Time Magazine's Best Book of the Year
Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie combines a ferociously witty family saga with a surreal... read full description
Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie combines a ferociously witty family saga with a surreal... read full description
reviews
Sep 10, 2008
Russ
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The Moor's Last Sigh is Rushdie's best book since Midnight's Children and is superior to The Ground Beneath Her Feet. Rushdie puts his spin on the multi-generational family novel. Like most such novels, it takes awhile to get the characters and families straight, but once you have the whole picture, you can begin to enjoy the magic that Rushdie is weaving through this genre. His first-person narrator ranges from funny to absurd to cruel, and Rushdie's playfulness with language is in full forc
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Apr 21, 2008
Adam
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Honestly, I remember almost nothing about this book---something about a man who ages at twice the age that normal people are supposed to, something about his mother (who I found to be the most interesting character in the book--actually the women in this book leave the most enduring memories)--a spice plantation and fights about money.
This began my love affair with magic realism--which has since somehow curdled. At the time, I thought this is IT, this is what writing should be--- More...
This began my love affair with magic realism--which has since somehow curdled. At the time, I thought this is IT, this is what writing should be--- More...
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Jan 17, 2008
Robert
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This is my favorite of Rushdie's. It combines the lyrical mysticism of Midnight's Children with the hard-nosed magical-realism of the "present-day" sections of The Satanic Verses. I found Midnight's Children to have an almost apocolyptic feeling about it, especially in the later chapters -- this is hardly a knock against it. But I feel like The Moor's Last Sigh, while it certainly comes to a climactic head much as Midnight's Children, does so in a way that you feel is, I suppose, mo
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Feb 09, 2009
Leah
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“Even when people are telling their own life stories, they are invariably improving on the facts, rewriting their tales, or just plain making them up… the truth of such stories lies in what they reveal about the protagonists’ hearts, rather than their deeds.” (135)
“There is nothing to be said of a Fact except that it is so. – For may one negotiate with a Fact, sir? – In no wise! – May one stretch it, shrink it, condemn it, beg its pardon? No; or, it would be folly indeed to seek to d More...
“There is nothing to be said of a Fact except that it is so. – For may one negotiate with a Fact, sir? – In no wise! – May one stretch it, shrink it, condemn it, beg its pardon? No; or, it would be folly indeed to seek to d More...
Nov 27, 2011
Ajk
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So this is, I think, my third Rushdie book I've read. I think my favorite part of reading multiple books by the same guy is that you get a sense of what characters he likes and what gets set aside for another book. I found about three side characters in this book that made their way into Enchantress of Florence. It's funny that way. There's like a little Rushdie universe that gets deconstructed and remade in a new image every book, where the same personalities get recast and put into new relatio
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Jul 28, 2011
Derek
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I found this tough going at times, especially the first several chapters where a wide cast of characters are introduced, sometimes fleetingly, making it tricky to keep track of who is who. The language is very rich and the texture of the story is often - but not always - very dense: you can have several pages of fine details, and then a page or two in which a lot of ground is covered very economically. This forces you to read very attentively or risk missing some vital turn of the plot. Even so,
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Feb 21, 2010
Moira
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"Gripping and whimsical story spanning a century of one Indian family's business, artistic, and leisure endeavors. Rushdie's writing is like candy, with sweet turns-of-phrase and quirky Dickensian characters, leaving the reader craving the next page. With Garcia Marquez-ish elements of magical realism and a pervading sinister feeling, like Dumas. Favorite passages:
The first point to note is that people's limbs got detached more easily in those days. The banners of British domination hunMore...
Jan 01, 2011
Alan
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Rushdie delivers again with another lengthy, multi-faceted epic. Moraes Zogoiby, an Indian Jew/Christian living in Cochin then Bombay, grows at twice the normal rate. It is this kind of outrageous premise that makes Rushdie so brilliant when he is believable. Strongly reminiscent of Midnight's Children, except that here India seems to be working against our "hero" - a real undertone of India marginalising people.
And yet:
"The alhambra, the palace of interlock More...
And yet:
"The alhambra, the palace of interlock More...
