Sunday Supplement: On Reading and Writing

I don't think I could ever be a novelist. Not a good one, not the sort I'd want to be, at least. For all my fandom makes me dream of vaulting the divide and becoming a creator, as well as consumer, of stories, I grow increasingly aware that I lack what I consider the most important in a novelist. Literature may have moved away somewhat from the notion that a novel is first and foremost about stories and characters, but if I had to chose (and thankfully I don't!), I'd take a solid character driven story from a Bronte (any of them, really!), or Daphne du Maurier, or Salman Rushdie or Haruki Murakami or Jeffrey Eugenides etc over clever post-modern narrative or lyrical prose or fabulous dreamscape description any day.They are my heroes of literature, the writers who take me out of my skin and place me in another, who let me see the world through another pair of eyes, or show me worlds I'm never likely to see. Yes, that's right, when I read I value escapism over all else. And that shouldn't be a dirty word.

Why couldn't I write that sort of fiction? I consider myself a capable wordsmith, and sometimes I even come up with ideas that I think could make good plots. (Sometimes, I even start to write them down - shhhh.)
But where I come up short is in basic human empathy. The simple truth is that I seem to lack empathy and self awareness and social awareness. That doesn't mean I don't have huge amounts of caring and sympathy for myself and others, simply that I don't know myself very well, and even more so I don't know other people. I find it impossible to put myself in another person's shoes. In writing, this results in weak, two dimensional characters that I fail to engage with. Ironically - is this ironic? I've never quite got to grips with the concept of irony and still misuse it regularly - I think I could possibly write the sort of idea heavy fiction, or even biography disguised loosely as fiction. Not very well, mind you! But I don't want to. I don't want to write something I wouldn't particularly want to read.

So, that is a long rambling overly confessional way of saying that I love reading fiction because it gives me something I don't have in my everyday life. I've been reading The Great Night by Chris Adrian this week and above all else I'm hugely impressed with his compassion, his understanding without judgement of human nature, his basic goodness. For a re-writing of A Midsummer Nights Dream - and therefore a book full of fairies - it is amazingly down to earth, a veritable feast of the mundane. Its not so much magical realism, as realist magic, using the mundane to explain our need for a sense of magic, rather than magic as a way of comprehending the everyday. It is a tour de force that every bit lives up to the praise that has been heaped upon it, one of those books I turned page after page after page compulsively, to find out what would happen to our portfolio of characters, and through them to learn more about myself and the world around me. For that is the great thing about escapism - like immigration - : we take with us some of our experiences and knowledge and discover new things that become part of us, expanding our horizons in ways we could not otherwise have dreamed. To be a bit hyperbolic (something I'm often guilty of!), I think fiction both entertains and makes me a better human being. Why would I chose to add mediocre work to the mounds already written, when I can wallow for years in the great work that others have slaved over? It is a lot better for me, that is for sure.

Book Review: Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie

“Man is a storytelling animal…in stories are his identity, his meaning, and his lifeblood. Do rats tell tales? Do porpoises have narrative purposes? Do elephants ele-phantasise? You know as well as I do that they do not. Man alone burns with books.”

I must begin with that age-old confession of fandom: Salman Rushdie could probably write a cereal packet and I’d not only buy it and read it, but then write a glowing review. His writing is as vibrant and colourful as the stories he tells, he’s playful, exuberant, and there is a pace, a narrative drive and stylistic vibrancy that both delights and keeps me turning the page.

Luka and the Fire of Life is a sequel to his 1990 children’s book Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Written for his eldest son, Zafir, Haroun told the fantastical fable-like tale a young boy whose father’s stories bring laughter to the sad city of Alifbay. However, when his father, Rashid, runs out of stories, Haroun sets off to the Sea of Stories for an adventure that succeeds in returning the stories to Rashid, and the laughter to Alifbay. I

In Luka and the Fire of Life, this time written for his second son, Milan, Rushdie return to Alifbay, where another terrible thing has happened to Rashid: he has slipped suddenly into a sleep so deep that nothing and no-one can rouse him. In order to save his father from slipping away altogether, Luka, accompanied by Bear the dog and Dog the bear, embarks on his own adventure through the Magic World, this time to steal the fabled Fire of Life, a seemingly impossible and exceedingly dangerous task.

