Customer Reviews

The Ground Beneath Her Feet

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

The difference between "Midnight's Children" and "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" is the difference between a long, fantastic novel that pulls you in and keeps you intoxicated throughout (MC) and a long, fantastic novel that doesn't know when to stop and wears you out long before it's finished (TGBHF). Since Rushdie uses some of the world of the former to populate and illustrate the latter, it's not an inappropriate comparison. The deft storytelling talents of Rushdie are still to be seen within the hackneyed plot, though, and that's what kept me reading t'il the end. But even then it's hard to give much of a rip about either Ormus Cama or Vina Apsara. This isn't 1972 and the notion of rock stars as tormented demigods went out with Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars. Say it's an entertaining read in spite of itself and go get "Haroun" or "Shame" for more potent examples of Rushdies considerable writing talents.

Oh, yeah, it's way, way, way, way, WAY too long!

This one helps us understand the difference between proficiency in language and mastery of writing, between mechanical wit and humor, between being a smartypants and being wise. Rushdie definitely knows how to speak English, and he desperately wants us to know he knows. (Is this part of the Indian Anglophilia to which he often refers in the novel?) He is so enchanted by the sound of his own voice, and so impressed by his accumulated store of random facts, that he reminds us of a child who is so pleased with himself for having mastered tying his shoelaces that he can't stop accosting people on the street to display his prowess. Or of the girl who always sat in the front row and constantly raised her hand urgently, begging for the opportunity to answer every question. This novel has "Look at me! Look at me! Aren't I clever?" written all over it.

No, I'm not intimidated by long books, or by literary (or musical) allusions, or by experimental prose forms, but I'm bored to tears with big, fat books that got that way because the self-indulgent author has a bad case of verbal diarrhea and the editor doesn't dare tell him so. Constantly rambling off on tangents that do nothing to advance the story or even entertain us, Rushdie takes perhaps two hundred pages to settle into making some attempt to tell us the story his sometime-narrator (that is, the character who is supposedly telling us the story but couldn't possibly have acquired any knowledge of most of it) keeps informing us he's going to tell us, after he tells us lots of stuff that we don't much care about. By that time, we're more than ready for a great story, but Rushdie doesn't have a great story to tell, just a lot of lampooning of various types of people he evidently doesn't much like, salted with allusions to popular music that I guess are designed to let us know how much the author thinks he knows about the subject.

There are some diverting minor characters in The Ground Beneath Her Feet, but the two major ones are bizarre amalgams of psychoses that Rushdie apparently imagines are typical of rock stars. Neither Vina nor Ormus are recognizably human, let alone motivated by human impulses, making it impossible to care about what they do or what happens to them.

If you want to read a novel that combines fabulous use of the language with a story that you'll remember for the rest of your life, try Cormac McCarthy, or Mark Helprin's one good book, Soldier of the Great War. I'm sure there are many others. This one's a dud.

As a musician for more than 20 years I looked forward to reading this one. A feast had been promised; a gentleman from The Times was quoted on the back cover (of the paperback) as saying this was "The first great rock 'n' roll novel in the English language". He should get out more; this work was out of tune almost from the opening riff. Imagine a book crying out for an editor. Imagine an author who lets his writing and writing technique get in the way of his story. Imagine a story with two main characters so obnoxious, shallow and lacking in humanity that it is almost impossible to either sympathise or empathise; a badly-drawn boy and girl. Imagine a so-called 'rock 'n' roll novel that fails to convey the raunchy, ball-busting, sweat stained, 'shout at the moon' essence of what rock 'n' roll is about.Imagine an author splattering his story with party political broadsides against corruption in India, but who conversely, and with some pride, takes us on occasional but unnecessary tours of Bombay - through the eyes of the story's narrator. The development of Vina and Ormus from obscurity to fame is tenuous, and involves none of the emotional impact you would expect when a couple of unknowns hit the big time. I wanted to be there with them; share the emotion; feel the vibe; but I couldn't get close. Despite the fact that we learn of Vina's fate in the first few pages, it gradually becomes apparent that Vina and Ormus never had a chance really; that the author had modelled them on the legendary and tragic Orpheus and Eurydice; that he had in fact abandoned them to destruction. And if the author doesn't care for his creations, then why should the reader? Overall, a major disappointment whose only saving grace is that U2 took the words of "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" from the novel and produced a great rock 'n' roll song on their "All That You Can't Leave Behind" album; and what a song it is; from the subtle drum intro to the swelling synth-backed bridge to Bono's honeyed vocals and the Edge's sweet and dangerous solo at the end. Hear it once, and die.

