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Dec 17, 2009

Chris rated it:

Knew it was my favorite book ever as soon as I read it. Read all the others I'd said that about again just to be sure. It was. Rushdie's polyglot wordplay and his gift for pun (Why is it that multi-lingual writers like Rushdie and Nabokov are the most exceptional punsters?) are irrepressible. It's a transcontinental, slightly-fantastical elseworld story in which making music seems the most important thing a person can do. Add to it all the burbling, effusive joy with which Rushdie handles l More...

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Dec 17, 2009

Neda rated it:

i will confess that i started "satanic verses" ... key word, started. i read the first 10-15 pages, and realized that i had NO idea what i was reading. so i turned to a nifty cliff note thing on line and realized that what i had read and re-read four times was the protagonists falling through the air after their airplane kabooms ... surprising to me. and thats when i did not read anymore (maybe some other day).

i picked this one up hesitantly. i wanted to read some More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Oct 31, 2008

Lavinia rated it:

oops! i did it again. i started it for the third time. and i'm determined to finish and like it [i intend the same thing with ulysses and foucault's pendulum - i'll see about the rest]. if only i could get over the first 100 pages. wish me luck. i can't believe i paid 43.8 RON in 2005 to get this book. well, this might be just another reason for reading it ;)

U2 feat. rushdie wrote a beautiful song based on the book
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ-XKz0eN...

***
2 More...

4 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 28, 2008

Debbie rated it:

A reimagining of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth set in the modern world of rock & roll. There are many cultural references, but often twisted in interesting ways. Famous people appear, but in different roles than readers expect. I found this the most fun aspect of the book--wondering how many of the jokes I actually got.

Ormus Cama is a brilliant musician born in Bombay, India. The love of his life is Vina Apsara, a half-Indian woman who moves to Bombay when she is a young adolesce More...

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Dec 19, 2007

Kirstie rated it:

I think Rushdie can be a bit daunting sometimes because he's really an intellectual through and through. He fills his writing with countless references to mythology and history in a way that I find rewarding but some may find difficult. Rushdie creates the story of a band and music that grows to epic proportions. We follow the story of Rai, a photographer who falls precariously in love with Vina in India while still very much a boy. He basically devotes his whole life to Vina and the languag More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 02, 2008

Tami Lynn rated it:

I really wanted to read this book, and though I haven't read much else by him, I really like Salman Rushdie.. But I just couldn't get into this. Every time I picked it up I couldn't get through more than 20 pages without putting it down and finding myself with no incentive to pick it back up again. From October 2007 until about a month ago I hadn't even gotten through half the book.

Suffice it to say I was not impressed. I felt like it was just this long-winded story of nothing. More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 17, 2011

Rebecca rated it:

Orpheus and Eurydice as rock stars. Epic tale of music 'n' love.
And the deification of genius.

Also, highlights celebrity's recent secularisation. How today's stars function for community instead of idolatry.

"the point is always reached after which the gods no longer share their lives with mortal men and women, they die or wither away or retire... Now that they've gone, the high drama's over. What remains is ordinary human life."

More...

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Feb 16, 2008

Don rated it:

I think this is my favorite Rushdie book yet.

No less of a deep dive into Bombay, India, Europe, current political events, religion and history than the other books of his I've read, this one adds Rock and the modern world as a central theme, and the mythical-magical, so to speak analysis of power and alternate worlds teeming with real and unreal examples of iconic ways that the world just is.

The Orpheus and Eurdike storyline this is woven around is brilliantly exhumed a More...

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Dec 16, 2009

Ira rated it:

Greek Odyssey and Rock 'n' Roll - awesome combination and not a real surprising one either. After all, the Greek Gods of the last several decades may be Rock stars. Rushdie blends the myth of Orpheus (an actual rock god) and the story of fictional musicians, that incorporates fictional Madonnas, Jim Morrisons, Hendrix's and others. Rushdie did his hmoework for The Boss is in there and even the Girevious Angel himself. The story takes place in Europe (U.K and India) and The States. This one as a More...

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Jan 14, 2008

Paul rated it:

Another one I have to thank Annie for. She would rave and rave about this book, and I finally bought a cheap copy at the Beijing bookstore. Every sentence Rushdie writes in this book is close to perfect. I don't know how he sustained it for so many pages. It covers pretty much every major literary theme somewhere, and manages to be at once wholly in the time period it describes, and outside of it. Everything disintegrates like a sugar cube in a glass of cold water as it goes on. Just a phe More...