So difficult and dangerous, in fact, that Rushdie turns the adventure into a video game, replete with multiple lives, nine different levels, and save points that are strangely never required, even when Haroun dies loses a life. This structure provides an interesting mindset against which to tell a dangerous adventure story and saves that annoying trope of allowing a hero to somehow survive a series of impossible obstacles on the way to completing his mission. However, while Rushdie uses his doppelganger Rashid to make a statement in favour of the value of computer games, and despite talking in recent interviews of the potential of computer games to tell stories in a looser manner in which the reader/player has greater agency to take their story in a number of lateral directions rather than following the author’s single vertical line, one rather gets the feeling that he balks at the opportunities this could have provided to radically alter the structure of the story. The computer game motif is thus rather more of a plot theme than a structural concept and seems not to have seen a computer game since the early 1990s, with the result that this feels rather more like retro nostalgia than a modern attempt to re-work what a story can do.

Rushdie, it seems, is a creature of habit. There may be new glosswork here, but underneath all the plaster that dominates much of Rushdie’s work remain intact. Freedom of speech, and of belief, and of imagination, are the dominant messages here. Human value in and of itself. The power of stories to change the world. A mash-up of pop-culture and global mythologies. Rushdie’s cause celebes are well known and there is little here that he hasn’t said elsewhere. Yet that doesn’t seem to lessen the enjoyment of the passion with which he says these things. He would have made a talented speechwriter, for he knows his mind, understands his audience, and gives them what they want to hear. Take the passage below, in which Luka tries to rile a group of unruly, spoiled, forgotten Gods into supporting his quest. It may not be quite as eloquent as others – I’m thinking particularly of a great passage from Shame – but it’s powerful, emotive stuff nonetheless.

“You aren’t really the gods of anywhere or anyone any more. You no longer have the power of life and death and salvation and damnation. You can’t turn into bulls and capture Earth girls, or interfere in wars, or play any of those other games you used to play. Look at you! Instead of real Powers, you have Beauty Contests. It’s a bit on the feeble side, to be honest with you. Listen to me: it’s only through Stories that you can get out into the Real World and have some sort of power again. When your story is well told, people believe in you; not in the way they used to believe, not in a worshipping way, but in the way people believe in stories – happily, excitedly, wishing they wouldn’t end.”

For me, the pace of Rushdie’s childrens books is a bit too quick to ever have a chance to build up tension before the next event, but I turn the pages repeatedly, not so much for what might happen, but to see what pronouncement on human value might come next. It really could be a cereal box, for all it would matter to me. And his pop-philosophy delights as ever a plastic toy could.

Luka and the Fire of Life is not a classic work of children’s literature, but it is certainly an enjoyable read.  Rushdie is such a witty and playful writer and such an adept weaver of mythology, story, and fable  that there is something to enjoy on almost every page.

Luka and the Fire of Life was published by Jonathan Cape in hardback in September 2010. ISBN: 9780224061629, 224pp. A paperback version has just been published by Vintage, ISBN 9780099555322

53 Books You'll Want to Read in 2010

This post is inspired by the excellent list produced on Bookmunch. I have always been frustrated by how difficult it can be to cobble together a list of books released in the future so am delighted that someone has already done the hard work and saved me the hassle! I have simply added three additional titles, and some comment to the ones I am particularly excited about. 

