Has Rushdie lost it?
Amitava Kumar thinks so. In an article in Tehelka, he declares:
...A remarkable passage, and because everything in Rushdie is ultimately about him, it can be said that the inhumanity of the fatwa and the celebrity that has been his fate has left him with a prize. Is this what he wanted? His characters in the last few books — Max Ophuls, Malik Solanka, Vina Apsara, Ormus Cama— are all stars. All his books now are about the house of power and fame. On the strength of what he has written in the past, Rushdie has the right to feel contempt for “the envious, impotent crowd,” but who is to bring him the sad news that he is only writing self-help manuals for those who want to be counted among the bold and the beautiful?
Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown--the story of a cuckolded taxi driver who murders his wife's paramour--is going to be out soon. Going by this piece, things don't augur well for him. But I wish him all the best! Anyway, I love his non-fiction better.
"The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it." ― V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River
2 comments:
Hi Zaf, Just to let you know that Asya's back with her blogging. She's moved back to Mumbai from Bangalore. regards
Thanks Susan. Will visit her blog.
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