The Clearing

Reading it on the recommendation of a fan of Rushdie's calling whom a voracious reader would be a vast understatement--a conservative estimate would be to say that the books in her house outweigh all her other possessions by a few factors (perhaps, betraying my experience in reporting research here?). This is the second Rushdie I am reading after Midnight's Children which I read as part of a course almost a decade back curious to see if my opinion would be different reading it outside a classroom so many years after forming my first impression. I am not a big fan of that novel. My main problem with it is the high density of incidents packed into every square inch of every page of the book exacerbated by its, what's got to be, magic-realistic genre. My memories of reading books of the genre can be summarized as ultimately unsuccessful attempts at maintaining my willing suspension of disbelief. The coincidences mount and as the novel progresses the twists seem more and more arbitrary, whimsical, and ultimately nonsensical. In Rushdie's case, as is being confirmed with this novel, I give-in to disbelief somewhat earlier than say a Marquez.

I feel Rushdie would be more successful as a short story writer--I think the next time I read something by him, and if the trend is maintained that should happen sometime in 2017, it'll be one of his short story collections. In fact, even with Moor's Last Sigh I was actually enjoying Rushdie's virtuosity, his humor, his way with words, his depiction of `Hinglish' and the intricate sentences for about the first 30 pages before I experienced my first cringe. His description of the division of a house between the families of two brothers listing out in detail the specific articles that went to each side concluded with a phrase to the effect that the division was so ruthless that even the lizards of the house were divided. For me that phrase did not have its obviously intended effect of being funny. Instead, it felt like a relic from the first draft which should have been removed by the author's own better judgment. It's not my intention to write a review of the novel here. I think people who liked Midnight's Children will probably like this one too and going by my own reaction the converse should also be true. Despite strong hopes I have not become a fan of Rushdie's.