1. The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall
2. The Stars in the Bright Sky by Alan Warner
3. Even the Dogs by Jon McGregor
   
   
   
   
   Sounds like classic McGregor territory: the search for truth about the past in the objects and people of today. His first novel, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things was a beautiful snapshot image of life on one street, and although the Booker longlisted follow-up wasn't quite as good, he remains an incredibly talented and powerful writer. One to look out for.
   
   
   
4. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman
   Philip Pullman does my head in at times, with his endless hatred of C.S. Lewis and his militant hit-you-over-the-head-with-it atheism. But he remains a wonderful storyteller and any new book from him promises a wonderful adventure. Billed as being particularly aimed at those who know their gospels (which I don't!), I'm nonetheless looking forward to learning something more about a subject (theology) which I find endlessly fascinating but can easily become dense and dull. Basically, Pullman is doing what I wish everyone would do: putting non-fiction into fiction, so that my impatient brain can take it in and enjoy the process at the same time.
   Bring on April!
   
   
5. Naming the Bones by Louise Walsh
6. Known to Evil by Walter Mosley
7. Monster 1959 by David Maine
8. Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon
9. It Feels So Good When I Stop by Joe Pernice
10. Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem
11. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
12. Nemesis by Philip Roth
13. Wild Child by TC Boyle 
14. Three Days Before the Shooting by Ralph Ellison
15. Solar by Ian McEwan
    I was lucky enough to hear Ian McEwan reading from this in June of this year, and it is genuinely very funny. I was in a horrible mood going into the talk, but somewhere in the almost campus-novel comedy of his reading, my perception of Ian McEewan as a 'serious' writer was blown completely out of the water. An early tip for Booker success next year, I think.
    
    
16. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell
17. Point Omega by Don DeLillo
18. The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
19. The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis
20. Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey
21. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
    
    
    
    
    When 1Q84 was published in Japan earlier this year it led to a rush of interest akin to that which greeted the release of Dan Brown's new book. The print run was raised from  100,000 to 480,000 and with the plot kept completly secret bookstores were inundated with pre-orders and queues on the day of release. The first of a two volume novel, 1Q84 is described as 'classic Murakami - a "complex and surreal narrative" that "shifts back and forth between tales of two characters, a man and a woman, who are searching for each other".
    No author reminds me why I love reading quite as well as Murakami.
    
    
    
    
22. The Man From Beijing by Henning Mankell
23. This Party’s Got to Stop by Rupert Thomson
24. Beatrice & Virgil by Yann Martel
    Well, it's Martel's first novel since the 2002 Booker winning phenomenon that was Life of Pi. Promising another mix of fable, fantasy, and theology this is a book that will attract huge public attention whenever it is released in 2010
    
    
25. All That Follows by Jim Crace
26. The Dead Republic by Roddy Doyle
27. Little Hands Clapping by Dan Rhodes
28. Lean On Pete by Willy Vlautin
29. The Ask by Sam Lipsyte
30. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
31. Castle J Robert Lennon
32. Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis
33. The Canal by Lee Rourke
34. Canada by Richard Ford
35. The Leaping by Tom Fletcher
36. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
    
    
    
    
    Already published in the U.S. where it has attracted a massive controversy and no little praise, Eating Animals sees Jonathan Safran Foer's on the verge of fatherhood and facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child's behalf. His investigations into the meet industry ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong.
    Not published here until Spring 2010, I am hoping that one of the many lovely people I know in the states might see fit to send it to me for Christmas this year (hint hint, wink wink!)
    
    
    
37. King Death by Toby Litt
38. Light Boxes by Shane Jones
39. The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris
40. The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Simm by Jonathan Coe
41. The News Where You Are by Catherine O’Flynn
42. The Greek Affair by Simon Van Booy
43. Nazi Literature in the Americas – Roberto Bolano
44. Rupture by Simon Lelic
45. The Art of Pho by Julian Hanshaw
46. George Sprott by Seth
47. Taurus by Joseph Smith (author of The Wolf)
48. The Widow’s Tale by Mick Jackson
    
    
    
    
    Mick Jackson is an author who never ceases to surprise. From the charming madness of Underground Man, to the fabricated beastiary in Bears of England he never quite gives you what you expect and his work is all the better because of it. What you can be sure is that The Widow's Tale will be an enjoyable read, full of humanity, warmth, and a little dollop of the unexpected to boot.
    
