false 9864 27 The ground shifts repeatedly beneath the reader's feet during the course of Salman Rushdie's sixth novel, a riff on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth set in the high-octane world of rock & roll. Readers get their first clues early on that the universe Rushdie is creating here is not quite the one we know: Jesse Aron Parker, for example, wrote <i>Heartbreak Hotel</i>; Carly Simon and Guinevere Garfunkel sang <i>Bridge over Troubled Water</i>; and Shirley Jones and Gordon McRae starred in South Pacific. And as the novel progresses, Rushdie adds unmistakable elements of science fiction to his already patented magical realism, with occasionally uneven results. Rushdie's cunning musician is Ormus Cana, the Bombay-born founder of the most popular group in the world. Ormus's Eurydice (and lead singer) is Vina Apsara, the daughter of a Greek American woman and an Indian father who abandoned the family. What these two share, besides amazing musical talent, is a decidedly twisted family life: Ormus's twin brother died at birth and communicates to him from "the other side"; his older brothers, also twins, are, respectively, brain-damaged and a serial killer. Vina, on the other hand, grew up in rural West Virginia where she returned home one day to find her stepfather and sisters shot to death and her mother hanging from a rafter in the barn. No wonder these two believe they were made for each other. Narrated by Rai Merchant, a childhood friend of both Vina and Ormus, The Ground beneath Her Feet begins with a terrible earthquake in 1989 that swallows Vina whole, then moves back in time to chronicle the tangled histories of all the main characters and a host of minor ones as well. Rushdie's canvas is huge, stretching from India to London to New York and beyond. In addition, there's plenty of room for him to punctuate this epic tale with pointed commentary on his own situation: Muslim-born Rai, for example, remarks that "my parents gave me the gift of irreligion, of growing up without bothering to ask people what gods they held dear.... You may argue that the gift was a poisoned chalice, but even if so, that's a cup from which I'd happily drink again." Despite earthquakes, heartbreaks, and a rip in the time-space continuum, The Ground beneath Her Feet may be the most optimistic, accessible novel Rushdie has yet written. <I>--Alix Wilber</I> 3279710 1999 The Ground Beneath Her Feet total:2421|5:616|4:827|3:662|2:237|1:79| 2421 8927 3461 235 5 4 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1998 Mon Aug 06 11:32:40 -0700 2007 Fri Oct 26 06:45:22 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 3 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Fri Aug 03 17:50:26 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 03 18:27:17 -0700 2007 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 fall...more...]]> 3 1 false false Fri Oct 31 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 24 03:17:07 -0700 2008 Fri Oct 31 06:50:31 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Thu Mar 27 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jan 21 16:03:57 -0800 2008 Fri Mar 28 16:54:30 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 2 false false Wed Dec 19 19:53:02 -0800 2007 Wed Dec 19 19:59:01 -0800 2007 more...]]> 2 1 true false Sun Nov 02 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Jul 20 10:07:33 -0700 2007 Sun Nov 02 14:14:54 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun Feb 17 08:17:59 -0800 2008 Thu Dec 20 09:45:16 -0800 2007 Sat Feb 16 15:24:00 -0800 2008
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 analys...more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2002 Thu Jun 28 10:00:07 -0700 2007 Thu Jun 28 10:03:53 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Mon Jan 14 23:12:04 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 14 23:16:01 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 12 16:23:12 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 12 16:24:01 -0700 2009
The story is something about...more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Jun 01 22:03:38 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 01 22:22:07 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false true Mon Apr 13 08:47:37 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 20 15:15:10 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Nov 10 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Aug 04 11:45:25 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 04 11:46:24 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Oct 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 21 13:15:28 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 15 07:27:30 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Mon Sep 24 22:23:20 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 01 22:50:32 -0700 2007 5 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 12 18:16:18 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 12 18:19:32 -0800 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Mon Feb 02 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 06 14:54:35 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 03 10:34:07 -0800 2009 1 more...]]> 0 0 false false Sun Nov 09 06:34:47 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 09 06:36:21 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Aug 16 12:42:41 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 16 12:42:41 -0700 2008
The Ground Beneath Her Feet in reviews is always touted as the first novel by Rushdie written about America. The book jacket describes it as a "gift" to America. Not to be on...more...]]> 2 0 false false Mon Jul 28 17:46:34 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 28 18:12:44 -0700 2008 more...]]>