The Ground Beneath Her Feet - A Novel [Import] [Paperback]

Salman Rushdie (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Picador Usa; New Ed edition (2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 009928295X
• ISBN-13: 978-0099282952
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (119 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Sir Salman Rushdie is the author of many novels including Grimus, Midnight's Children, Shame, The Satanic Verses, The Moor's Last Sigh, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Fury, Shalimar the Clown and The Enchantress of Florence. He has also published works of non-fiction including, The Jaguar Smile, Imaginary Homelands, The Wizard of Oz and, as co-editor, The Vintage Book of Short Stories.

He has received many awards for his writing including the European Union's Aristeion Prize for Literature. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres. In 1993 Midnight's Children was judged to be the 'Booker of Bookers', the best novel to have won the Booker Prize in its first 25 years. In June 2007 he received a knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not Rushdie's best, but worth reading, January 31, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Ground Beneath Her Feet: A Novel (Hardcover)

For the Rushdie fan, there is much in this book to be admired: imagination, brilliant storytelling, an excellent sense of humor and passages of some of the best prose being written in English today. It seems, at times, that Rushdie's inventive capacity is unlimited: the strangest of characters emerge with the most checkered of personal histories, idiosyncrasies and destinies -- so much so that believability is stretched to almost absurd limits. But hasn't this always been Rushdie's domain, ever since Midnight's Children? The difference here, perhaps (and this is why the novel is not a peer of Rushdie's best), is that the author appears to let the absurd, the outlandish, the improbable invade in almost random tentacles throughout the body of the work. Also, the prose is not as consistent as in earlier works -- flashes of brilliance, of genius, are followed by untidy ramblings in need of editing. There is something baffling-joycean about the work, but that is a mode that doesn't really suit Rushdie and his mature voice. He is at his absolute best at times, but the whole structure of the work does not always sustain the narrative. Moreover, you never really feel that Ormus and Vina are truly in love -- the deep love never really happens -- not anything that seems human, at least. Perhaps owing to the rock'n'roll milieu in which the novel transpires, there is more use of gutter language and more casual exposes of sexual acts and fantasies than one would normally encounter in a Rushdie novel. A bit of this kind of language is descriptive, demonstrative; too much of it (and this happens from time to time) impoverishes the overall texture of the novel. Still, Rushdie remains one of the most exciting and engaging writers alive today. I have not yet found a rival in the modern literary world. Let's only hope that his next novel will find the right blend between inventive caprice and the craftsmanship of an undisputed master.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Out of control., June 27, 2000

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Ground Beneath Her Feet: A Novel (Hardcover)

Although I have loved other Rushdie novels and admired their complexities, I found this novel disappointing on a number of levels, not least of which is its clumsiness in style. Rushdie here veers from narrative to philosophical exposition, and even polemic, sometimes within the same paragraph. He appears to distance himself not only from his characters but also from his readers. The reader is jarred to no purpose when the narrative, which already switches back and forth in time and location, is interrupted yet again for turgid philosophical ramblings which do nothing to advance the plot and seem to serve primarily to give the illusion of depth to a shallow, too-long story.

At times the author patronizes both the reader and his characters: "Doorman Shetty doesn't know it, but he's echoing Plato. This is what the great philosopher has Phaedrus say in the Symposiums's first speech about love...." Two pages of philosophy follow.

In the conclusion of the book, when it is necessary to tie up the loose ends, the author devotes many pages to "telling about" the action, rather than recreating it and allowing the reader to draw his/her own conclusions. In case we have missed the many parallels he has made between his characters and the classical myths, he summarizes them for us. In the final two chapters, he also shifts the focus, startlingly, to the narrator, rather than keeping it on the two characters who have been the center(s) of the novel. And even on the last page, the author feels it necessary to explain, even providing us with the unifying theme of the book, should we need it: "In my lifetime, the love of Ormus and Vina is as close as I've come to a knowledge of the mythic, the overweening, the divine. Now that they've gone, the high drama's over. What remains is ordinary human life." The delights of this book, and there are many, are so deeply hidden in verbiage and in the exaltation of theme that this reader, at least, got tired of the shrieking and longed for a simple song.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not Disappointed!, January 6, 2000

By 

Sara Chalifoux (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Ground Beneath Her Feet: A Novel (Hardcover)

Salman Rushdie is an excellent writer, there is no doubt about that, and he has once again shown this in his newest novel. As I looked over the other reviews I kept on seeing a common inconsistency. What I do not understand is why everyone keeps on comparing The Ground Beneath Her Feet to The Satanic Verses. The Satanic Verses is in a caliber of its own, (although personally I found the novel a bit more convoluted then necessary). Basically, The Satanic Verses was more detailed as far as time goes, there were more intricate plots and the concept of good and evil was raised to a higher degree. The Ground Beneath Her Feet focused more on a smaller group of people, which in my opinion gives the reader a better understanding of each character; something I appreciated. The main characters in this book also have a certain charisma that I have not noticed in many of his other novels and short stories. I sincerely enjoyed reading The Ground Beneath Her Feet, even more so than in most of Rushdie's other works.