    
    
49. The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of his Friend Marilyn Monroe by Andrew O’Hagan
50. In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut
51. Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie
    The Sequal to Haround and the Sea of Stories, Luka promises another fable on the power of stories, and a life-affirming quest for life and passion. Published in October 2010 by Jonathan Cape, CCV publisher Dan Franklin has described it as “brilliant... as good as [Philip Pullman’s] Northern Lights”. I'm a huge Rushdie fan, next October can't come soon enough for me now.
    
    
52. Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
    
    
    
    
    
    The final part of Patrick Ness's excuisite Chaos Walking trilogy, Monsters of Men promises another morally nuanced and occasionally disturbing tale of Todd and Viola, not to mention the very fate of New World itself.
    The Knife of Never Letting Go is the most exciting and thrilling young adult novel I have read in many years and The Ask and the Answer was a worthy sequal. Told in a gritty acerbic voice, and shot through with moments of utter beauty, Chaos Walking will be a classic trilogy read for many many years to come.
    
    
    
53. Ellipsis by Nikki Dudley
    
    
    
    
    Last but by no means least is this thrilling debut from London poet and novelist Nikki Dudley. Exciting, phsychologically complex, and disconcerting, it is a powerful tale of two misfits trying to uncover long hidden secrets about themselves and their pasts'. Dudley has an often startling eye for description and her simple poetic prose will delight readers looking for something slilghtly different in the crime thriller genre.
    
    

Shame - Salman Rushdie

Read: June 2009

Shame in one tweet-sized chunk:
A targeted satire of Pakistani politics yet presenting the characters in a human light, Shame is of the very first order.

Shame is one of Salman Rushdie's least considered novels, falling as it does between the megastardom of Midnight's Children and the public controversy of The Satanic Verses. But for many reasons it is one of the most interesting. It sees Rushdie narrating his own novel, offering commentary and personal insight into the events which take place in a way he does not do elsewhere. Given his Islamic upbringing, disappointment at his parents decision to move to Pakistan in 1964, and hatred of religious fundamentalism in all its forms, it is easy to see Shame as his most personal and angry novel too.

Having looked at the effects of partition on India in Midnight's Children, Shame sees him crossing the border into Pakistan to look at the social currents and political imperatives which led to the turbulent decade between one military dictatorship and another. Most specifically it a re-imagining of the lives of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and General Zia-ul-Haq who between them ruled Pakistan for seventeen years. Having known each other since a young age and with their wives being distantly related, Raza Hyder and Iskander Harappa's lives have always been tied up with each other. They each rise to powerful positions in state apparatus, Old Razor Guts as a successful military leader, and Harappa as a beguiling politician, and for a while it seems that together they can take on the world. But things are not as they seem: the affairs of state are set to be the stage for feelings of shame and all the righteous vengeance it engenders to be played out on a grand scale. What is begun by a shameless man with a loose mouth ends many years later in a military coup, dictatorship, and execution. “Wherever I turn,” Rushdie comments early on, “'there is something of which to be ashamed. But shame is like everything else; live with it long enough and it becomes part of the furniture.” As a work of targeted satire, which lampoons the absurdities of major political trends in Pakistan and yet presents the characters in a human and understandable light, Shame is of the very first order.

This shame is not solely confined to politics however, it is everywhere. This is most clearly seen in the life of Sufiya Zinobia, the damaged daughter of Raza Hyder and his wife Bilquis, born blushing and thereafter referred to by her mother as 'Shame,' a personification of the many faces of shame. Throughout the novel it is she who suffers when shame is experienced until finally the shame takes her over completely which disastrous results and unmistakable portents of doom.

