But….back to the book. It’s Mr. Rushdie’s third, and the second to enjoy critical acclaim (his debut novel, “Grimus” was published in 1975, with very little success), a Booker nomination (J.M. Coetzee won that year with “The life and times of Michael K”) and Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger. The universe in which the characters lead their life is Pakistan, not the Pakistan we all know, but a “Peccavistan” and an imaginary city - Q. Somehow, “Shame” follows where “Midnight’s children” left off; after India’s separation from the British Empire, we now see the destiny of Pakistan, who also separated that same year and, though only mentioned briefly, the birth of another nation (and also by division) Bangladesh. Typical for Mr. Rushdie, elements of the historical truth are mixed with fiction and legend to create a whole new, alternate universe (and this is one of the reasons why I love him so much ). The destinies of two main characters (Iskander Harappa and gen. Raza Hyder) and loosely modeled after the real-life Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (father of Benazir Bhutto) and gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. If I knew more about the history of Pakistan - there would be a lot more things to be said, unfortunately, I’m trying to catch up as I go along, the same as I did when reading Midnight’s children.

http://meerchant.wordpress.com/2008/0... ( )

This review of Shame also appears in my blog entry for 29 March 2008 at http://karenvanuska.livejournal.com/

There are writers whose ego bakes into their novels and forms a blackened crust that can't be dislodged from otherwise excellent stories. Shame, Rushdie's first novel after Midnight's Children, wears such a crust. Who could blame Rushdie for believing he was anything but completely deserving of being annointed Allah's Gift to Literature? No three groups are more eager to find a new Allah -- publishers, book critics, and readers. And let's face it, the force of Rushdie's voice coming off the page evokes the same response as watching fireworks -- each new display makes you want to go Aahhh, Oohhh, Whoooaaa until finally you settle into silent admiration and give up trying to figure out which display was more wondrous. That voice deserves to be read and to have an audience applauding it.

Shame's cast of characters -- the three mothers, Omar, Raza Hyder, Iskander Harappa, Good News, Sufiya, Rani, to name but a few -- thrum with the good, the bad and the ugly of life. From one page to another you applaud them, you laugh at them, you laugh with them, you weep with them, or, saddest of all, you weep for them when they are so beaten they can't even weep for themselves. It's quite a ride we take through Pakistani history and it'll take Satanice Verses, my next book, to dislodge this vivid world from my thoughts.

But always, there'll be the crust of ego stuck to Shame. Perhaps if I hadn't read War and Peace (yes, I'm still not done comparing every book to War and Peace -- woe to all books in my path this year), Rushdie's narrator wouldn't have maddened me so. Omniscient narrators that balance humility and wisdom are worthy of respect, but not so ones that are too self-indulgent. I can almost here Rushdie: "I'm a great post-modernist writer, now. I can make myself as the narrator and my presence will make the story even better." Poppycock! (Love that word!) Here's the place (pg. 115) where I completely lost my patience with the Rushdie ego:

"Not so long ago, in the East End of London, a Pakistani father murdered his only child, a daughter, because by making love to a white boy she had brought such dishonour upon her family that only her blood could wash away the stain ... The story appalled me when I heard it, appalled me in a fairly obciou say. I had recently become a father myself and was therefore newly capable of estimating how colossal a force would be required to make a man turn a knife-blad against his own flesh and blood. But even more appalling was my realization that, like the interviewed friends etc., I, too, found myself understanding the killer. The news did not seem alien to me."

What the hell was this doing in the novel? This sounds like a blurb for those fake Q&A's on the publicity sheets enclosed by publishers in their Advanced Readers Copies. "Tell me, Mr. Rushdie, what made you want to write a story about shame?" "Well, you see, Jane...Not so long ago, in the East end of London ... blah blah blah ..."

The only good thing to be said here is that Rushdie kept his ego in the backseat for the latter half of Shame. It was almost as if he realized this was a violent intrusion, an act of the little man coming out from behing the curtain and deflating all the magic, and that it had done both him and his novel great shame. Too bad a fine editor hadn't stepped forward to whisper in his ear that even the great can stumble and wouldn't the novel be that much better if we just .... ( )

I've read a couple of Rushdie books before, the Satanic Verses, and The Moor's Last Sigh. I would rate both of them higher than this one. All the same, this is a good book, it is written as well as the other two, and doesn't lack any of the idiosyncratic Rushdie flair and drama in the writing. I think it is just perhaps because it is not quite as romantic, or balanced as the other two books, it is not as enjoyable to read. The book is fairly miserable all in all, not in a really depressing way, but it is dark, political, and will not be to everyones taste. I did enjoy reading it though, and it has a lot to it's credit, if you've read any Rushdie before then you will appreciate how he describes everything so fantastically, and makes things seem real and unreal at the same time. I would recommend this to fans of the author, but if you've not read any of his before then you should try one of the previously mentioned titles first, as they are in my opinion better reads. This book was shorter than the other two, but the plot is fully realised and he gets a lot out of the ideas in the length of the book. ( )

I would rate this novel higher, but something about it seemed off to me. Despite that, I found his writing style terribly appealing and it was a fairly riveting read. I mean to read more of Rushdie. ( )