"Salman Rushdie - A Beginner's Guide" introduces you to the life and work of one of the most enjoyable yet controversial contemporary authors. Examining the novels and other writings discover how Rushdie's brilliant prose, and his easy use of popular culture, have helped to inaugurate a new way of writing which expresses the experience of being Indian-English helping us to understand life in the contemporary multicultural world.
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Professor Andrew Blake is Head of Cultural Studies at King Alfred's College, Winchester, Hampshire.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A good first dip into Rushdie's complex work...,
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This review is from: Salman Rushdie: A Beginner's Guide (Paperback)
Though much of the media hype over "The Satanic Verses" controversy has cooled, Salman Rushdie remains an important millennial literary figure. Regardless of its 2001 publication date, this small introduction explains why. Back then, Rushdie was still officially in hiding, his second collection of essays ("Step Across This Line") was a year off, and two novels ("Shalimar the Clown" and "The Enchantress of Florence") existed only in pre-embryonic form. Regardless, Rushdie's importance has not changed significantly in the past seven years, so this somewhat dated booklet still has much to offer newcomers.
Most of the benefit comes from its simple and accessible delineation of Rushdie's themes. Taking an inclusive view, the book covers his novels, non-fiction, and biography. Laced throughout are the themes of personal identity in the face of a changing global culture, migration, post-colonialism, multiculturalism, and imagined versus "real" communities. These topics permeate nearly all of Rushdie's work. Building on this, the book argues that his non-fiction illuminates his fiction, and recommends close reading of "Imaginary Homelands" (then the only non-fiction collection available). It takes a somewhat lukewarm attitude towards his earlier non-fiction work, "The Jaguar Smile." Concerning the fiction, an entire chapter weaves the main themes through the plotlines of every novel from "Grimus" to "Fury." This technique reveals the how and why of Rushdie's writing and why he remains important even though the big news agencies now leave him alone. Just as helpful is an entire chapter devoted to criticisms of Rushdie's work. His place in "English literature" gets assessed here. A suggestion that he's a "writer for prizes" (as opposed to for money or movies) is subtly made, along with the theory that Rushdie wrote the epic "Satanic Verses" in response to the lack of prizes won by the previous novel "Shame." It also predicts that Rushdie's work will likely become more "filmable" in the future. "Fury" was arguably more filmable than "Midnight's Children" or "The Satanic Verses." Though his fiction since 2001 has become shorter and more "concise," whether it's more "filmable" remains to be seen. Someone needs to film it. In addition, a litany of negative viewpoints gets presented. Like any public figure, Rushdie has weathered critique. Some claim his work presents an "Orientalist" viewpoint, or a "Westernized" view of the East packaged too conveniently for western consumption. Some feminists have also taken umbrage with Rushdie's depictions of women. In the end, the book dismisses many of these negative criticisms and claims that Rushdie has successfully expanded "English literature" to encompass issues of "mutations and hybridizations of the new global culture." This book packs a lot into 85-pages. Though here and there it deals with issues in a cursory fashion, it always contains enough information and analysis to whet the appetite. Along with an analysis of Rushdie, the text discusses the function of literature in internet culture, the packaging of books, and some advantages the novel still has over film. Anyone well versed in Rushdie's work and themes should look elsewhere for detailed information (the subtitle "A Beginner's Guide" should signal this). But newcomers to the complex and textured work of Salman Rushdie will gain much by scanning their eyes over this accessible and entertaining introduction to one of the millennium's most controversial writers.
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