Packed with a host of characters, thought provoking themes, and the usual vibrant exciting prose, Shame is typical Rushdie. If you like his smart, conversational style, fusing of cultures, and desire to get his teeth into an idea then you'll love this. One of the things I love about his work but only finally understood halfway through this book is the way he brings his prose to life, not just figuratively but physically as well. He doesn't only use metaphor to shed light on something, but actually makes it a physical aspect of the character or plot. Here not only does he have characters which represent 'shame' and 'shamelessness' but when he says that Sufiya is engulfed by her shame that is exactly what happens. Ideas aren't just explored in theory, they are brought to life in vivid detail through the many events of the vast novel.

Shame can even be read on many levels. On one hand it is a damning satire of the political mess in Pakistan since partition and an impassioned voice against religious fundamentalism. On another, and like The Satanic Verses it is about the immigrant experience and the value of immigration to society. There is even a way of reading it as a reimagining of the Beauty and the Beast fairytale. And in the end it is all of these. Pigeon-holing is rarely possible in a Rushdie novel. There is just too much going on.

Above all it is a good yarn, driven forward by the hallucinogenic quality of the writing. And towards the end Rushdie even offers a personal and impassioned argument in favour of liberal democracy. Talking about the fate of fundamentalist religious states he writes:
“Few mythologies survive close examination, however. And they can become very unpopular indeed if they're rammed down people's throats...In the end you get sick of it, you lose faith in the faith, if not qua faith then certainly as the basis for a state. And then the dictator falls, and it is discovered that he has brought God down with him, that the justifying myth of the nation has been unmade. This leaves only two options: disintegration, or a new dictatorship...no, there is a third, and I shall not be so pessimistic as to deny its possibility. The third option is the substitution of a new myth for the old one. Here are three such myths, all available from stock at short notice: liberty; equality; fraternity.

“I recommend them highly.”

8 out of 10

The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie

Read: July 2007

Don’t you think it’s about time you made up your own mind about the most controversial book of the modern era? If nothing else, it will give you an opinion the next time the media gets its knickers in a twist about what is, at the end of the day, a work of fiction

But it will give you so much more than that. There is everything you expect from a Salman Rushdie novel: vast in scope, vivid in portrayal and seriously bizarre. As the author has often pointed out, it is also darkly comic and often hilarious. It is a vastly satirical meditation on the theology of religion, the struggle between human doubt and belief and, above all, the power of stories to change the world. Themes of race and immigration flow through the book alongside the usual contemporary and classical references. Reading a Salman Rushdie book is like reading nothing else, he is wholesomely devious, wonderfully irreverent and completely unique. His is a style of writing brimming with delightful sentences, so beautifully worded as to be like some fabulous cocktail: refreshing and invigorating and with that little kick of something you know is truly special.

The story revolves around the lives of Gibreel Farishta, legend of Bollywood Cinema, and Saladin Chamcha, the voice of radio, the man of a thousand voices. When their plane is blown up by terrorists high above the English Channel they float slowly to earth, as though divinely spared certain death. It soon becomes apparent that there is more to their escape than meets the eye. For while Saladin Chamcha begins to sprout horns, cloven feet and a forked tail, Gibreel Farishta seems to be shrouded by the glow of a halo. Confronted with dreams of past prophets Gibreel sets out to change the world. But as the lives of the two men become increasingly entangled within the social climate of the 1980’s the clarity of Gibreel’s belief becomes cloudy and we are left questioning where enlightenment ends and madness begins.

Salman Rushdie is a breath of fresh air in this tense and divided world: the antidote to community relations rather than the cause. Read this book, and make up your own mind. Because that is what Rushdie is all about, not dogma, not fear, but making ones own mind up, questioning the world, and being able to laugh at oneself. Rarely has a knighthood been so thoroughly deserved.


