Shalimar the Clown

SHALIMAR THE CLOWN (Salman Rushdie) - Four Stars

Whoever coined the phrase "time heals all wounds" really got it wrong. Time erases all wounds, as people, empires, and ages come and go, but it doesn't heal them. A person who dies of cancer isn't "healed" by it.

Nearly twenty years passed between the writing of Midnight's Children and Shalimar the Clown, and Rushdie's sardonic, grim outlook on the world from twenty years ago has metastasized into a severely bitter, vitriolic mixture of anger and despair. Rushdie always generates several passages of extreme beauty in his novels; here he seems to build them up for the sole purpose of violating and destroying them in the most horrific ways.

Shalimar the Clown is, supposedly, about the title character, his history, and what leads him from being a circus performer in Kashmir to an international assassin. In reality, the title character is never really delved into that much: the book is more about the events of the world around him that shaped him into what he is. The book focuses heavily on the people of Shalimar's hometown, his wife, an American ambassador and the ambassador's illegimate daughter, and through them, through their actions you kind of get the idea of who Shalimar the Clown really is.

In reality, the book is primarily about the rape of Kashmir by Islamic militants and the Indian army (Rushdie has a lot of issues with the Indian government). The magical fantasy of Midnight's Children makes only muted appearances in Shalimar the Clown: this book is far more about brutal reality, about man's inhumanity towards man (both on the personal and political levels).

This book progresses slowly and was tough to read. It's not a book you can pick up and breeze through. There's very little dialogue in the book, and Rushdie too often indulges in a very florid writing style (there were a few points where I felt like I was having a thesaurus thrown at my head instead of reading a novel). Indeed, four stars almost seems a little high for a ranking, but Rushdie is capable of writing passages of such staggering impact they're impossible to forget. In reality, this is a three-star book with a handful of five-star sections. It is angry and bitter and sad. It is a teary-eyed castigation of mankind.

Who lit that fire? Who burned that orchard? Who shot those brothers who laughed their whole lives long? Who killed the sarpanch? Who broke his hands? Who broke his arms? Who broke his ancient neck? Who shackled those men? Who made those men disappear? Who shot those boys? Who shot those girls? Who smashed that house? Who smashed that house? Who smashed that house? Who killed that youth? Who clubbed that grandmother? Who knifed that aunt? Who broke that old man's nose? Who broke that young girl's heart? Who killed that lover? Who shot his fiancée? Who burned the costumes? Who broke the swords? Who burned the library? Who burned the saffron field? Who slaughterd the animals? Who burned the beehives? Who poisoned the paddies? Who killed the children? Who whipped the parents? Who raped that lazy-eyed woman? Who raped that grey-haired lazy-eyed woman as she screamed about snake vengeance? Who raped that woman again? Who raped that woman again? Who raped that woman again? Who raped that dead woman? Who raped that dead woman again?