Salman Rushdie Rocks!
I'm know I'm a bit late to the party.
Yesterday I read his book 'Shame' which I expected to be something like Tasalima Nasrin's 'Lajja' which I feel is a chewing-gum with human emotions stretched to the limit. Rushdie's 'Shame', thankfully does not tell us in words what we would understand anyway.
I'm know I'm a bit late to the party.
Yesterday I read his book 'Shame' which I expected to be something like Tasalima Nasrin's 'Lajja' which I feel is a chewing-gum with human emotions stretched to the limit. Rushdie's 'Shame', thankfully does not tell us in words what we would understand anyway.
The story begins-and ends, with Omar Khayoum's story. He is taught never to understand shame, never to feel it. It is ultimately his end.
The book is sad read--SPOILER ALERT--, except a few side-characters, everyone dies by the end. It portrays the political situation in Pakistan , where even today, assassinations and military coups are as common as birthday parties and does it in such, such poetic and realistic manner that one feels Rushdie himself has come out to tell his story. At the end, the woman who survives the story looks like Benazir Bhutto but nature has beaten art again, Bhutto's last year's assassination would fit perfectly into Rushdie's story. Rushdie claims several times that he is doing a work of fiction but it is very difficult to believe him, the happenings in the story could be happening in Pakistan, or any country now.
The book, is a tale of power, revenge, death, coups, assassinations, fools, fools who consider themselves clever, murders, murderers who think they are innocent and of politicians. Like in all of Rushdie's works, there is no hero; Rushdie portrays all his characters as humans, with their faults, mistakes and vulnerabilities, but ultimately all humane.
Rushdie is a modern poet writing in prose. The whole point of poetry becomes obvious in his works, with their innuendos and their analogy of reality and the ideal. All aspiring politicians must read this...To understand life and ultimately, themselves...