<![CDATA[Shalimar the Clown: A Novel]]>

false <![CDATA[Shalimar the Clown: A Novel]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165468730m/4830.jpg 4830 22 From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. For Westerners, Rushdie's latest may be better heard than read. While readers might stumble over the Kashmiri, Indian and Pakistani names and accents, Mandvi glides right through them, allowing us to engage with Rushdie's well-wrought characters and sagas. Mandvi has a calm, quiet storyteller voice, often employing tempo to express emotional states and to make long, complex sentences entirely clear. In fact, one realizes he is nearly invisible (until he reads a few lines in a Romance language), leaving us to relish the sounds and images and rhythms of Rushdie's language. The book begins at the end, with the murder of the former American ambassador to India, Maximilian Ophuls, now a counterterrorist expert, then introduces his murderer, Shalimar the Clown, Kashmiri actor and acrobat-cum-terrorist, and Ophuls's illegitimate daughter, India, who brings the book to a conclusion as terror-filled and ambiguous as our own future. Suspense and tension are superbly built and layered through mythology and plots of lust and jealousy intertwined with cultural, religious, national and international affairs. Rushdie does get polemical for a while, even didactic; his writing in these sections sometimes sounds speechifying. Yet we come away with a mostly lyrical parable that offers us a way of grappling with the realities of our time and place, a way of refracting history through multiple lenses. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. “Dazzling . . . Modern thriller, Ramayan epic, courtroom drama, slapstick comedy, wartime adventure, political satire, village legend–they’re all blended here magnificently.” –The Washington Post Book World This is the story of Maximilian Ophuls, America’s counterterrorism chief, one of the makers of the modern world; his Kashmiri Muslim driver and subsequent killer, a mysterious figure who calls himself Shalimar the clown; Max’s illegitimate daughter India; and a woman who links them, whose revelation finally explains them all. It is an epic narrative that moves from California to Kashmir, France, and England, and back to California again. Along the way there are tales of princesses lured from their homes by demons, legends of kings forced to defend their kingdoms against evil. And there is always love, gained and lost, uncommonly beautiful and mortally dangerous. “A commanding story . . . [a] harrowing climax . . . Revenge is an ancient and powerful engine of narrative.” –The New York Times Book Review “Absorbing . . . Everywhere [Rushdie] takes us there is both love and war, in strange and terrifying combinations, painted in swaying, swirling, world-eating prose that annihilates the borders between East and West, love and hate, private lives and the history they make.” –Time “A vast, richly peopled, beautiful and deeply rageful book that serves as a profound and disturbing artifact of our times.” –San Francisco Chronicle “Marvelous . . . brilliant . . . a story worthy of [Rushdie’s] genius.” –Detroit Free Press ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR – The Washington Post Book World –Los Angeles Times Book Review –St. Louis Post-Dispatch –Rocky Mountain News ONE OF THE BEST NOVELS OF THE YEAR –Time –Chicago Tribune –The Christian Science Monitor 1214874 2005 Shalimar the Clown: A Novel total:2200|5:17|4:34|3:24|2:12|1:4| 2200 8286 3250 326 4 4 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Jun 24 06:56:54 -0700 2007 Tue Jul 31 08:01:35 -0700 2007 The Satanic Verses a few years ago, my overriding memory is of how little of the novel I understood. I was therefore reluctant to get stuck into Shalimar The Clown when my sister passed it on recently.

Sure enough, I'm finding Rushdie's authorial voice to be much ...more...]]> 5 3 false false Thu Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Thu Jun 14 15:15:38 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 22 02:47:46 -0700 2007 Wonderful. All of Rushdie's powers are at play here, but perhaps the most striking is his exploration of the social and psychological borderland between visceral, emotional impulse and ideological motivation. What motivates someone to become an ...more...]]> 3 1 false false Sun Jun 22 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Feb 04 05:05:18 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 04 05:05:39 -0800 2009
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some of this is just so long winded.

also, his descriptions of the character, "India," remind me of his first inkling of desire for his ex-wife,pseudo-human and nit-wit, padma lakshmi. sick.

and finally, if you're going to name ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Mar 19 07:44:32 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 19 08:38:34 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Feb 14 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 17 17:27:18 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 17 18:13:50 -0800 2009 "Fierce! Make no mistake: this is a war novel, in both the literal and figurative sense; though mostly the literal. Transformation ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Feb 15 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 15 12:10:08 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 15 13:26:41 -0800 2009 Fury, Shalimar The Clown nonetheless calls attention to Salman Rushdie's place as one of the best living writers in the English language. His Eastern brand of magical realism is on full display in this novel that spans continents and decades,...more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:34:25 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:34:25 -0800 2009 Like some of the post-9/11 literature, Shalimar delves deep into the roots of terrorism and explores the turmoil generated by different faiths and cultures attempting to coexist. How can nations, Rushdie asks, go from near-peaceful ethnic and religious acceptance to violent conflict within a mere ge...

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Rushdie writes a book on the edge of many controversies. to understand a killer, to feel how technology and war and government can disrupt a community and bring religious strive among neighbours. It speaks of love and honour, all in all a wonderful book. I'd definitely r...more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Jan 30 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Aug 04 08:28:18 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 04 08:28:54 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Mon Jul 21 13:52:57 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 04 19:48:41 -0700 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=4830