7 out of 10

Fury - Salman Rushdie

This is Salman Rushdie’s most autobiographical novel. It is also his most readable. Fury tells the story of Cambridge Philosopher turned legendary doll maker Malik Solanka who is struggling to control his furious anger. His famous creation, Little Brian, has been appropriated by the media and transformed into everything he most detests about consumerist marketing and one night he finds himself standing over his sleeping child with a knife in his hand. Fearing for the safety of his young family Malik retreats to New York City where he finds refuge amidst a city more furious than himself.

This is a city where cab drivers froth with hatred, petty resentments tear relationships apart and a serial killer is murdering women with a slab of concrete. Against this backdrop Malik Solanka tries to rebuild his life and unexpectedly developed a new doll. But will it be a success? Does the internet offer the chance for him to determine every aspect of his creation? And what about those periods of memory loss, could he be the serial killer?

This is a novel about the relationship between an artist and his creation. Only Salman Rushdie could combine the mythic Furies with contemporary popular culture and do so with such high-tempo panache. It is a terrific joy to read Rushdie, no other writer is able to combine so many themes and bring them together seamlessly and with such ease. If you have never read anything by the pre-eminent author of our time, this is the first place you should start. You will not be disappointed.


7.5 out of 10

Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

Once upon a time I used words like ‘great’ and ‘masterpiece’ with frivolous regularity. Then I read Midnights Children. Salman Rushdie works on a different scale to other authors, seamlessly blending the magical and the realistic, enhancing and supplanting accepted history, and illuminating his tactile world to all. He is first and foremost a storyteller who juggles plots and ideas with consummate ease, building a tapestry of flawed heroes and three dimensional characters. He writes with such a conversational narrative voice that is a pleasure to sit back and wallow in his half real, half magical worlds.

Take this, the first paragraph of this most epic of novels:

“I was born in the city of Bombay… once upon a time. No, that won’t do, there’s no getting away from the date: I was born in Doctor Narlikar’s Nursing Home on August 15th 1947. And the time? The time matters, too. Well them: at night. No, it’s important to be more… On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact. Clock-hands joined palms in respectful greeting as I came. Oh, spell it out, spell it out: at the precise instant of India’s arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world. There were gasps. And, outside the window, fireworks and crowds. A few seconds later, my father broke his big toe; but his accident was a mere trifle when set beside what had befallen me in that benighted moment, because thanks to the occult tyrannies of those blindly saluting clocks I had been mysteriously handcuffed to history, my destinies indissolubly chained to those of my country. For the next three decades, there was to be no escape. Soothsayers had prophesied me, newspapers celebrated my arrival, politicos ratified my authenticity. I was left entirely without a say in the matter. I, Saleem Sinai, later variously called Snotnose, Stainface, Baldy, Sniffer, Budha and even Piece-of-the-Moon, had become heavily embroiled in Fate – at the best of times a dangerous sort of involvement. And I couldn’t even wipe my own nose at the time.”

From the moment I picked it up and read this spectacular opening I knew I was about to indulge in a truly memorable journey. If there is another novelist writing with a similar fluidity of style then I cannot wait to discover them. Midnight’s Children thoroughly deserves every accolade it has received; I have never read a book quite this good. There is no more important or talented author writing in English today than Salman Rushdie.

Midnight’s Children tells the history of Saleem Sinain, one of 1001 children born in the first hour of Indian independence, tied to the fate of the fledgling nation. Each has been awarded a special talent, talents which, like their fellow countrymen, they will use to shape the nation into which they have been born. But as they grow older and early exuberance gives way to uneasiness in the country around them, Saleem begins to discover that not everything comes as easily at it initially seems.

With its polyglot amalgamation of three distinct but overlapping cultures, Midnight’s Children is one of those novels which define our time. As with The Satanic Verses, it is a story about globalisation and immigration and the multifarious world we increasingly live in. It is…no, you decide for yourself.

