Anything but Amusing

I finished off the book "Shalimar the Clown" this morning. It's Salman Rushdie's epic novel of a "love" story that sweeps over the main character's lifetime and takes the reader on a tragic journey through time from Kashmir India, Alsace region France and then to California.

The book got great reviews. It was my first Rushdie novel. This man of course was the subjected to a "fatwa" by Iranian Muslims over one of his earlier books The Satanic Verses where he supposedly was very critical of Islam. In many ways this comes through in this novel too.

I have to say that all the praise and critical acclaim this author gets it's well deserved. He is a brilliant writer. This book was very well written, structured in an amazing fashion and followed the story line of an Indian fable which intertwined with the novel. He gets into the mind of each main character like no other novel I've read since Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov". In that sense it was brilliant. He also had a way of seeing and expressing simple things in the most amazing manner. Little gem phrases that made you think "wow.. never looked at it that way before" kept popping up in unexpected places throughout the tale.

All that being said in the end I really didn't like the book. Despite the author's intelligence and skill at writing the story was depressing and there were no likable characters in the entire book. Even when at points you thought something positive was about to unfold it seemed to always unravel into a mess or something worse. His writing style isn't one I really like however. That is my personal taste but I'm aware many people do like it. For all his great writing skills it just took too long to get the tale out. After 400 pages there were perhaps 50 pages or less of storyline, the rest were flowery prose and endless flashbacks and descriptions of places, people or events that were relevant but not really directly relevant to telling the story at that moment. It was as if he was imitating Charles Dickens who was paid by the word. Although it was logical and for some people marvelously and intricately woven together, the story for me though dragged hopelessly.

Although a completely different type of book the Da Vinci Code for instance wrapped up it's ending way too cleanly. Everything fell into place in a predictable way. It was almost a television show ending. This book however seemed to scatter itself all over the globe and in the end you are left to write the last few lines in your own head... It was anything but nicely tied up. I don't like either of these scenarios. A good book to me has a bit of good and evil with some open and closed endings along with a few twists and surprises. Making everything fit in place or nothing fit in place really doesn't satisfy me because those scenarios in life rarely happen even though I must admit the "no-ending" endings are more realistic.

Lastly you could sense the author's political leanings throughout the storyline. The endless killings and terror, the hypocrisy in governments around the world, the irony of a Shangri La turned into a living hell... Whatever anything appeared to be at first it was always stripped and revealed for it's less beautiful truth in the end. Everything sucked in other words... perhaps for me it was a little too close to reality and so in the end a bit too depressing. Yeah for sure he's a far superior writer than Dan Brown but the Da Vinci Code sold more copies for a reason. There are many times I realize I hate living my life along the lines of what ever "the masses" like... usually that leads to watered down sentimental crap but if I had to choose between the two of these tales I have to admit I was more entertained by the Da Vinci Code in the end... Oh well.. still I'm glad to have read this epic and I can say I do admire Rushdie's skills it's just too bad he's just such a downer... but then again like the characters in the book his life too layers itself continuously on top of each experience he has and together they've ultimately shaped his mind which came up with such a complex, intricate, tense albeit destructive storyline. For that you've got to admire him