The Moor's Last Sigh
With a second attempt in a number of years' time (how many years I have forgotton) I devoured - though actually struggled and suffered through more than devoured during the first attempt how many years ago I have forgotten - this classic of Salmon Rushdie eventually to the end, and have my thirst of curiosity quenched.
I really enjoyed it, despite the toll it takes on one's concentration more often than not over the pages, as does his latest "Shalimur the Clown" which I also smugly read over not so long ago - indeed as do any other books of his I struggled through or devoured in the past.
But like any other books of his I have struggled through or devoured in the past, hardly too many things stick afterwards - characters or content - particularly from the much acclaimed one which was awarded "the Booker of all Booker Prizes" in the past twenty-five years from the year in which it won the accolade of the Booker Prize, "Midnight's children"; also not much from the one with much hype generated about it and for which the Islamic death threat was imposed upon him, "Satanic Verses".
Borrowing one of his many thought-provoking words in "The Moor's Last Sigh", a "palimpsest" perhaps best depicts the phenomenon, that after layers of words of sophistication are laid on one another, most meanings are blurred, if not lost.
With his perspectives of history unquestionably deep and his brain of literature unquestionably superb, his writing is simply pretentious, though not simply understood all the time. But that's, perhaps, what I like most about him. As we are all pretentious, his style resonates with a person's urge to speak against all devils and wrongdoings with his/her own sense of righteousness, and is particularly admirable in the superlative degree of pretentiousness with his sophisticated complex of history and literature and, therefore, no space for cheesiness. The virtue of patience and hard work is still rewarded with enlightenment of kinds in reading Salmon Rushdie's books. He is a genius, certainly of his own class.
I really enjoyed it, despite the toll it takes on one's concentration more often than not over the pages, as does his latest "Shalimur the Clown" which I also smugly read over not so long ago - indeed as do any other books of his I struggled through or devoured in the past.
But like any other books of his I have struggled through or devoured in the past, hardly too many things stick afterwards - characters or content - particularly from the much acclaimed one which was awarded "the Booker of all Booker Prizes" in the past twenty-five years from the year in which it won the accolade of the Booker Prize, "Midnight's children"; also not much from the one with much hype generated about it and for which the Islamic death threat was imposed upon him, "Satanic Verses".
Borrowing one of his many thought-provoking words in "The Moor's Last Sigh", a "palimpsest" perhaps best depicts the phenomenon, that after layers of words of sophistication are laid on one another, most meanings are blurred, if not lost.
With his perspectives of history unquestionably deep and his brain of literature unquestionably superb, his writing is simply pretentious, though not simply understood all the time. But that's, perhaps, what I like most about him. As we are all pretentious, his style resonates with a person's urge to speak against all devils and wrongdoings with his/her own sense of righteousness, and is particularly admirable in the superlative degree of pretentiousness with his sophisticated complex of history and literature and, therefore, no space for cheesiness. The virtue of patience and hard work is still rewarded with enlightenment of kinds in reading Salmon Rushdie's books. He is a genius, certainly of his own class.
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