Posted by Laurie

The shortlist for the Man Booker Prize, considered to be the most prestigious award for literary fiction in English, is out. Early favourite, Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence gets passed over while two other Indian writers -- Amitav Ghosh (Sea of Poppies) and the 33-year-old Aravind Adiga (The White Tiger) make it to the final six.

BBC lists the six who made it.

In The Telegraph (UK), James Delingpole is unimpressed with the list of 'token Asians', 'Irish misery novelist' and 'gay' writer -- usual suspects. But writers rarely slag off other novelist or, for that matter, literary awards.

Token Asian; Oirish misery novelist; another token Asian; Guardian woman; gay; token Australian wild-card with beard who looks definitely a bit foreign. Hmm. I wonder which of the usual suspects on the shortlist is going to win the Booker Prize this year.

"Aaagh!" I'm going to go, when I see these appallingly sexist, racist, homophobic words under my byline in bald print in a respectable, widely read national newspaper. "Did I really write that sentence? Was I drunk? Was I trying to kill my literary career stone dead?"

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And in The Telegraph (India), Amit Roy takes a closer look at the Indian contenders

Two books by Indian authors — Sea of Poppies by Calcutta-born Amitav Ghosh and The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, a debut novelist from Chennai — have been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

There was bitter disappointment for Pakistani author Mohammed Hanif, whose much-fancied A Case of Exploding Mangoes was on the long-list of 13 novels announced in July and was being talked about as the probable winner.

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In The Guardian, why Salman Rushdie not is "not good enough" for Booker shortlist:

Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence was simply not a good enough book to make it past the longlist stage of this year's Booker prize, according to the chair of judges, Michael Portillo. To add insult to the double Booker of Booker winner's injured pride, Portillo added that the judges didn't even spend that much time discussing it.

"I can say that the discussions we had about Salman Rushdie, as with all the other books, was a discussion about the book and not about the author. It was about the merits of the book," he told guardian.co.uk after the press conference at which the shortlist was announced.

"In the opinion of these five people taken together, Salman Rushdie's was not one of the top six books for us. We didn't have a huge debate about it."

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But Part II lost it for me a bit, concentrating more on Florence, it became sort of a story, within a story, within a story. It lost it's humour and also the sense I wrote about last Sunday of sitting by a camp fire as I read the book, with someone actually telling me the story. What I'm trying to say is that I think the narrator of the story as a whole faded a bit in Part II.

It picked up a bit in Part III as it rushed towards the climax of the story, revealing more about the actual Enchantress and her fate and how this story from the Moghul emperor's past still had the power to take over his present.

So overall not a bad story so to speak but it definitely lost it's power as it continued.

Although I had a read a single page of it last Sunday Salon, I delayed continuing it whilst I finished reading the two other books I was reading last week, the biography of Charles I (review here) and the extremely good and extremely scary Shock Doctrine (review here), so I am now only about  third of the way through The Enchantress of Florence after a couple of evenings reading (oh I so would have read more today if I could have!). Rushdie is breaking every single preconceived idea I had about him, I'm finding him immensely readable and actually quite wonderfully dryly funny, I realised when reading it yesterday that I was reading with a smile on my face which is a lovely thing to do. My only 'criticism' is that his paragraphs are a bit long, but that's hardly a criticism!

Anyway, The Enchantress of Florence (so far) is a dazzling tale of a mysterious European traveller who ventures to the grand court of an Indian Emperor to tell him a tale. Told from a (so far at least) anonymous narrator, when I listen to that wonderful narrator's voice I feel literally transported to the desert at night, I'm sitting round a crowded campfire with my fellow travellers listening to a wise man tell his tale, whilst gazing into the flickering embers. Brilliant stuff, the other books (not that I've read them) probably have some very stiff competition!

Enchantress of Florence is a book about Qara Koz,the youngest sister of Babar,the grand father of Akbar the great,in whose time the book is set.The book is about men,women,courtesans,wars,beliefs,queens,princes,princesses ,art,architecture,magic,tales etc of the then Europe and Asia.without going too deep into the book(and thus making this review a spoiler) ,i will try to talk about the book as a whole.

"In the beginning there were three friends,Niccolo 'il Machia',Agostino Vespucci and Antonino Argalia.' And Argalia the turk,takes the descendant of Timur the lame as a left over of war.She and her servant mirror(who is a reflection of her) are brought to Florence after he leaves the land of the Turks behind.Here the Enchantress as she comes to be known,changes the lives of the people of Florence with her magic,until one day the duke is killed.The witch hunter are brought in,but she escapes.Fast forward into the 'present' and "a tall yellow-haired young European traveller calling himself 'Mogor dell'Amore',the Mughal of love,arrives at the court of the Great Mughal,the emperor Akbar"(from the book).he claims himself to be a relative of Akbar and he tells the Shahnshah about his mother.the tale carries itself ,with the jewels,the role of women in guarding tales and the lust of men.