Jul 25, 2010
Aistė
rated it:
Kodėl sagos apie šeimas tokios patrauklios? Ar ne todėl, kad primena giminės paslaptis, genijus, nevykėlius ir piktadarius, kurių turi kiekviena šeima, taip pat ir maniškė? "Prisikasti iki šaknų - visų tų šeimos kivirčų, belaikių mirčių, sužlugdytų meilių, beprotiškų aistrų, silpnų krūtinių, galios ir pinigų, ir doroviškai net labiau abejotinų meno vilionių bei slėpinių"... Rushdie ieško šaknų. Pasaulio perėjūno, atstumtojo, "nenormalaus", asmenybės, ribojamos valdingos šeimo
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Nov 13, 2009
Sara
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The Moor's Last Sigh isn't Midnight's Children, but it's not The Enchantress of Florence, either. It's good, solidly-rushing Rushdie, swimming in glorious language and wordplay and occasionally getting lost in an epic sea.
The beginning dragged a bit: at first, I thought I was reading an epic as fluffy as The Enchantress of Florence. Come on, Salman, get over these fantastical women already. I know you're in love, but they're not real!
But the book picks up once the Moor hi More...
The beginning dragged a bit: at first, I thought I was reading an epic as fluffy as The Enchantress of Florence. Come on, Salman, get over these fantastical women already. I know you're in love, but they're not real!
But the book picks up once the Moor hi More...
Nov 23, 2009
Derek
rated it:
Salman Rushdie sets up a fairly elaborate cast of characters, so it takes some time to get acquainted with this book. I started this book before and couldn't devote enough time to sit down and really get into it (which is strange since I was unemployed at the time). But if you can sit down, focus, bang out the first 50 pages, and figure out the family tree, the book will suck you in. Rushdie's prose is incredible, and he can have a tendency to get too lost in his own language at the expense o
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Oct 10, 2009
JL
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That I could taste the smells of a land I'd never been to. That if I ever had a child, I would name it Aerish. That I could fall in love with the way this man took you on a little turn. I read this book every morning after I returned from coaching...a top the little village of Sha Tin in New Territories of Hong Kong...always with my Marks and Spencer from a box cappuccino. It was the first book I read there and I remember it so well because I got to actually enjoy it. I didn't have to run off to
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Oct 04, 2009
Orionisisgray
rated it: 
I almost stopped reading this a number of times, but I have a thing about finishing books. Salman Rushdie is one wordy motherfucker, the opposite of what I tend to enjoy. He's all for the word play, the linguistic jokes, the rhyming slang and colorful Indian colloquialisms, which are cute for a while but wear thin. His narrative is baroque, dripping with dramatic asides and rhetorical questions to the reader, teasing hooks, and a number of other devices I don't enjoy.
Still, I am int More...
Still, I am int More...
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Sep 29, 2011
Saimah
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If I had even the slightest doubt about Salman Rushdie's writing prowess (not that I had), I knew it will disappear as soon as I found myself flipping the pages to see the da Gama-Zogoiby family hierarchy of The Moor's Last Sigh.
By the time I reached the end of this book it struck me again, that Salman Rushdie is definitely a magician. Once in his hands, the words flow like a stream. Smooth, yet turbulent. Clear, yet enchanting. Simple, yet complex. Easy, yet profound.
Mag More...
By the time I reached the end of this book it struck me again, that Salman Rushdie is definitely a magician. Once in his hands, the words flow like a stream. Smooth, yet turbulent. Clear, yet enchanting. Simple, yet complex. Easy, yet profound.
Mag More...
Aug 18, 2011
Sophie
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Salman Rushdie is the kind of author that makes me feel like an idiot. But I totally love his books, perhaps for this reason, perhaps because not many other living authors have such a command of the English language in my opinion. Or if they do, they write boring stories in a stylish prose. The Moor's Last Sigh took me a long time to get into and long time to finish, because I can only manage so many pages before my brain needs a rest and it's not what I'd call pre-bedtime reading. However, d
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Jun 15, 2011
Yllacaspia
rated it:
I read this book flirtatiously. Which is to say that I used to always see the same gorgeous man on the bus. He had blond dreadlocks and wore a suit, which is one of my favourite looks. He always had a book with him, as did I, and I would catch him looking at my book and he would catch me looking at his book. And one day I decided to make him laugh by taking the same book he was reading: which is how I ended up reading The Moor's Sigh. And I got totally wrapped up in this beautiful story which wi
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Jun 19, 2009
Christopher
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In my years of reviewing here, I've been loath to review a book I didn't read all the way through. But sometimes I encounter a book that I don't merely feel isn't worth my time, but which is so awful I just can't help but warn others. Salman Rushdie's THE MOOR'S LAST SIGH is such a book.
