There are a few authors (Salman Rushdie, Vikram Chandra, Zadie Smith, Michael Ondaatje) who rock so hard, I devour their entire canon in weeks and wait impatiently for the latest installment. Fortunately, I’m not alone. The manly Booker committee just long listed both Rushdie and Smith, author of the Bangla-friendly White Teeth, for their upcoming books.
Amardeep previously pointed us to Amitava Kumar’s review of Shalimar the Clown, whose launch has been moved up to Sep. 6. Writing in the Atlantic Monthly, Christopher Hitchens reads the novel as political science tract, comparing Kashmir to Palestine. It’s reportedly a glowing review (only the intro is online) penned by Hitch for his longtime buddy:
Take the room-temperature op-ed article that you have read lately, or may be reading now, or will scan in the future. Cast your eye down as far as the sentence that tells you there will be no terminus to Muslim discontent until there has been a solution to the problem of Palestine. Take any writing implement that comes to hand, strike out the word “Palestine,” and insert “Kashmir…”
If anything calamitous in the thermonuclear line does occur in the next few years, it is most probable that Kashmir will be the trigger. Moreover, it was the lakes and valleys and mountains of Kashmir that made the crucible in which the Pakistan–Taliban–al-Qaeda “faith-based” alliance was originally formed. The bitterest and longest battle between Islamic jihad and its foes is a struggle not between jihad and the West, or jihad and the Jews, but between jihad and Hindu/secular India. It is a matter not of East versus West but of East versus East. [Link]
I know this from a little study and also from a visit to the Pakistani-held side of Kashmir, where I was reminded that although human beings will always fight over even the most arid and desolate prizes, there are some places so humblingly beautiful that it is possible to imagine dying for them oneself. Salman Rushdie knows it in his core: he is Kashmiri by family… [Link]
The Village Voice is turned off by the degree to which Shalimar plumbs the senseless grief of militant violence:
The events of Rushdie’s life are allegory for the unavoidable world-historical collision between rootless cosmopolitanism and theocratic absolutism, between civilization (with its values of secularism, skepticism, and relativism) and the gathering forces of a new medievalism. His greatest novels–Midnight’s Children, Shame, The Satanic Verses, and The Moor’s Last Sigh–percolate around just this kind of conflict, as India, or some subset of the subcontinent, tears itself apart. Rushdie repeatedly returns to the primal scene of a paradise squandered…
… playful garishness has always been one of his best qualities. Unfortunately, the usual glorious torrents of slanguage and gouts of Rabelaisian humor are largely missing in Shalimar the Clown. In Rushdie’s South Asian version of magical realism, it’s realism that dominates this time round. Depicting a program of ethnic cleansing against Kashmir’s Hindu population, he dissolves in an uncharacteristic wail of anguish (“why was that why was that why was that why was that why was that”) as his formidable imagination buckles under the pressure of too much reality… [Link]
Novelist William T. Vollman reviews the book in Publisher’s Weekly:
The focus of this novel is extremism. It tells the tale of two Kashmiri villages whose inhabitants gradually get caught up in communal violence… hatred takes on especially horrific manifestations when neighbors turn against each other…The neighbors to whom Rushdie introduces us are memorable and emblematic characters, especially his protagonists, the Hindu dancer Boonyi Kaul and her childhood sweetheart, Shalimar the clown, son of a Muslim family. Their passion becomes a marriage solemnized by both Hindu and Muslim rites, but as conflict heats up, Boonyi seduces the American ambassador… The resulting transformation of Shalimar into a terrorist is easily the most impressive achievement of the book, and here one must congratulate Rushdie for having made artistic capital out of his own suffering, for the years he spent under police protection, hunted by zealots, have been poured into the novel in ways which ring hideously true…
Now for the novel’s defects: Rushdie’s female characters are generally less plausible than the male ones. When he is describing Kashmir’s good old days of communal tolerance, he too frequently takes refuge in slapstick. His depiction of Los Angeles relies so much on references to popular culture that the place becomes a superficial parody of itself. In terms of technique, Rushdie’s most irritating tic is the sermonistic parallelism or repetition, but the novel’s best passages (not to mention his other great work, Shame) prove him capable of great style…