Common perception of Salman Rushdie is of a dense and unreadable author, for literary buffs rather than general readers. This is not true, though his individual style takes some getting used to. If you have never read any Rushdie, start with his more recent work such as Fury or The Ground Beneath Her Feet to get into his groove. Once you have done that then grab this book, sit back and prepare to enter the magical world of the children of Midnight, eternally tied to the fate of their fledgling nation. You will not be disappointed.

10 out of 10

Shalimar the Clown - Salman Rushdie

Read: September 2005

Shalimar the Clown in one tweet sized chunk:
At its best Shalimar the Clown is a stunning feet of literary wizardry, but too often becomes lost in strange and complex sub-plot.

When former American ambassador and counter terrorism chief Maximillian Ophuls is murdered by his chauffeur, a man known only as Shalimar the Clown, it appears at first glance to be an act of international terrorism. But as we delve back into the past, it becomes clear that this is actually a deeply personal crime, committed in revenge for a shallow affair in a far off land, many years ago.

Shalimar the Clown has all the elements you expect from a Rushdie novel. It is a globetrotting, high-wire balancing, historically astute, passionately personal, effervescently written journey across the world and into the past. At its heart, it is the story of Kashmir, an earthly paradise ripped apart by powerful outside forces, and ripping itself apart with bitter internal divisions. It is the amazing story of Max Ophuls, who treats Kashmir like his private playground and eventually pays the ultimate price. But it is also the story of his killer, his illegitimate daughter, and the woman who links them all. Lives converge, names change repeatedly, love is won and lost, and wars play out to their conclusions. This is classic Rushdie terrain.

One of the things which sets him apart from his contemporaries is his ability to bring Kashmir to life, complete with its peach orchards and honey bees, its mountains and lakes, its green-eyed women and gargantuan feasts. These simple everyday experiences are imbued with a sense of wondrous excitement and romanticism. The reader can shut their eyes and believe they are right there in the middle of the action. In Midnight’s Children the abiding sense was that of smell, of all the scents that suffused the novel, and here this feat is repeated gastronomically. I read Shalimar the Clown three years ago and still the great feasts of Kashmiri tradition make my mouth water and my mind salivate.


Put simply, Rushdie is a great writer. He is somehow able to combine his colloquial, almost verbal prose, with high intellectualism and make it read like a fairytale. Kashmir could be a magical kingdom somewhere far away, the characters are kings and queens of yore, seeking fame and fortune and love even amidst their meagre real lives. At times Rushdie's prose takes my breath away.


“Time passed. No, it did not pass. Time stood still. Beauty passed, love passed, bloody-mindedness and mulishness passed. Time stood still with its hands up. Stubborn bastards faded away.”


This is one of my favourite passages from any book ever, so beautifully capturing a sense of futile loss and powerlessness in the face of overwhelming might. You can open a Rushdie novel to any page and find a story within a story to read or a phrase like this to admire.


However, that is not always a good thing. Perhaps because he can conjure vivid set-pieces at will, there is often an over-indulgence within a Rushdie novel, a need to throw in extra, flourishing touches which, charming short stories though they may be, break up the atmosphere and disrupt the overall flow of the plot. Indeed, Shalimar the Clown is far from perfect. Structured around the lives of the four main characters, there are times when the plot becomes bogged down in the intricacies of daily life. While Max Ophuls escape through occupied France is a glorious adventure culminating in a wonderfully expressive aerial departure, there are times in Kashmir which slow the pace down too much. After Max’s murder in the opening chapter, we are instantly transported back into the past, to a Kashmir which at first glance appears to have very little to do with what has happened. It is a long time before the links begin to make themselves clear. If you like vivid, slowly evolving exploration of cause and effect, then this is well worth reading. Hell, any Rushdie novel, even a mediocre one, is likely to beat the socks off most of its competition. But perhaps more than many of his other novels, this is not for those who like a fast burning plot.

