Kakutani complains of crufty ‘Clown’

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The acid-tongued, Yale-educated purveyor of limn places Shalimar the Clown above Rushdie’s ineffectual Fury but below his earlier works (thanks, Rani):

Although the novel is considerably more substantial than his perfunctory 2001 book, “Fury,” it lacks the fecund narrative magic, ebullient language and intimate historical emotion found in “Midnight’s Children” and “The Moor’s Last Sigh.” [Link]

She doesn’t buy the fundamental, near-magical-realism conceit of the protagonist, and without that buy-in the rest of the novel is colored:

Worse, “Shalimar the Clown” is hobbled by Mr. Rushdie’s determination to graft huge political and cultural issues onto a flimsy soap opera plot… But his clumsy suggestion that the title character becomes involved with a group of terrorists inspired by Al Qaeda because he has been jilted by his wife feels farcical in the extreme – unbelievable in terms of the actual story…

The main problem with this novel, however, is its title character, Shalimar… who emerges as a thoroughly implausible, cartoonish figure: an ardent lover turned murderous avenger, a clownish performer transformed into a cold-eyed terrorist. Whereas the other characters’ motives are complex and conflicted, Shalimar is depicted in diagrammatic, black-and-white terms. Indeed, he often seems like a reincarnation of the cardboardy Solanka from “Fury”… These are the sort of words spoken by mustache-twirling, snake-eyed villains in old cartoons…

Rushdie is ‘all about the extended, witty aside, the original, snarky insight,’ which she doesn’t seem to dig:

But others are thoroughly gratuitous asides, included, it seems, simply for the sake of emptying out the author’s archive of recorded and imagined images, and they weigh down the story, diminishing its focus and its momentum.

I’m left wondering whether this review is more a criticism of the genre and Rushdie’s fundamental style than the individual tome. We’ll know soon — the book is officially out tomorrow, though you may have nabbed a copy this weekend.

Previous posts: one, two, three, four, five, six

23 thoughts on “Kakutani complains of crufty ‘Clown’”

  1. Okay, whatever Kakatuni. I guess shalimar’s limn was too limited. If this review is a repeat of Vernon God Little episode, shalimar clown will win the booker. Anyways, pre-ordered book from amazon, hope SM gets the 2 cent cut.

  2. We’ll know soon — the book is out tomorrow.

    What are you talking about? I have my copy in my hand??

    /Saheli wonders if she asked for the wrong book. . .

  9. Tilo, the (original) function, I think, of the book review was to elucidate why a particular tome is (ir)relevent both in the realm of literature as well as in the larger world. Hence, good reviewers must be able to talk about other books – both the writer’s previous books and other books being published at the time – for the review to be at all critical.

    As for Kakutani… People don’t read NYTBR to decide what book to read – at least I hope they don’t; people read NYTBR, and Kakutani in particular, to know what books are being talked about.

  11. Saheli,

    I thought I’d let someone else say it, but I can’t take it anymore.

    : ))

    limn-fetish? Check. McSweeneys? Check.

    I see both your references, and raise you a token asian.

  12. Good review from USA today by Deirdre Donahue

    To inhale Salman Rushdie’s richly textured, exotic prose is to realize the insipid nature of most contemporary fiction. Moreover, Rushdie’s new novel, Shalimar the Clown, draws upon the most fraught issue of our time: the turmoil generated by different cultures and faiths trying to exist in the same place. …. The genius of Rushdie’s new novel comes from the writer’s ability to illuminate a global disaster through a microcosm. … The most rewarding aspects of Shalimar the Clown emerge from Rushdie’s ability to convey the connections among villagers who may not share the same religion but who are bonded by shared experiences and proximity. …(To enjoy Rushdie, one must accept an overwrought level of symbolism and allusion. Realism is not his forte.) Like all of the Indian-born writer’s best work, Shalimar the Clown offers up mythology, Hindu gods and goddesses, folk tales, popular culture, fantastic occurrences and shimmering prose that is a delight simply to read for its references and nuances. From his nod to the Star Trek language of Klingon to the Romantic poets, Rushdie simply delivers more of a wallop in one novel than most writers achieve ever. If Rushdie’s novels like Midnight’s Children and The Moor’s Last Sigh are embedded in your brain, you will adore Shalimar the Clown. There is an epic sweep to Shalimar. Its almost 400 dense pages explore important and compelling issues. Among them: World War II in Europe, the tragic partition of the Indian subcontinent, the continuing strife between those two countries, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the fractured ties of affection between parents and children, the deadly effect that American power and influence has on the Third World. Rushdie proves himself to be a master of the global novel.

  13. Be fair Manish – she’s neither trashing the genre nor the author. The paragraph you didn’t cite mentions his books before Fury approvingly. Her point is that this book, while better than Fury, is not up to Rushdie’s previous standard.

  15. I’d rather read what’s in them:

    In his most powerful novels, Salman Rushdie has dexterously spun his characters’ surreal experiences into resonant historical allegories. “Midnight’s Children” (1981) transformed its hero’s tortured coming of age into a parable about India’s own journey into independence. “The Moor’s Last Sigh” (1995) used the dramatic reversals of fortune sustained by one eccentric family as a kind of metaphor for India’s recent ups and downs. And in recounting the interlinked stories of two powerful men, “Shame” (1983) became a sort of modern-day fairy tale about a country that was “not quite Pakistan.” Mr. Rushdie’s latest book, “Shalimar the Clown,” aspires to turn the story of a toxic love triangle into a fable about the fate of Kashmir and the worldwide proliferation of terrorism. But this time, the author’s allegory-making machinery clanks and wheezes. Although the novel is considerably more substantial than his perfunctory 2001 book, “Fury,” it lacks the fecund narrative magic, ebullient language and intimate historical emotion found in “Midnight’s Children” and “The Moor’s Last Sigh.”