I was on a roll with Rushdie, enjoying his debut MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN, long holding THE SATANIC VERSES as one of my favourite novels, and reading his nonfiction of the 1980s with pleasure. With THE MOO More...
I was on a roll with Rushdie, enjoying his debut MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN, long holding THE SATANIC VERSES as one of my favourite novels, and reading his nonfiction of the 1980s with pleasure. With THE MOO More...
Apr 06, 2010
Angie
rated it:
Well, now I can say I've read Salman Rushdie. This was tough reading - very visual with very colorful characters, but Rushdie regularly uses a stream-of-consciousness kind of approach that is SO full of references to minute details of history and politics of India, and quotes from all kinds of literature, that I started to feel a little stupid. Then, I decided I was irritated because he was starting to come across as a bit too self-congratulatory in his cleverness. It's a fascinating story, d
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Jul 02, 2011
Alexander
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This book felt like Rushdie aping Rushdie aping magical realism ... and as such never succeeded in engaging me. Never had I read a book both so original and so unoriginal simultaneously.
To say that The Moor's Last Sigh is magical realism isn't 100% accurate ... probably more like 'fantastic realism' or some such thing, but it reads so much like an MR book that it's not unfair to lump it in there. The characters are familiar, the themes are familiar, the conflicts are familiar, the More...
To say that The Moor's Last Sigh is magical realism isn't 100% accurate ... probably more like 'fantastic realism' or some such thing, but it reads so much like an MR book that it's not unfair to lump it in there. The characters are familiar, the themes are familiar, the conflicts are familiar, the More...
Nov 12, 2010
Raúl
rated it:
Tardé como un mes en leer el maldito libro. La escuela, problemas personales y esa prosa de Rushdie que cuenta tantas cosas al mismo tiempo. Nunca había tardado tanto tiempo en terminar un libro así. Me descubrí los últimos días leyendo más despacio, intentando que la novela no terminara nunca. ¿Qué se supone que iba a leer despues? Habia creado lazos afectivos con el libro, despues de cargarlo durante todo un mes.
No me pasaba desde guerra y paz. Y las extensiones son muy diferente.
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No me pasaba desde guerra y paz. Y las extensiones son muy diferente.
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Feb 02, 2011
Eric
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If Rushdie's Midnight's Children was his take on the history of India from partition until Mrs. Gandhi declared her emergency in the late '70s, then The Moor' Last Sigh is his take on the subsequent two decades of Indian history. He imaginatively chronicles the rise of the Hindu nationalist movement, as refracted through the personal history of a Cochin-based family of Indian Jews and Indian Christians. But history's never to the forefront in a Rushdie novel, just the sprightly social backgrou
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Oct 29, 2009
Alcornell
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It's a palimpsest--multiple layers, some showing through, others not. A bit of the story appears at a time, but never the entire thing at once. It is like life in that way. The themes are huge, and many. The characters are not fleshed out to the exclusion of any other, even the redoubtable Aurora, who is one of the wackiest characters in fiction, in my opinion. The writing is great, rythmic, pulsing, varied, challenging. I had to read this with a dictionary in hand. This added to my enjoymen
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Jan 25, 2009
Bonnie Jeanne
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No surprises in this story... the telling has lots of twists but the turns are seen well in advance. A beautiful telling, nonetheless. Language so magical one forgives the predictable. Indian history, folklore and drama. I am not such a fool to take this fictional account as gospel, however I was motivated to go looking for more information about events and figures. [return][return]The one foreshadowing I cannot forgive involves a "walkman" and its use as a tool of destruction. Too mun
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Apr 27, 2011
AJ
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A writer's read.
Rushdie's characterization and prose are flawless. There is a lot to be said about the way books affect the individual reader and this one is subjective to me. The book starts out in Cochin, in Jewtown, which happens to be the place of my father's birth. It then moves up to Mumbai - where I lived for 8 months - then travels to shots of Goa which was a little paradise away from my apt in bombay. It does eventually go to spain where I claim no personal attachment. More...