Never mind these flaws. Shalimar the Clown is a powerful parable about the willing and unwilling subversion of multiculturalism. [Link]
If you read Portuguese, you can get a head start on the book:
Shalimar the Clown, Rushdie’s latest novel, is being published here in Brazil two months ahead of its English release…
On the second day of the Paraty Literary Festival, the main square of this small Brazilian town is buzzing. A parade of papier-mâché dolls passes the ancient church, a clown eats fire near a packed corner cafe, and people stream from two tented pavilions after an author’s talk. Among the throng, ambling the cobbled streets in plain sight, is the characteristically disheveled figure of Salman Rushdie, the Anglo-Indian writer who is the star of this year’s festival…
“Because of the shrinking planet and the consequences of mass migration and geopolitics and so on, we all live in this world where our stories are no longer separate. [Before], one could mostly tell a story about India. You can’t think like that anymore.” [Link]
Heck, if you’re eBay-literate, you can even get gray-market galley proofs. Seriously, am I the only one on the planet who hasn’t read them yet? Publishing house insider bastards 
I bought an Advanced Reader’s Copy of Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie due out in September. (Ebay rules.)… “Advanced Readers Copy” means that there are errors in the book, but after it’s 397 pages, I found… about six. [Link]A friend of mine was brilliant enough to score me an advance reading copy of Zadie Smith’s new novel, On Beauty, and though only about 70 pages into it, it’s very good and very funny. [Link]
I hear from a reliable source that there is a lot of movie industry interest in the rights to Zadie Smith’s new novel On Beauty. Having now read the manuscript, I am not a bit surprised. There are really juicy parts for black and white actors – both male and female – in their 20’s and middle years. The novel is brilliant. Sadly, I am sworn to secrecy from revealing any of its contents or blogging a review at this stage. [Link]
The Guardian reviews Smith’s latest, which comes out Sep. 13:
The meaning of love in a time of fear is also a theme in Zadie Smith’s new novel, On Beauty, which is published in September. Her black and mixed-race characters are confused and adrift; they are all looking for something – for certainty, for meaning. Her book is about many things. It is a hugely engaging social comedy about miscegenation and cross-generational misunderstanding. It is about the vexed issue of Anglo-American relations. It is a campus novel. And it is also a smart rewriting of Howard’s End. As EM Forster’s novel did before it, On Beauty asks important questions about the relationship between culture and power – such as is the acquisition of knowledge and culture dependent on wealth and privilege?… [Link]
Here’s the Publisher’s Weekly blurb:
Like Smith’s smash debut, White Teeth (2000), this work gathers narrative steam from the clash between two radically different families, with a plot that explicitly parallels Howards End. A failed romance between the evangelical son of the messy, liberal Belseys; Howard is Anglo-WASP and Kiki African-American; and the gorgeous daughter of the staid, conservative, Anglo-Caribbean Kipps leads to a soulful, transatlantic understanding between the families’ matriarchs, Kiki and Carlene, even as their respective husbands, the art professors Howard and Monty, amass matériel for the culture wars at a fictional Massachusetts university. Meanwhile, Howard and Kiki must deal with Howard’s extramarital affair, as their other son, Levi, moves from religion to politics. Everyone theorizes about art, and everyone searches for connections, sexual and otherwise. A very simple but very funny joke; that Howard, a Rembrandt scholar, hates Rembrandt; allows Smith to discourse majestically on some of the master’s finest paintings. [Link]
The Brazilian literary festival is rooted in the convenience of a publishing magnate:
… the Festa Literária Internacional de Parati [is] a festival just three years old, in a tiny town halfway between Rio and São Paulo. Liz Calder, the Bloomsbury supremo who discovered Salman Rushdie and J. K. Rowling, has a house outside Parati, and decided to start a literary festival there because she thought “it would be good for everything”.