The book has a lot of history to it and links the various events across Europe and Asia.In the last part it also touches upon the "mundus novus"(America).The book is quite rich in description of the various thing in that era.It also 'touches' upon 'fucking'(sorry i tried not to use the word,but then when the author uses it so many times,it has to come in the review somewhere) .If you have the patience to read a book,which frankly could be written in fewer words,then this is a nice read.it didn't get boring though and in a few places I was rolling in laughter because of the absurdity in the way which a few things were described( and the author leads you to believe in them too).this is the first time i picked up a Rushdie and i was surprised by it.All in all,if you have the time give it a read.

Rushdie discussed his experiences in surviving the infamous fatwa decreed by the Iranian government in 1989.  He passed on an opportunity to ban in Great Britain a slanderous but hilariously bad movie that depicted a muslim hit squad targeting him on an island compound, surrounded by a security detail that appeared to be Mossad (in one scene a sword wielding Rushdie stand-in orders a captured hit squad member to be tortured by reading to him The Satanic Verses).  A censorship board asked for Rushdie’s waiver of any rights to sue for libel if permission to distribute the film was granted, and he acceded, fearing that a ban on the campy film would give it an undeserved mystique.  His strategy succeeded - the film bombed, a victim not of censorship but of audiences’ unwillingness to recommend it.

The writer delved into contemporary politics, expressing his acceptance of the implacable hostility between himself and militant muslims such as Hezbollah officer Hassan Narsrallah, who recently lamented that Rushdie had not been assassinated while the fatwa was still in effect.  Rushdie stated plainly that they do not like him and he does not like them.  After the conversation portion of the event audience members asked him his opinions on various topics, most interestingly about Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons.  He declared evenly, “I’m not in favor of it, but I’m not in favor of another goddamn intervention in the Middle East.”  The audience responded for the first time with applause.

Krasny leaped on that statement by observing that Rushdie supported the American invasion of Afghanistan.  Rushdie explained that when a foreign group comes to your country and murders 3,000 people, you should go get them.  Adding to the urgency of the intervention was the advent of the first takeover of a nation by a terrorist group - Al Qaeda essentially purchased control of Afghanistan from the Taliban. Oddly, only a smattering of applause followed this common sense affirmation of the right to self defense.  

Rushdie responded to a subsequent question by chastising Americans for electing Bush the second time; the first time was disagreeable, he felt, but not unthinkable.  Having witnessed the first disastrous seventeen months of the Iraq occupation, the American people lost their wits by electing Bush over Kerry.  A majority of the audience applauded gleefully, as though they had never before heard anyone criticizing President Bush.  I admit that I was ecstatic four years ago when criticism of Bush first surfaced on shows like the Daily Show and Real Time with Bill Maher, where it had previously been limited to less popular sources.  At this point I agree with most of the criticisms of Bush but derive little pleasure in hearing or reading them.  Bashing Bush has become so commonplace it feels like complaining about the weather.  

What irritated me about the excited support of Rushdie’s opposition to attacking Iran and regrets over attacking Iraq was the juxtaposition of that support with the shameful silence his other remarks about the necessity of bombing Afghanistan and the evils of militant Islamism were greeted with.  I am satisfied to sit quietly and listen to a great writer, neither applauding the parts I enjoyed nor booing the parts with which I disagreed, but if one is to applaud certain statements, why refrain from applauding a condemnation of islamism?  Why not applaud America’s retaliation for the attacks on September 11, 2001? The latter can be explained by pacificism, a philosophy I do not accept but can grudgingly respect.  The omission of any applause or cheering following Rushdie’s denunciations of mass murdering fanatics was inexcusable.

Bay Area residents characteristically suffer from a syndrome of strident opposition to almost any action taken by the U.S. government coupled with apathy towards even the most atrocious behavior by foreign powers (except when the foreign powers are U.S. allies or are perceived to be U.S. proxies).  If I may indulge in a bit of pop psychology, this mentality arises from severe low self esteem.  Only people who deeply hate themselves would resent and consistently assume the worst about their own representatives, while apologizing for radicals’ use of murder, torture, and rape.  What makes this perspective truly despicable is the hypocrisy of acquiescing in, if not approving of, atrocities that would be deeply offensive if committed by the U.S.  A fair, educated person will view world events with an understanding that American immorality does not excuse the same immorality in its opponents.