The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie: a review

finally after almost 3 months of reading, i khatamed the book last night. this Booker Prize shortlisted book is a far cry from what Rushdie usually wrote - and i was dumbfounded for the first few pages.

yes, dumbfounded.

Rushdie always likes to write about India, and also secularism and cultural hybridity, which makes the utopian Indian society. this is evident in Shame, The Moor's Last Sigh and his Booker of the Booker Prize, Midnight's Children.

in The Moor's Last Sigh, there is a part when he goes back in time and tells the tale of the fallen Moorish king who lost the last Islamic enclave - Alhambra. this going back into the past is the main thrust in The Enchantress of Florence - as he marries the story of the Florentine Argalia the Turk to the story of the Mughal princess. the marriage results in an almost fairytale like story, with magic realism woven into it. i'm surprised to find that the epic narrative effect is almost like Gabriel Garcia Marquez's in his 100 Days of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. however, Rushdie uses the setting of the Mughal empire, thus anchoring the novel to the history of India and also Rushdie's past.

Rushdie's idea of hybridity is still evident when he talks abt unrootedness and about losing one's identity as one travels in his character the Princess Qara Koz or Angelica. she discards her identity when she changes her lover, thus creating a palimpsest of identities which is peeled layer by layer when the identity is not wanted anymore. in her journey at the Ocean Sea of Mundus Novus, this losing of identity also blurs the distinction between what is real and what is unreal, what is past and what is the present.

it's becoming rather complex, isnt it? this novel will be a good study for literary scholars who delve into narratology, culture and the study of identity.

i think this is Rushdie's experiment which ends up resembling Marquez's work, i hardly recognised his style had it not been for the "uprootedness" and the small piece of explanation of theories which he likes to add in his novels. i miss his witticism and humour which he shows in his past work.

my feelings for his latest work is mixed - disappointment and also the struggle to accept his new style of narrative.