Shalimar

Updike reviews Shalimar the Clown, which I had the privilege of reading in early June, in The New Yorker this week. He comments,

"It is partly, perhaps, characteristic Rushdiean overflow. His novels pour by in a sparkling, voracious onrush, each wave topped with foam, each paragraph luxurious and delicious, but the net effect perilously close to stultification. His prose hops with dropped names, compulsive puns, learned allusions, winks at the reader, and repeated bows to popular culture. His plots proceed by verbal connection and elaboration as much as by character interaction. This story begins and ends in Los Angeles, so angels are on the author’s mind, as two not unusually overloaded sentences demonstrate ... Verbal hyperactivity of the sissy-Assisi sort nudges the hip reader on page after page: “appalled by his charm, by the erotic proximity of his snappy crackle of power”; “as graceful in his movement as the incomparable Max”; “The city was a cliff and they were its stampeding lemmings. At the foot of the cliff was the valley of the broken dolls”; “He went into his blighted apple orchard, seated himself cross-legged beneath a tree, closed his eyes, heard the verses of the Rig-Veda fill the world with beauty, and ceased upon the midnight with no pain.” That last pawky phrase is, of course, John Keats talking, in “Ode to a Nightingale.” James Joyce and T. S. Eliot established brainy allusions as part of modernity’s literary texture, but at the risk of making the author’s brain the most vital presence on the page."

But that is what makes Rushdie's novels such masterpieces -- not only are his stories and characters so richly palpable and all-encompassing of humanity's essences, but each sentence, each turn of phrase, exudes human history and achievement, be it in a musical, religious, artistic, military, or literary genre. It's similar to Sontag's idea of packing each sentence with a new idea -- which is, for me, the sign of true genius and eminence -- and although Rushdie's ideas may not be necessarily new, he connects the dots as though there was no such thing as borders or time, so that humanity becomes a seamless web. No one else I've read -- although Gabriel Garcia Marquez comes close -- is able to do this with such perfection. To this point, I think Shalimar is all the more apropos in contemporary times, as globalization and technology hurdle the world's population forward while they, in turn, as defense, perhaps, dig in their heels, resuscitating and spreading a pandemic of the most ancient and virulent religious beliefs, practices, and traditions human history has known. It is a reminder, although that seems too trite to describe it -- perhaps a plea -- for some modicum of enlightenment idealism in the hearts of people in this world, leaders and proletariat alike, for truce based upon our common interests as humans, a brilliant beg for an inkling of tolerance -- that we are all at birth the same, before we become subdivided. Again, paltry description on my behalf, but.

So, to Mr. Updike -- leave Mr. Rushdie's brain alone. You may not care for it, but I love its presence on the page. It gives me hope. And it turns my brain on -- never do my synapses fire as rapidly as when I read his work. So.

Later.

Posted: Tuesday - August 30, 2005 at 06:02 PM |