She had no money, she had no backers, but she knew that Brazilians love ideas and that they are open-minded. She launched the festival, and in the first year had 800 visitors, in the second year, 12,000, yes, that nought is 12,000, and now has so many people who want to come along, that they have big-screen monitors and overflow tents. [Link]
Rushdie won the Booker for Midnight’s Children in ’81 and was nominated again for The Moor’s Last Sigh, The Satanic Verses and Shame. Here are the other Bookerati for the year:
Tash Aw – The Harmony Silk Factory
John Banville – The Sea
Julian Barnes – Arthur & George
Sebastian Barry – A Long Long Way
JM Coetzee – Slow Man
Rachel Cusk – In the Fold
Kazuo Ishiguro – Never Let Me Go
Dan Jacobson – All For Love
Marina Lewycka – A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Hilary Mantel – Beyond Black
Ian McEwan – Saturday
James Meek – The People’s Act of Love
Ali Smith – The Accidental
Harry Thompson – This Thing of Darkness
William Wall – This Is The Country [Link]
Punjabi Boy, I commute to work, so I get lots of time on the train. And I read fast, fast, fast. I also multitask so I can brush my teeth and read at the same time :).
Rani – may I recommend The Red Carpet by Lavanya Sankaran.
I am impressed. Seriously, I am.
I’m going to try reading and brushing my teeth tonight – I’ll let you know how many pages I get toothpaste on.
What else can you do whilst reading?
i’m going to guess bharati mukherjee… her husband is canadian and they’ve done some writing together…
Tilo, I do have to get my hands on a copy of The Red Carpet. I am going to request my local library to get it.
Punjabi Boy, I can read while I eat, walk, walk backwards (although I don’t recommend this), stationary bike, run on a treadmill, brush my teeth, blow out my hair, vacuum, cook dinner – well, sort of – I read while I am waiting for dal to boil.
wow, rani, perhaps you could do a robert christgau-like “consumer guide” for us every few weeks — just list what you’ve been reading with a letter-grade for each…
peace
Rani
You are Wonder Woman.
extra credit if you’ve even heard of Guelph 😉
Rani,
Rani,
I asked for a reading list, not a guilt trip.
I think I will put The Historian on my reading list, and Orhan Pamuk too.
Desidancer,
Perhaps the bookstore would be willing to give you a refund : )
Manish,
Dude, you live a charmed life. I am going to start telling people that I know the guy who knows the desi girl in the book.
PB,
Zadie looks a bit like Arundhati Roy in that picture. Also a hottie. And her essays are funny too.
Nope. Try again.
O – btw – I forgot to mention this earlier – Ondaatje’s compilation is “Ink Lake”.
Punjabi Boy, blush.
Siddhartha, I thought about doing a blog like that, but there are enough book blogs on the web. And between my reading, writing, full-time job, and family, I don’t think I have the time for it. I’d feel horrible just having a letter grade next to a book title, without some justification as to why I did/did not like a book.
Ok, away from my computer until late tonight. No more rapid responses.
dhaavak,
i’ve got it! rohinton mistry.
Hey… DesiDancer… since you asked… Guelph’s claim to fame – is of course the hillside festival – and of relevance to 2005 is the outstanding jammign done by Dya Singh, desi via australia, and a Quebecois band – see what this blog has to say
Rohiton Mistry?
Is there a extra credit if you’ve heard of Canada?
Sorry babloo.. Too late. But thanks for playing 🙂
And Tef who commented
I fart in your general direction.
you’re on, yaar!
i have read the fine print that say i have to come to guelph or nearabouts to collect my prize. may we have an interpretation of “nearabouts”?
specifically, does montreal count?
peace
Damn you.. slow internet connection. I’m pretty sure I hit post earlier. I have been robbed 🙁
Sadly… no. Montreal is a rather long haul. Nearabouts would be Kitchener, Waterloo,… and Toronto if the stars align – but the offer’s not closing… and I’ll be lurking around here.
duly noted, dhaanak. much respect!
peace
dhaavak-
not only have i heard of Guelph, I’ve been there. shhh. I’ve been to Truro too, but we don’t speak of that 😉
Thanks for the warning Manish. I love In The Skin Of The Lion partially b/c it is so lyrical, which is not a recipe for realistic dialogue, but I could see that not working in other structures. I’ll eventually get over it and read the rest of his stuff.
