Shalimar the Clown [Audio Cassette]

 

 

Create your own review

Great book. The master weaves effortlessly forwards and backwards in time; into and out of places. The weaving never seems contrived. The book becomes a serious page-turner. But this book is very different in character from earlier books like Midnight's Children and The Moor's Last Sigh - the trademark juxtaposing of comedy and brutal darkness is different - more brutality with the lighter moments more like comic relief in the gloomy reality of the world Rushdie makes us see. In fact the books does have a depressing air about it. But the ending is very satisfying. And it is a wicked read.

Déçu est peut-être le mot le plus approprié. Après deux chapitres excellents et bien à la hauteur de mon attente, Salman Rushdie se dévoile brutalement comme l'émule de Dan Brown, pour nous faire un tableau délirant de la France au début de la 2ème guerre mondiale. Après cela, la qualité du roman se relève quelque peu, au niveau d'un bon ouvrage de journalisme investigatif, pour enfin s'écraser dans la dernière partie, avec le pastiche involontaire d'un quelconque roman américan contemporain.

Rushdie, a master of unevenness?

The first and last book I ever had read by Salman Rushdie was his Satanic Verses. I liked it, in spite of a tendency to unevenness that left me a bit unsatisfied. Yet, I remember placing it on the shelf with such masters as Amado, Allende, Garcia Marquez... My only contact with Rushdie, ever since, had been the occasional op-eds or comments I came across here and there, some of them intelligent considerations on events of our times, others sheer nonsense.

Well, with all the respect due to someone whose output not doubt has been affected by the hardships of a quite peculiar fate, unevenness seem like the only mastery Rushdie has perfected with this last novel, to the detriment of any other stylistic and literary achievement. Magical realism, when it makes its timid appearance, seems counterfeit and not at all integrated with the rest of the plot.

The two first parts, India and Boonyi, were boding well, though. I recognized the imagination served by the flowery style that had pleased me in the Verses, and to that point I didn't mind the characteristic excesses of verbosity which more often than not lead Rushdie to say in ten sentences what others might have expressed in two. Then, brutally and mercilessly, in the next part, called Max, Rushdie plunges us in a parody of Dan Brown that in terms of nonsensicality, poor research and stylistic sloppiness barely leaves anything to desire to the biggest best-selling writer of our times (which says not so little about the latter). Whether the pastiche is intentional or Rushdie unwillingly makes a concession to the spirit, or lack of such, of our era, I am unable to tell. But somehow, it's the latter I'm inclined to believe to be the case, after finding no proper reason to indulge into this from the book's perspective.

Thankfully, Rushdie brings us back for a while to a more tangible world, with a description of the last decades' developments in Cashmere which I would like to think of as accurate. While I feel myself rather well informed as to the general outline of contemporary history in that region, Kashmir hasn't been on the top of my list when it comes to details. Yet, after Max and the literary and historical massacre committed on France during World War 2, I can't help but remaining with the nagging feeling that the same sloppiness might also be pervading what I am reading in the part of the book named Shalimar the Clown, which covers a subject I'm not familiar enough with. At any rate, what we get from Rushdie's pen in this part is what we would expect from a survey of the region by Robert Fisk - praiseworthy, without a word of argument, but a far cry from our expectations if a good novel is what we're looking for.

Finally, Kashmira, the last part of the book, brings us back home to the superficiality of contemporary America. I will grant Rushdie that he manages to convey some the superficiality very well, especially when describing the US media and judicial system's black-or-white appraisals of the very complex issues developed in the previous chapters. But I have once again to wonder whether this was fully intentional.

For again, we have landed in a segment of the book which reads as if it was written by an altogether different author, who has made his the superficiality of the authors of galloping action novels favoured by today's readership in most parts of the world. Chases, thrills, court actions, the whole bit is there, as well as a finale of superficial profundities that sounds like the author really got tired of his novel and had to get done with it quick. Are we reading a pastiche too, in this case a pastiche of a whole society? The rather shallow picture of the rather shallow personality of India/Kashmira (as opposed to those of the other characters, which are much more "real"), could lead us to believe so. There is preciously little, unfortunately, to rescue a poorly designed plot, not even the few bits of magical realism, which I otherwise am a great fan of, and not even the barely veiled satirical disgust at what goes for social interractions in that part of the world. A redeeming feature in this last part, however, is the description of the appalling conditions in the USA's prison system. But here too, I have to wonder: how much of it is accurate, and how much of it is the product of Rushdie's fancy of the moment?

At times I seem to perceive that throughout the book, Rushdie has attempted to convey a symbolic meaning. Or a series of overlapping symbolic meanings. Either he manages, most of the time, to keep this well hidden from view, or I am just not able to see through the unevenness.

Maxmillian Ophuls a U.S. diplomat, who was formally stationed in the Kashmir Valley, is murdered by his former chauffeur, Shalimar, in broad day light on the doorstep of his illegitimate daughter India. The murder looks at first to be a political assassination but turns out to be personal.

Several flashbacks take the readers to the past. Shalimar, the clown, was once full of affection and deeply in love with Boonyi, a beautiful Hindu girl who he married. Things come to a turn when Maxmillian comes to the village and becomes Boonyi's lover. A scandal erupts when she becomes pregnant and Max is forced to return to the U.S a single man. The child, India, is eventually brought to England by Maxmillian's wife.

Shalimar couldn't bear Boonyi's betrayal and dedicates the rest of his life to get even with those who caused his unhappiness.

The story is depicted in layers. The author opens with details about Max Ophuls murder and his history in Kashmir. He also describes the generation before Shalimar and Max's past as a Jew in wartime France. Two thirds into the book the pace heightens, becoming thrilling as much as intellectual when Shalimar's character is introduced. The author also details devastating accounts of the Indian armies' insurrection, the violation of the women, the torturing and execution of the men all done in the name of faith and country.

Kashmir is the central point of this novel, although the title may not sound like it. This book is dazzling and brilliant but reading it was exhausting, things never stopped happening. Just as you get the hang of a character, another one is introduced with all his history, it is easy to miss the literary, historical and mythical allusion portrayed in this dense narrative. Mr Rushdie writes with humour, sarcasm and sensitivity and the tale of "Shalimar the Clown" is a tragic one that could also be real. A very interesting novel.

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 3 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

 

Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Search Listmania!