As you can probably tell, Salman Rushdie is my favourite author. Since I first read The Ground Beneath Her Feet on my honeymoon in Barcelona, sitting down with a new Rushdie novel has offered a rich and enthralling literary treat. Shalimar the Clown was only the second of his books I read, and for me it is one of his least special. It has neither the focused brilliance of Midnight's Children, the accessibility of Fury, or the epic storytelling prowess of The Enchantress of Florence. It is perhaps best compared to The Satanic Verses in that, at its best it is a stunning feet of literary wizardry, but too often becomes lost in strange and complex sub-plot.

7 out of 10

Influential Authors

Tough one, this.

I take the idea from Shelf Life. Which authors have influenced my thoughts on books, or writing. They are not necessarily my favourite writers, or those I most admire, but those who have influenced me in some way or another.

Over the years many authors have moulded and shaped my mind as a reader, and often radically transformed what I think about when I think about writing (haha, see what I did there?) Here are just a few of them.

1. Russell Hoban - Taught me that the only limit to writing is the extent of our imagination.
2. Haruki Murakami - Demonstrated how Magical Realism, well done, can express emotional upheaval through metaphor far more effectively than any amount of weeping realism ever has.
   He has also become my 'go-to' writer. Whenever I have become stuck with a book and struggled or not enjoyed finishing it, I go back to a Murakami novel and remember exactly why I love fiction.
3. Milan Kundera - Offered my first foray into fearsomely intelligent, intellectual writing. Enlivened my mind to the possibilities of what a novel can do.
4. Roald Dahl - Helped my fall in love with storybooks. I remember staying up late at night, huddled under the covers, when I was only about 7, desperately scrabbling through Matilda, totally unable to put it down.
5. J.R.R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings was the first adult book I read to myself, when I was 10 years old. I started off reading it with my Dad but got bored of waiting for our evening reading so decided to read it on my own and from then on I never looked back.
6. J.M. Coetzee - Demonstrated that great writing does not have to be complex or fancy, that what is most important is creating an atmosphere and telling a story and that the simpler you do that the better. Also demonstrates how unappetising sex scenes can be in fiction.
7. Charles Palliser - Reminded me that for all the great ideas you have, the story will always be paramount. If a reader cannot put a book down then that is the greatest achievement you can ever hope for.
8. Don Delillo - Offers a masterclass in the simplicity of good dialogue.
9. Toni Morrison - Taught me that you cannot judge a writer by their agent! No matter how infuriating, rude, or disrespectful an agent/publicist might be bears no correlation with how charming, and amusing the writer will be.
10. Kazuo Ishiguro - Showed me that writing is best when an author has the confidence to let their characters and events speak for themselves. That authorial commentary is best left to an absolute minimum.
11. Olga Grushin - HER STYLE IS DECEPTIVELY LIKE MINE! Gave me a sense that perhaps I can be a good writer.
12. Iris Murdoch - Ah, the unreliable narrator. Showed just how much you can do in the first person even if the narrator is delusional, confused and utterly unreliable.
13. Salman Rushdie - Where to begin? Inspires with every sentence. Demonstrates how mythology can bring a novel alive and create a colour palate of vivid imagination which works in counterpoint to the main plot. His lively, jumpy, excitable prose is an absolute pleasure to read. And he ties together ancient mythology with contemporary culture in a way few authors can.
14. Stephane Audeguy - Merges biography with fiction and fiction with biography in a way I have not seen done by anyone else.
15. Michelle De Kretser, Martin Amis and many others. How unbelievably unreadable and turgid some work can be. This is a very good lesson to learn.
16. Charlotte Bronte - The power of the narrator to carry a plot on their shoulders alone. If you have a great narrative, then I will read on forever, no matter what is happening in the plot.
17. G.K. Chesterton - The king of witty thoughts on writing. Argues that the simpler the prose is, the more you can convey. Less is definitely more.