I’m not reading much fiction right now, but to create a tangent: does anyone know of particularly good desi English writers, home and diasporic alike, who don’t write in the so-called “literary fiction” market? I’m a stickler for the principle that genre fiction can be Truly Literary fiction, but it’s a fact of the state of publishing and literary criticism that in practice science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, and graphic novels are relegated to different bins. I have a feeling I’m going to go on a Science Fiction kick soon, and I’d be curious to find any true, dyed-in-the-wool, SF desi writers.
It’s lyrical because Ondaatje’s also published a plethora of poetry.
As Rummy would say, heavens to Betsy– of course sci-fi can be literary! But I’ll leave recommendations to our resident astronaut in training.
Genre, you say? Tom Clany eat your heart out.
I read it and laughed. But then again, it’s not my cup of chai.
Desi sci-fi? that’s going to be a challenge..
Wouldn’t British-Sri Lankan author Arthur C. Clarke qualify? He’s been a Colombo resident for 49 years.
cicatrix – desi sci fi? Oh, I can see it. Robots programmed to share biodata (my most favorite Hinglish word ever)! The perfectly engineered desi child who has a GPA of 4.00+++++++ and builds a joint house on Mars for mummydaddybrothersisterspouse etc. A million possibilities, I tell you.
ahh.. you beat me to it. I wracked my brains for desi-born, but our beloved Mr.Clark is a dyed-in-the-wool Sri Lankan now, fo sho. Man speaks Sinhalese like a native.
MD…you’re freaking me out. That would be the perfect desi sci-fi novel, wouldn’t it? Anything else just wouldn’t seem right 😉
Saheli, if you’re new to SF as a genre, may I suggest Neil Gaimen’s Sandman books? They’re graphic novels, so don’t be scurred!! Twelve books in the series, and well worth checking out.
As Rummy would say, heavens to Betsy– of course sci-fi can be literary!
Heh. Glad we’re all on the same page then. Doesn’t always happen.
our beloved Mr.Clark is a dyed-in-the-wool Sri Lankan now, fo sho. Man speaks Sinhalese like a native.
That’s pretty cool, and a great point. He will definitely go on any bibliographies I compose. But I already know him. I’m fishing for new names.
The perfectly engineered desi child who has a GPA of 4.00+++++++ and builds a joint house on Mars for mummydaddybrothersisterspouse etc.
Eek.:-)
may I suggest Neil Gaimen’s Sandman books?
Heh, thanks Cicatrix, but not new at all and Gaiman has long been at the top the list. Read most of the Sandman in high school; been meaning to reread for a while; his journal was what sucked me into blogging in the first place–my first post was about a signing. Good stuff!
AND run Sepia Mutiny at the same time? How is this humanly possible?
The perfectly engineered desi child
Matrix: Revolutions. The Wachowski Brothers thought this one through, partially, and apparently decided the perfect union of natural and artificial intelligence would be a little Indian girl (and not Keanu Reeves).
So, I know this is going to dump the light-hearted tone, but the sci-fi comment got me thinking, remembering that a few years ago I heard Classic Science Fiction from India by Karsh Kale and then read an interview in which he discusses how the title of the album is inspired by the same stuff that fuels speculative black/African-American fiction and science fiction (i.e. displacement, xenophobia, the absence of origin, metaphysical “re-creation”; he didn’t make the connection with black sci-fi, I did)… That stuff of course only really applies to 2nd generation folks and that too, hardly to the degree it applies to the black/African-American experience, but it got me to thinking how most South Asian writers are forever obsessed with either “telling” reality or manipulating it in such a way to just show another side of it, but never are they interested in creating a totally alternate reality, something that pushes beyond the lines of spirituality, politics, the cultures and religions. The second-generation is primed to do it, but they’re spending so much time looking back & inward rather than forward…
I’m not saying that an Indian sci-fi novel would do it for me, but I am saying that none of the above books/authors go beyond any limits. Rushdie et al get much deserved credit for being godlike in their rendering of the world, but none of them want to be God and recreate the world. I don’t know of any contemporary authors, anywhere, that write what I’m looking for, I can only say that I’m looking to read a book where the author is forecasting rather than analyzing (pretending the film was never made, even an Indian-version of Aronofsky’s schism, “Pi” would get me floating).