I found the characters completely devoid of life, and I've been subjected to Rushdie's endless seemingly profound hot air. He seems to have wrote most of this from his stream of consciousness, and I can recal nothing interesting had had to say. I stuck with him because I was shocked that this exalted author could so disappoint, but he was as bad at the end as in the middle. I've calibrated myself on "highbrow" stuff, and his ain't.

The best book of Salman Rushdie.Great saga on over 50 years about the rock culture.

There is only one thing I will concede about this book- that it is somewhat of a 'labor of love' -- it's no beach read. Rushdie has crafted word-for-word, thought-for-thought with a painstaking eye for detail to match that of God himself. This story will be especially entertaining to those with a modicum of pop knowledge. The plays on words and musical history are endless. But no matter where your knowledge is, this book has a love story at its heart, and we're all suckers for a love story, no? In the end, I think you will agree with me that with Rushdie around, anyone else who after him dares to pick up a pen and write can only do so in a spirit of ambition.

I really liked that book. The story was compeling,the characters are amazing and beautiful, butI have to say that I got lost a little in the other realm. Salmon Rushdie was as usual a superb writer and writes the most beautiful phrases I have ever read.

I really liked that book. The story was compeling,the characters are amazing and beautiful, butI have to say that I got lost a little in the other realm. Salmon Rushdie was as usual a superb writer and writes the most beautiful phrases I have ever read.

_The Ground Beneath Her Feet_ is among Rushdie's best novels. The narrator, Rai, tells the story of Ormus Cama and Vina Aspara, his close friends, the world-famous rock stars (their group, VTO, is more popular than even the Beatles), and renowned lovers. He also tells of his own rise to fame as a photojournalist and his passion for Vina.

The primary theme of the novel is disorientation: the disorientation of global celebrity, the disorientation of uprooting yourself from your home country, and the disorientation of living in a world where you have a pervasive sense that "It shouldn't be this way" (which is also the name of one of VTO's greatest hits.) Rushdie cleverly borrows a page from science fiction and has this entire story take place in a parallel universe to our own, where Lee Harvey Oswald's gun jams, but the two Kennedy brothers are later assassinated simultaneously thanks to a maverick magic bullet, Jesse Garrison Parker sings the song of Elvis Presley, the group Simon and Garfunkel is a female duo consisting of Carly Simon and Guinevere Garfunkel, and VTO's album "Quakershaker (How the World Learns to Rock n' Roll)" consistently beats the Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper" in polls of the greatest rock album ever. As it turns out, this world is on a collision course with reality as we, the readers, know it, which causes an increasing number of violent earthquakes. What will happen when worlds collide? Ormus, who has some ability to see into the other world, is haunted by the possibilities.

The book is amazingly erudite, with references to everything from western and eastern mythology to rock n' roll history. It engages in some absolutely delightful parodies (the parody of the final page of Joyce's _Ulysses_ is hilarious), as well as some incisive commentaries on how our commercial culture commodifies celebrities, drawing together elements from the Princess Diana phenomenon and the Madonna phenomenon (though Madonna in this book is sort of a trendoid cultural critic.) One of my favorite sentences in this novel is "One minute she's a goddess, and the next she's property." What a fantastic acerbic comment.

I read this book when it first came out, and have recommended it to many friends. If you open yourself up to Rushdie's narrative style, you will find that this book sweeps you off your feet. It's a true winner.

It's interesting to see other reviewers contrast Ground Beneath Her Feet with Midnight's Children, as my thoughts ran the same way. While Midnight's Children is Rushdie's best novel, Ground Beneath Her Feet is the most fun. It is not a book for someone who is not a veteran Rushdie reader, as the author's puckish jokes and references to pop culture abound, and would irritate anyone who hasn't learned to love his puns and wordplay. In some ways Ground Beneath Her Feet reminded me of what Kurt Vonnegut said about his Breakfast of Champions: it's a book the author wrote as a gift to himself. Here, Rushdie is riffing and having fun with language. If you don't take it too seriously, it's a great ride. (It's also tremendous fun trying to catch all the fictional characters who are alive in Rushie's alternate reality.)