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Mar. 31st, 2004 01:14 pmWell, I have finally finished The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie. I have to say that my feelings about the book are fairly mixed. As usual, I loved Rushdie's style. His writing is just remarkably intelligent and witty, and his use of language and wordplay never fail to impress me. This book seemed to be almost aggressively clever, but not in a way that was off-putting for me.
The main problem that I had with the book was that I felt a lack of emotional involvement with the plot and the characters. The book was all about the brain, and not at all about the heart, which is all well and good, I suppose, but I generally prefer books that can appeal to both. I think that there were several factors that contributed to my lack of emotional involvement in the book. One of these factors is Rushdie's use of magical realism. I find that every time I read a magical realist book, whether it's Garcia Marquez or Allende or Rushdie, I find myself distanced and distracted by all the crazy stuff going on, the 'special effects' as it were. Magical realism has a tendency to turn everything into a symbol for something else, and while there are situations in which that's very effective, it doesn't really create a sense of intimacy between book and reader. A good example of this is Moor's deformed right hand. At various points throughout the book, various significances are assigned to the hand, but at no point does Rushdie tell us anything about how it feels for Moor to grow up with this deformity. Does it make him self-conscious? Depressed? Frustrated with his lot? We never find out.
Another problem that I had with the book was that in many ways it felt like Rushdie was covering a lot of the same territory that he dealt with in Midnight's Children, which was a much better book. Both books share a vast, sprawling sense of Indian history and culture, a protagonist who is both inextricably linked to and also alienated from that culture, a concern with matters of fate and circumstance, etc. Midnight's Children, however, does a better job of maintaining a clear narrative thrust, and kept me much more involved than The Moor's Last Sigh.
All in all, I'm glad I read it, if only because it gives me a better understanding of Rushdie as a writer, but I certainly wouldn't call it my new favorite book.
The main problem that I had with the book was that I felt a lack of emotional involvement with the plot and the characters. The book was all about the brain, and not at all about the heart, which is all well and good, I suppose, but I generally prefer books that can appeal to both. I think that there were several factors that contributed to my lack of emotional involvement in the book. One of these factors is Rushdie's use of magical realism. I find that every time I read a magical realist book, whether it's Garcia Marquez or Allende or Rushdie, I find myself distanced and distracted by all the crazy stuff going on, the 'special effects' as it were. Magical realism has a tendency to turn everything into a symbol for something else, and while there are situations in which that's very effective, it doesn't really create a sense of intimacy between book and reader. A good example of this is Moor's deformed right hand. At various points throughout the book, various significances are assigned to the hand, but at no point does Rushdie tell us anything about how it feels for Moor to grow up with this deformity. Does it make him self-conscious? Depressed? Frustrated with his lot? We never find out.
Another problem that I had with the book was that in many ways it felt like Rushdie was covering a lot of the same territory that he dealt with in Midnight's Children, which was a much better book. Both books share a vast, sprawling sense of Indian history and culture, a protagonist who is both inextricably linked to and also alienated from that culture, a concern with matters of fate and circumstance, etc. Midnight's Children, however, does a better job of maintaining a clear narrative thrust, and kept me much more involved than The Moor's Last Sigh.
All in all, I'm glad I read it, if only because it gives me a better understanding of Rushdie as a writer, but I certainly wouldn't call it my new favorite book.
