Book
Review
Salman
Rushdie’s new novel, Quichotte, is too clever to entertain, let
alone become a classic. There are too many allusions to contemporary politics
and (other) entertainments such as movies and the TV. Quite many of them are
likely to remain beyond the comprehension of even knowledgeable readers. A few
years from now some of these allusions will be plainly obsolete. Who likes to
google every other minute while reading a novel?
Rushdie’s
Quichotte goes cranky from watching TV shows just as his classical namesake,
Quixote, goes mad from reading the chivalric romances of his time. Quichotte’s
quest is for Selma R, a talk-show star. The feelings and desires in the
shrivelled heart of old man Quichotte are stirred by the charming star of
Indian origin. Quichotte is the pseudonym of a medical rep of Indian origin who
loses his job right when his crazy romance begins.
Quichotte
is not real. He is the fictional creation of an Indian-born spy novelist who longs
to write something different. Moreover, this fictitious protagonist has an
unreal son named Sancho: illusion within fiction which is itself story within a
story!
Quichotte’s
quest is quite similar to his creator’s who longs to re-establish his
relationships with his sister as well as his son both of whom were estranged
years ago. Broken relationships is a very relevant theme in our times.
We
live in broken times too and Rushdie efficiently captures the images of those
fragments. But is he successful in stirring the imagination of the reader? I
doubt. The novel is too cerebral to appeal to the imagination. It is a kind of
scholarly polemic that is founded on bizarre satire: a strange mix.
Quichotte
presents the human race as a kind of perverted species, “or perhaps deluded,
about its own nature.” Human species has “become so accustomed to wearing its masks
that it has grown blind to what lies beneath”. The reality is dreadful beyond words.
Rushdie
has invented a new lingo, a new expression to present that post-truth reality
which should ideally force every person to ask him-/herself the question: “Am I
a man or am I a jerk?”
Quichotte’s
quest is in the end not just a romantic, chivalric, cranky, quixotic exercise,
it appears. In his own words, it is a quest for his “own compromised goodness
and virtue”. And he is not just a superannuated medical representative, but a
representative of the human race that seems to have lost “its reason, its
capacity for ethics, its goodness, its soul.”
The
novel’s theme is very relevant. But I wonder how many readers will appreciate
the narrative. Missing the wood for the trees is not a very rewarding experience.
PS.
All quotes are from the novel.
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