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Nov 18, 2011

Filipe rated it:

O chão que ela pisa, é uma obra de Salman Rushdie, aclamado autor britânico de origem indiana, que conta uma estória baseada num triangulo romântico, sendo os seus vértices as personagens principais do livro: Vina Apsara, Ormus Cama e Rai.
O livro inicia-se com uma analepse. O autor escolhe uma das personagens, Rai, para ser o narrador desta estória, e principia o livro a meio da narrativa com a morte de uma das personagens principais: a diva da música Vina Apsara.
A partir daí vai à i More...

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Aug 05, 2011

Madhurabharatula rated it:

I walked away from this book with many feelings, but, principal among them was boredom. I have seen a lot of people labelling Tolkein's work as self indulgent. Tolkein, my friends, was lyrical. His book had heart, soul. His characters were weighed down by destiny and the strength of their choices. Rushdie, in the other hand, is self indulgent.
I have read The Moor's Last Sigh, Shalimar the Clown, The Enchantress of Florence, The Satanic Verses and The Ground Beneath her Feet by Rushdie and t More...

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Nov 15, 2010

Palmyrah rated it:

As someone whose background has a few things in common with Salman Rushdie's--South Asian origin, heavily Westernized and secular outlook, roughly similar in age and both writers by profession--I'm ambivalent about the man. Some of what seem like his virtues to Western critics seem like faults or cheap shots to me, and vice versa.

I am also a lifelong lover of rock music, so I was suspicious of this book in particular. High-culture attempts to get under the skin of rock 'n' roll are rar More...

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Aug 22, 2010

Becky rated it:

Wow! I never thought I would see the day! A Salman Rushdie novel that is not physically painful to plough through, and in places, an actual joy to read. Okay, so occasionally he goes into over verbose mode, but these slips into lyrical doom mongering are kept mostly in the background during this tale of love, music, and human emotion. To be honest, I could do without the trademark Rushdie collapses into magical realism that occasionally pepper this book, as the central story, and the main ch More...

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Jul 12, 2009

Jonathanstray rated it:

I’d never read Rushdie before. I can see why he has a Jihad against him — even in this book which only incidentally addresses religion, he is not shy about saying he sees no place for it. But that is beside the point. Rushdie is, truly, a brilliant writer.

The story is something about two kids from India who grow up to form the biggest rock and roll band of all time in some sort of closely-allied alternate reality, outselling even the Beatles. The themes are much wider ranging. There More...

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Jun 01, 2009

Joe rated it:

This is, as others have noted, not an easy read. I hope that's part of the Rushdie genius for understatement that I've acquired, but I'm pretty sure it's just me, wishing I was clever enough to get half of the references that get tossed off here, like so many bread crumbs leading me, where? Home? Into a volcano that closes a chapter, and a life that the world has been watching, and adoring, along with the childhood friend that really, truly loves her, but let's the love of her life use his ge More...

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Apr 20, 2009

Meredith rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 04, 2009

Marvin rated it:

An amazing novel my daughter brought with her on her last visit & highly recommended. And rightly so. It's one of the best books I've ever read. Rushdie is a cultural sponge, absorbing & smoothly integrating elements from the biblical tradition, Islam, Hinduism, & Greek & Roman mythology, along with amazing bits of Indian & American popular culture, especially popular music. The writing is brilliant & extremely clever, but never gets in the way of just telling a good story, a love story of two m More...

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Oct 15, 2009

Diana rated it:

This book, while long and twisting and twining and sometimes a little crazy, was a lot of fun to read, mostly because of Rushdie's wordplay and writing style. I truly appreciated how the book really meshed with my musical mind, because so many of the snippets of phrases he chose in the book were song lyrics and pop culture references, so I found that I couldn't keep reading because I had to finish the next line of the song in my head before I could move on! My friend Cindy and I have this habi More...

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Oct 01, 2007

Kelsey rated it:

The plot was somewhat odd, but this is the most beautifully written book I have ever read. Just go find something by this author and read it. He turns prose into poetry, makes it almost sing while you read it. Just, go read it.

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Jul 22, 2010

Katherine rated it:

I read the first quarter, skimmed to the half way point and then abandoned it. I read The Satanic Verses a few years ago. It was work at times but ultimately worth it. This one was all work with no payoff. He certainly still has an astounding grasp of complexity. His stories may seem to be weaving recklessly in myriad directions but he always manages to bring it all together - in other words - if he had written Lost I wouldn't have been left so intensely irritated after the grand finale. But, u More...