Rushdie's characterization and prose are flawless. There is a lot to be said about the way books affect the individual reader and this one is subjective to me. The book starts out in Cochin, in Jewtown, which happens to be the place of my father's birth. It then moves up to Mumbai - where I lived for 8 months - then travels to shots of Goa which was a little paradise away from my apt in bombay. It does eventually go to spain where I claim no personal attachment. More...
Aug 09, 2010
Reenie
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As a lot of the quotes on the back mention, Salman Rushdie infuses this tale with the sort of language which demands occasional pauses, to roll phrases around on your tongue. But it's a very accessible sort of word play - playful is definitely the right word. (Heh.) Words get mixed in and out of multiple meanings, cross-language puns, twisted and made to dance about. It's the sort of thing that you'll probably either love or hate, and you'll know within a page or two if you can't stand it. I was
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Apr 21, 2007
علی
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From Midnight Children on, seems that Roshdie’s preference moves tward the language rather than the narration itself. Comparing ”The ground beneath of her feet” and ”Midnight children” one comes to a more beautiful language but less interesting events.
در اثار رشدی زبان از زیبایی خارق العاده ای برخوردار است. واژه هایی که رشدی در زبان انگلیسی ابداع می کند و عمدتن مخلوطی از انگلیسی هندی – بریتانیایی ست، گاه به توجیه صحنه، عمل یا شخصیت در روایت کمک شایانی می کند. بسیاری از واژه های ابداع More...
در اثار رشدی زبان از زیبایی خارق العاده ای برخوردار است. واژه هایی که رشدی در زبان انگلیسی ابداع می کند و عمدتن مخلوطی از انگلیسی هندی – بریتانیایی ست، گاه به توجیه صحنه، عمل یا شخصیت در روایت کمک شایانی می کند. بسیاری از واژه های ابداع More...
Feb 12, 2010
Jon
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I started this one 3 times before I was able to get through it. but finally, on a hammock in Belize I made it all the way through -> and was incredibly happy to do so. This is now one of my favorite books. Rushdie is an incomparable wordsmith, but I do not always find his characters sympathetic, and I am not normally happy with how he ends his stories. This one has the amazing Rushdie wordplay, along with a pretty compelling story, a worthshile ending, and some really rich and wonderful chara
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Oct 18, 2009
Heather
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While I've enjoyed Rushdie's books and thought I would really be taken in by The Moor's Last Sigh, I found it hard to get sucked into the story. This book is wordy and while I don't shy away from lengthy books or verbose authors, I found that the effect in this case was to constantly keep me at a distance from the characters and the action.
It's worth a shot if you like magical realism or have enjoyed Rushdie's other works but you may find your mind wandering away as you read.
It's worth a shot if you like magical realism or have enjoyed Rushdie's other works but you may find your mind wandering away as you read.
Dec 16, 2009
Teo
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Poate cea mai originala carte din ce am citit eu de Salman Rushdie, si asta nu pentru vreo tehnica de care sa nu mai fi auzit nimeni,ci datorita unei istorisiri despre un om care imbatraneste de cateva ori mai repede decat persoanele obisnuite. "ce beneficiu!!!" ar striga acum amatorii de concizie, nici vorba, prieteni, pentru ca suspinul maurului e defapt o... (sa-i spunem litanie) care te poarta prin istoria fascinanta a ultimilor ani ai Indiei coloniale, cu paradoxurile sale sociale
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Jul 19, 2011
Diana
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Very epic - in the mode of 100 Years of Solitude or The Sound and the Fury. Equally complex, but a bit long-winded and pretentious.
This is not an easy read. with so many references and allusions, I wonder if, outside of a classroom, most readers would tough it out. The 1st section was longer than necessary but weird enough to hold interest; the twists of the last 2 sections were effective at engaging the reader and moving the story - but again with sugnificant digression. Quite frankly t More...
This is not an easy read. with so many references and allusions, I wonder if, outside of a classroom, most readers would tough it out. The 1st section was longer than necessary but weird enough to hold interest; the twists of the last 2 sections were effective at engaging the reader and moving the story - but again with sugnificant digression. Quite frankly t More...
