards the destination.
The best kind of writing is fueled by personal experiences and Rushdie employs all the powers of language to bring that out in a full frontal display. It’s unfortunate when authors like him are targeted and threatened for merely exposing the underlying hypocrisy in the way we deal with our beliefs and ideologies.
I wish more people read him (if they aren’t already) and in general I wish more people read fiction. I’ve “demonized” fiction books for such a long time and now feel angry at my younger self for wasting the opportunities earlier. There’s such a wealth of insight hidden between these yellow pages; we just need to open our eyes and see.