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Feb 12, 2009

Kevin rated it:

salmon rushdie is truly a master. i know, i know, that's *such* a cliche. but after reading several of his books, this one really blew me away, and i am a convert to the rushdie cathedral once again. he has this way of constructing a paragraph where it starts with a simple idea or description of a character, broadens out to be a deep critical insight about all humanity, and then shrinking back in to the character once again. its an accordian-like breathing in-and-out that, well, makes me swo More...

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Jan 17, 2012

Zsófi rated it:

I was excited to read this book after coming across it accidentally.
This was a year and half ago... So it did take some effort and time to finish, I have to admit. Maybe it's just me but the mythical, literary, historical references were a bit hard to grasp and follow. Sometimes I lost the story line, or mainly the focus. At times it seemed like Rushdie was going into too much detail about 'insignificant' characters. But in the end, The Ground Beneath Her Feet is worth the effort. The long More...

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Dec 09, 2011

Esther rated it:

Maybe not the greatest of Rushdie’s works, but nevertheless absolutely worth reading.

A dazzling story of three pop culture artists (i. e. two singers and a photographer), of theirs lives, how they met, how they linked, of their separations. A curious tale spinning from Bombay over England to US. Breathtaking, always surprising, mythic and surreal in parts but with such a vivid language that even though one part of your mind goes “huh?”, your emotion is still hanging on to the characters. None o More...

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May 26, 2011

Chris rated it:

This is Rushdie at his most freeform-poetic. It's a long ride through a rewrite of rock history showcasing the rise and fall of the supergroup VTO, headed by the audacious musicians Ormus Cama and Vina Apsara. Familiar to Rushdie's novels is the density of material, disengagement from reality, complex characters, and what-the-fuck witticism. This one stands out in my mind as having the best quick sentences out of any of his books, placed perfectly at the end of meticulously brilliant paragrap More...

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Jan 24, 2010

Liza rated it:

Yet another wonderful feast for thought from Salman Rushdie. "Ground beneath her feet" is a long and lingering trip through the lives of 3 people, through their respective journeys of self discovery and personal tragedy.

To me, this book is more than just a love story, it is a thesis on how in modern day (largely) godless world, we take the cult celebrity figures and turn them into the pagan gods of old. Not the perfect beings far off in the sky, but the angry, nymphomaniac More...

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May 24, 2010

J.A. rated it:

No need to select a U2 song for this book, as the band has already produced one with lyrics taken directly from the text. It was that song of the same name which lead me to read The Ground Beneath Her Feet, my first foray into the imposing works of Salman Rushdie. This would not be the first collaboration between Rushdie and U2, it should be noted. During the ZOO TV tour Bono (in his Mr. MacPhisto persona) called Rushdie, who defied the fatwa levied against him by appearing on stage with the ban More...

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Feb 03, 2009

Catherine rated it:

I started off loving this book but it became one of those that I was pushing through rather than being pulled by the story. Rushdie tried too hard or his style has changed. The book got to be frenetic with the interspersed poetry, song lyrics, and pop culture references forcing me to concentrate on them and not the plot and characters. At over 500 pages it is far too long for this kind of pace.

By the last third I no longer cared what happened to Vina, Rai, or Ormus. I finished it las More...

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Mar 23, 2010

Jenifer rated it:

I'm really torn about what to say about this book. I used to have a boss who would tease me about including 'superflous adjectives' when I wrote things (I do like to be descriptive!) but if I'm superflous, then no word exists to explain how superflous Salman Rushdie is! Some passages are downright beautiful and insightful, but every paragraph is descriptive, heaped with symbolism from everything from post-modernism to greek and roman mythology. Some passages are just downright cumbersome and More...

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Nov 09, 2008

Dominika is currently reading it

"Tady bylo věčné mlčení tváří a těl a zvířat a dokonce i samé přírody, zachycené-ano-mým fotoaparátem, ale i uvízlé ve spárech strachu z nepředvídatelného a úzkosti ze ztráty, v drápech té nenáviděné metamorfózy, děsivého ztišení jednoho způsobu života v okamžiku jeho ztráty, jeho přerodu ve zlatou minulost, kterou nelze zcela rekonstruovat, neboť jakmile jste jednou zažili zemětřesení na vlastní kůži, dobře víte, byť přežijete bez jediného škrábnutí, že podobně jako srdeční záchvat zůstává More...

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