    How you get from that to “a criticism of the genre and RushdieÂ’s fundamental style” is beyond me …

  16. Um, the other quotes you ignored, the ones in the post. The complaints she has are the very emblems of Rushdie’s style and, to some extent, the magical realism genre. Giant, universal allegories, check. Fantastical characters, check. Memorable villains, check. Extended witty asides, check.

  17. Her problem isn’t with the techniques, it’s with their effectiveness. She finds the villain this time cartoonish, not memorable. She finds the asides gratuitous , not witty.

    Her problem is with the effectiveness of the implementation this time around, not with the use of allegory altogether.

    Couldn’t you have written a similar review of Fury saying that you wish he had been as effective in the past?

  18. Her problem is with the effectiveness of the implementation this time around, not with the use of allegory altogether.

    That’s not at all clear to me. This smells like a reviewer who doesn’t grok the author or the genre– it’s exactly that kind of review. I’d have to check Kakutani’s older reviews of either Rushdie or the genre.

  19. Kakutani dissed The Ground Beneath Her Feet, a terribly romantic book, a book which I loved. She seems to like early Rushdie but despises his late period, the version which makes pop allusions to Elvis and Klingons. She has no problem with magical realism in theory, but dislikes the grand allegory and late Rushdie’s signature style. The bolded passage below could just as easily describe Shalimar as Ground.

    Rushdie collaborated with Bono on a song based on Ground– and ironically, many also complain about late U2 😉

    … Salman Rushdie’s loose, baggy monster of a new novel… a decidedly disappointing performance: a handful of dazzling set pieces, bundled together with long-winded digressions, tiresome soliloquizing about love and death and art, and cliched descriptions of the rock ‘n’ roll business worthy of Jackie Collins… We are once again treated to the story of several characters who leave India to wander the world and invent new identities for themselves abroad. And we are once again urged to read in their story a lesson about our fragmented, chaotic world, a world that this time is on the verge of cracking apart from tectonic cultural shifts and political and social tremors… The earthquake that takes Vina’s life, along with Ormus’ famous cycle of “quake songs,” becomes a presiding metaphor for Rushdie’s vision of our tumultuous age… Rushdie seems to have misplaced his magician’s ability to fuse the mythic and the mundane, the surreal and the authentic, into a seamless whole… … all too often his meditations on the story of Ormus and Vina devolve into ponderous pontifications, the babbling of someone in love with the sound of his own voice… He blathers on about Ormus having double vision, suggesting that the world he and the other characters inhabit is a kind of mirror world of our own… In the end this portentous mumbo jumbo sucks all the air out of this novel and deprives Ormus and Vina of their vitality as characters. By the end of the book they have become nothing but brightly painted puppets.. Instead of turning the Orpheus legend into a compelling postmodern myth, Rushdie has simply freighted an old story with his favorite themes and the random detritus of our current celebrity culture… he has produced a strangely hollow book, a book that lacks both the specificity and the magic that have enlivened his best work in the past. At the same time the marvelous Garcia Marquez-like flights of fancy that enlivened Rushdie’s earlier work are largely absent: With the exception of the earthquake that devours Vina, there are few miraculous events in this novel…

  20. Manish, you “loved” The Ground Beneath Her Feet? Oy, I couldn’t get past page 90. However, I’d be willing to take another stab at it if you can convince me why you liked it. I generally agree with your literary likes/dislikes.

  21. …The Ground Beneath Her Feet, a terribly romantic book, a book which I loved

    With that said, I request a review of Shalimar from Manish. Probably the only review I can trust; it seems most of these reviewers are just creaming at the possibility to take shots at Rushdie.

  22. … I’d be willing to take another stab at it if you can convince me why you liked it.

    Mirror worlds, an intense Laila Majnu-style romance, his goddess-women again, an off-kilter, desi Elvis in an alternate universe, offshore pirate radio, an obsession with pop fame that was new in the Rushdie oeuvre (and, like Bono, a bit overblown). It’s rich and painfully romantic. I do remember it started off slowly, if that helps.

    For that matter, I gave up on Satanic Verses many years ago, it was too dense for the teenage me. Re-reading it, I loved it.

    … I request a review of Shalimar from Manish.

    I found a single copy tucked way in the back under Rushdie in the fiction shelves the night before the launch, thanks to Saheli’s tip. ‘Twas a delicious discovery 🙂 I’m not sure whether to credit it to a soft launch, a sympathetic, literate BN worker, or just lazy restocking. Maybe Zadie’s book will be stocked next Saturday instead of Tuesday, hush hush.

    As for a review, absolutely (and your faith is terrifying 🙂 ), but not in the next few days. I read in bits and pieces these days on the subway, so it takes a couple of weeks per book, and I like to savor.

    … it seems most of these reviewers are just creaming at the possibility to take shots at Rushdie.

    Post-martyrdom he makes himself a juicy target. He’s Agassi in his arrogant, blond highlight days. But he usually brings the goods.

  23. apologies if this was mentioned in the thread or posts, but don’t have time to read all of them these days.

    The one review that made me want to read the book (and generally, excerpts from Rushdie books make me want to run far, far away – which is my hang-up and not a comment on their quality) was in the New York Sun. ARts and letters daily has linked it. I really, really like the passage high-lighted.