And The Ground Beneath Her Feet is not it. There’s no reason why an author such as Rushdie, who has been politically important and historically engaged, should limit himself to that type of writing, to type-cast himself, but I think he is definitely at his best when he is doing that type of work. The Ground Beneath Her Feet feels like a book by an author treading water, looking for something more significant. Published in 1999, The Ground Beneath Her Feet followed The Moor’s Last Sigh (1995) and preceded Fury (2001). Which brings me to one of the difficulties with reviewing this book: I feel I am reading and reviewing it at the wrong point in time to properly comment on its merits and flaws (as part of Rushdie’s larger oeuvre, that is, rather than as an individual book, which can be judged at any moment). It is one of his defining talents, and rightly so, but even geniuses could benefit from stretching, if not expanding, their repertoire occasionally. Rushdie is creative with language, I get it. 56) Do any of Rushdie’s characters not speak in puns and games and rhymes? (Yes, actually, a character in this novel loses the ability to speak, so he is just described in puns and games and rhymes.) Russell Celyn Jones from The Times describes this book as “a carnival of words.” I think these days I would actually be more impressed if Rushdie managed to write a novel that wasn’t a carnival of words, that experimented with brevity and minimalism. Sometimes it feels as if Rushdie is simply re-hashing his old, tried and tested formula: “That was how we spoke, my mother and I: in puns and games and rhymes.” (p. And it was a great holiday read–complex, full of twitsts, colourful, clever, funny, long! But it ultimately flopped and left me feeling that it was 575 pages of not very much.įirst to my irritation.

I read it by the pool, on the beach, at airports and on trains. Another admission is that this was my summer-holiday reading. So I have decided not to approach this review via plot summary. But, as one disinclined to worship the canon, I am not put off.ģ) Most of my problems with The Ground Beneath Her Feet emerged in the final one hundred pages or so (of a 575 page book), so outlining these without giving away the story to those who haven’t read this will prove difficult. His reputation precedes him and threatens to make a mockery of any critiques I can make.

I find myself enjoying his books as I am reading them, but moving further and further from them as I reflect, afterwards.Ģ) Rushdie is extraordinarily difficult to review, and I felt quite daunted taking on this task. I think the man is a genius, but I get immensely irritated by some of his expressions of that genius. Feminism India Literary festivals Nepal Non-fiction Novels Pakistan South Asian writing in English Translations Women's writing Recent Postsġ) I have a love/ hate relationship with Salman Rushdie (well, with his books, anyway).

The ground beneath her feet book