I admit, this is an incomplete thought, but if anyone has a response to my fragment…
The Historian is a great novel, as is the Kite Runner, lets’ not forget the Trilogy from Len Deighton (Game, Set and Match) – a superb spy thriller and the penultimat – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by Le Carre..
Scorpion16
Y’know, since sex is, at a fundamental level, a file transfer, an email, an ‘instant’ message (if with an overexcited partner– and I feel bad for you), ‘swapping biodata’ is a much dirtier phrase than it seems at first blush.
As with Rani, it’s the magic of commute time. If only I had a Nimbus 2000.
We all know why Arthur C. Clarke lives in Sri Lanka Manish. And it ain’t for the tea.
I’ve felt thoroughly useless throughout this thread as an illiterate fiction-shy philistine, but when you got talking about Indian sci-fi, well I had to step in. I don’t know why it’s so scarce, if existant at all. We all know plenty of Indians who like books and are good writers and we all know plenty of Indians who are complete sci-fi dorkatron 3000 geeks, like me.
Perhaps those two personality traits don’t occur in the same person that frequently. Whatever the explanation is, I am continually confused as to why Indians consume a great deal of sci-fi (if you can do such a thing) but they don’t produce it. The film argument could be the budgets (although the budgets for some big movies are obscene. But OK, sci-fi’s a risky genre to lay big movie cash upon) but why not books?
Incidentally, having learnt you get the initially-great-now-awful Kumars at No. 42, did anyone see the one with Patrick Stewart?
Ammi: “But Patrick, why did you never have any Indians onboard the Enterprise?”
Picard: “Well-“
Ammi: “Don’t you need IT support?”
The big man then told a corker of a story about the one Indian they did have, Mr Singh (Ensingh Singh if I recall).
Well…there was always Persis Khambatta.
For the same reason you wouldn’t expect much sci-fi out of Italy: it’s a warm, relationship- and family-centric culture. IMO even the technical people from India aren’t usually cold, obsessive rationalists to the same degree as some American/Brit nerds, though they’re extremely bright. It’s not as acceptable to be socially isolated, even if at the extreme end of the IQ curve. Their mothers pester them to marry by 28, and even lacking social skills they’ll get arranged some way, somehow 😉
Just speculating: a socially-connected person may be more likely to write a human-centered story, whereas sci-fi often focuses on the parameters of the world.
What the? No way I’m not buying that for a second! First of all, how did Italy come into it? The reason I expect some sci fi from India is because I have loads of Indian friends who have lots of Asimov and Dick but haven’t heard of Jane Austen and the only people who get ALL my Star Trek references are Indian, whereas ALL the Italians I know are stereotypical Mediterranean romantics who would probably read love stories. On a gondala. With pizza.
Just because mummyji gets you hitched by 28, that certainly doesn’t make you socially connected. Nah, Indian nerds can compete with the best at being socially inept, awkward, isolated (which I think you hinted at agreeing with), so just going by numbers at least SOME of us sciencey geeky types will be inclined to make up a story.
Or is Koi Mil Gaya the best we’re going to get?
You know, I just googled and somehow ended up with a list of sci-fi writers by religion…look at this! Aldous Huxley’s Hindu?! Anyway, I had better get to bed. Write some sci-fi Manish.
All the cultural parallels with India: warmth, passion, family centricity, utterly spoiling their kids, no tradition of adolescent rebellion, preference for jawboning over action, relaxed pace of life, high tolerance for things not working.
After suffering through Grimus, I think I know why Rushdie doesn’t write sci-fi any more.
Oh dear, I was an adolescent rebel, read Jane Austen, and am still not hitched, much to my Mummy-ji’s consternation. 😉
It’s shaadi.com for me.
Just speculating: a socially-connected person may be more likely to write a human-centered story
Dude. I’ve got to go with B^2 here. No way. First of all, assuming that your theory of SF is correct, no way your theory of desi-socialization is. We can outnerd and socially-isolate with the best of them, particularly in the diaspora.
Secondly, DUDE. You need to get yourself some different SF. Seriously. Now. Drop all that high-falutin desi lit and get thee to a genre bookstore. First, try a little Kress.. Take in a little Iain Banks, maybe Use of Weapons.. Review your Keats and then dive into Hyperion. Then, when you’re ready for dessert and don’t have anything else to do for a few days, get the Bujold. . All of it.
