by Salman Rushdie, 2015
The story is first of all an
amusing literary recreation of the 1001 Nights in modern times. Here the jinn
are sometimes evil and sometimes benevolent, but mostly uninterested in the
pathetic low-lifes that inhabit Earth. That changes when their vanity drives some
of them to undertake a cataclysmic battle for the attention of humans. Rushdie has
fun with his readers in creating a satire that draws parallels through a wide
range of literary allusions and human foolishness. I particularly liked the mystery
Baby Storm who destroys careers by causing the flesh of the lying and corrupt
to decay hideously.
A more profound theme underlying
the book is the conflict between reason and unreason, or religion as Rushdie
identifies it. Cleverly, Rushie identifies the rational thinkers with the
descendants of the Islamic scientist and philosopher Averroes, or Ibn Rushd in
Arabic. Thus, his descendants are Rushdis and, like Rushdie, targets of repression
by religious fundamentalists who gain their power by convincing their followers
to believe their pronouncements, however irrational. The book is in part an
attack on the Islamic fundamentalists who tried to have Rushdie killed for ridiculing
Islam. In one section, parasitic jinni of the irrational forces occupy human
bodies and turn them into airline attackers and suicide bombers. And while it
seems nightmarish, Rushie makes it a comedy, with his cutting satire and
imaginative storyline. Ibn Rushd and his rival, the mystic Al-Ghazali, for
example, dispute philosophy in life, and then centuries after their death, the
conflict becomes so intense that their dust is driven to resurrect their
debates. So while a philosophical debate underlies the novel, Rushie’s skill as
a storyteller makes it an amusing and moving tale.
He also allows love, perhaps
the most irrational of all human activities, to lead the fight against the
irrational, so he’s not a simple rationalist. And while Rushie shows clearly
which side he wants to win, he ends the novel by saying that in the new world
of peaceful freedom, reason has left God out, but now we don't dream. Life is
good, but we sometimes yearn for nightmares, he says.
It’s also interesting to
identify the varied links that Rushdie drops to world cultures, ranging from
the Muslim cultures to the touchpoints of Western culture, including Greeks,
Candide and contemporary television and movies. These references not only tie
Rushdie’s thinking to world cultures, but they make the novel more than a
fantasy. They show that it is a serious novel relevant to contemporary readers.
Rushdie’s writing style is as
entertaining as his story. Often I stopped either to laugh at an ironic or ridiculous image or to credit an eloquent phrase or social observation. Some
critics have objected that the characters are not fully developed, they are
cartoons, and the storyline is too simple. This is true, but it didn’t reduce
my enjoyment of the novel. It is, after all, a fable, and fables are not written
for complexity. They are written to make a point in a direct way. In this, I
expect that the novel is a parallel to the 1001 Nights – a series of fairly
simple stories that make a point. (But I don’t want to be definitive on that,
as I’ve only read the 1001 Nights in a simple version years ago.)
Rushdie makes his point, and entertains
at the same time. All in all, this is a thoughtful and amusing read, and it
encourages me to watch for more novels by Rushdie.
