Imaginary Homelands - Salman Rushdie

Essays and Criticism 1981-19991. Most of the essays n criticism are not relevant now, at least in my case. Almost 50 authors n their books' reviews. The majority are strangers to me. The last session, the most personal part in defense of  Satanic Verses exposes Mr Rushdie the volatile but vulnerable being. But I haven't read Satanic Verses. Then what makes me read this book from cover to cover? The essays are heavily informative, criticisms inflammable, book reviews imperial and language immortal.

Imaginary Homelands. Yeah.

Fury - Salman Rushdie

“Life is fury, he'd thought. Fury — sexual, Oedipal, political, magical, brutal — drives us to our finest heights and coarsest depths. Out of fury comes creation, inspiration, originality, passion, but also violence, pain, pure unafraid destruction, the giving and receiving of blows from which we never recover. The Furies pursue us; Shiva dances his furious dance to create and also to destroy. But never mind about gods! This is what we are, what we civilize ourselves to disguise — the terrifying human animal in us, the exalted, transcendent, self-destructive, untrammeled lord of creation.” 

The above quote says it all, the gist of the novel. It speaks about the furies that control us and make us furious. So? What are we to do? Right now I'm furious at this semi-autobiographical verbal diarrhoea. Rage is a better word, I think. Rage.

Ginger on Mother's Day

The Enchantress of Florence - Salman Rushdie

A pandemonic  cocktail of history, fantasy and magic. A bizarre attempt on magical realism. The captivating language mends all the damages. To tell you the truth, I enjoyed the book esp the parts about the Mughal Emperor Akbar. Charmed. Yes. Enchanted? No.