And I made very sure to leave fantasy authors off that meal. Those are just old favorites that came to mind quickly.
I’ll tell you one reason why I personally am less courageous about attempting to the write the very genre fiction I adore: it’s more work. You don’t want to cover old ground. As Gaiman said in his Nebula Speech,
Terrified of falling into that trap. But it’s certainly worth a try.
what about mysteries? anyone know any good mystery novels with a desi angle?
i know there’s the “inspector ghote” series from back in the day… written by a british cat who’d actually never set foot in india. but they were good!
but more recently… whether from the subcontinent, or in some way involving the diaspora…?
i like me a good mystery.
peace
siddhartha m, did you read the Feluda stories by Satyajit Ray? Or for that matter see his movies? They’re about this detective called Felu (the da is a Bengali suffix for older males, viz. Manish-da, BongBreaker-da etc.) who gets into scrapes around the country.
He wrote his books and made his movies in Bengali, but some of the stories have been translated into English. Besides which, the movies can always be watched with subtitles.
Interestingly Manish, Ray wrote quite a bit of Science fiction too, tween sci-fi actually, – albeit in Bengali and I understand that it is very popular with people who can read Bengali at a pace that is a tad faster than my 3 words a minute. Also, since Bengalis are notoriously social, share warmth and rosogollas with gusto, that one counterexample totally blows your lack-of-human-contact-generates-sci-fi theory to shreds 🙂
well I read stuff by a desi mystery writer based in Japan. her name is Sujatha something… Damn I forget the title of the book. sorry siddarthm – will look it up…
OK she is the one I was talking about: http://www.interbridge.com/sujata/
There’s a little bit of ‘science fiction’ in “The Last Jet-engine Laugh” by Ruchir Joshi (set between 1970 – 2030) which is a very interesting novel, partly because heÂ’s an Indian writing in english to an Indian audience.
As for Zadie Smith (she’s Jamaican/English) – I saw her in a bar in N. London a year or so ago, she was buying champagne for her girlfriends. She wore a turban-style headdress and a backless beige-black sequined dress. She has a wonderful back, shoulder blades like a cheetahÂ’s. So, I am pleased to say she is even more beautiful in real life.
interesting! i’ll check her out. thanks tilo.
peace
Wow.
For the same reason you wouldn’t expect much sci-fi out of Italy: it’s a warm, relationship- and family-centric culture.
Yes, but then there’s Italo Calvino and that widens the gap between India and Italy considerably.
If there’s a comparison between Italy and India regarding science fiction, I think it would have to be concerning religion and how it relates to the concepts of mythology and fantasy. Both cultures have ancient texts that discuss the supernatural, multiple dimensions of time and space, ether and matter, the ephemera of the soul and ultimately, gods which sometimes blur the lines between human, superhuman and spiritual. Of course, the main difference is that Roman gods hardly compare to Hindu gods in a contemporary sense, but nevertheless, when you’re grounded in that kind of belief, science fiction just isn’t that interesting (unless of course you take the pure egghead approach, which would be all about numbers, like Kabbalah, or technology, which would be the Matrix).
Anyhow, I think a SM book-thing would be good, you could have a list of monthly titles running as a no-graphic sidebar just under your photos/images. The onus would be on one of you to read the book and find a premise for discussion on a weekly basis, but since I’m guessing none of the books will feature M.I.A., pure cheesecake or the DNC/RNC, it’ll be worth the effort.
Anyhow, I think a SM book-thing would be good, you could have a list of monthly titles running as a no-graphic sidebar just under your photos/images.
Actually–Manish, I have a vague memory of your posting something resembling a South Asian Diaspora Literature biliography site, and not bookmarking it before a crash. Am I hallucinating? I figure if such a thing exists, you would know. That would make a good permanent link on the sidebar.
what about mysteries? anyone know any good mystery novels with a desi angle?
i know there’s the “inspector ghote” series from back in the day… written by a british cat who’d actually never set foot in india. but they were good!
but more recently… whether from the subcontinent, or in some way involving the diaspora…?
i like me a good mystery.
peace