All the time while I was reading this, I was specially reminded of the 'Kashmir Hour' broadcasted on PTV during the late 90s when the photos of mutilated bodies and wailing mothers used to repeatedly flash on the screen that made an 8 year old me cringe and get chilled to the bones. The fight for freedom was rich and loud while we dined and the TV blasted off songs of Humera Channa calling out to the world's justice. We had no other option to switch a different channel. We had to realise that the war of freedom is hollering worse than ever until it got muffled over the years on our ears.

So this book is about Kashmir. Rushdie wanted to spit venom and did a tremendous job of it. Though the story rocked me out of my blazers, the long winded lament of Kashmir was a tad bit overdone. Rushdie wanted to come out ugly. He succeeded.

Such violence. Much drama.

The book starts in an intense manner when India (Kashmira), a smart woman of 30, harbours sexual thoughts for her father's chauffer, a lean handsome Kashmiri man inducted specially for her father's services. Later when her father, America's counter terrorism chief, Max Ophulus (whose name is so wildly sensual) gets assassinated, the assassin turns out to be none other than the handsome chauffer himself who happens to be the husband of India's mother. So there, now that you have a great Bollywood twist there, let's move on to the more pressing matter at hand, Rushdie's political concerns, which are not hard to discern through the text.

Rife with anti-Pakistan sentiments, Rushdie moves on to create a really ugly picture at the Line of Control, which is though somewhat true, stands out relentlessly as a biased stance of a one man's propaganda. Other than that the book was an epitome of smart writing and rich cultural history. The realism, the dark magic, the Kashmiri food, the villages, the smell of the valley, the richness of the dialect screamed through the pages and while you can shrug off Rushdie's biasness of Kashmiri's fate, you cannot help but laud him for the powerful piece of writing.

I know the guy had gone through a lot of hate in the past, some deserved and some undeserved, but this book stands a chance to be read and analysed, along with other literature on Kashmir. And so while I cannot say it is one of the best books on Kashmir, it exists and it makes sure to leaves off a mark that is hard to rub off.

Technically, 4,5 because of all the misogynistic views and violence against women + the religious oppresion... Nothing spoils a great book like those things.
That aside, you get the brilliant story telling of Rushdie and i cannot possibly say more without spoiling it.

I happily rediscovered Salman Rushdie and his magical realism.
In an unclassifiable story, the talented author combines legends, ancient fables, and love stories in a language full of modernity. The Kashmir war in the background allows him to express his opinions on the world situation in the 1960s.
It is a brilliant dissection of a globalized world on the verge of political, moral, and religious turmoil. The whole thing dredges with black humor, always provocative, profound, and narratively daring.
This dense choral novel is composed with intelligence. Even if it tells a story of tragic love and revenge, it wants to be poetic, willingly surreal, and rely on the disenchantment of a vanished world.
Salman Rushdie's writing is one of those spells of absolute humanity, pushing back naivety and constantly broadening our vision.

Salman Rushdie’s post-modernist Shalimar the Clown is a testament to his prowess as a writer. His prose is undeniably beautiful, and his character work shines, especially in the way he crafts and writes complex and interesting women. Rushdie’s skill in weaving intricate narratives and breathing life into his characters is something I deeply appreciate.

However, despite these strengths, the novel felt pretty disjointed. Shalimar the Clown straddles two worlds: a murder thriller and a commentary on the political conflict in Kashmir. It seemed like Rushdie was eager to write about the Kashmir conflict, but perhaps felt that a book solely focused on this topic might not be well-received by a wider audience. As a result, the murder thriller plot about the protagonist's father's death feels like a transparent vehicle to deliver his intended message. It reads almost as if The Hunger Games were about a murder set in Panem, with the Games themselves relegated to the background (forgive the post-apocalyptic fiction comparison, but another historical fiction novel like Shalimar doesn't come to mind).

Rushdie’s portrayal of the Kashmir conflict is powerful. He masterfully illustrates it as an ongoing, daily struggle for those living in the valley, presenting it from the bottom-up rather than the top-down. His use of "worlding" strategies, connecting the conflict with events like the Jewish genocide of World War II and the Rodney King race riots in Los Angeles, is effective for contextualizing human struggle in a decade marked by civil rights and revolutions.

However, the overarching organization as a thriller narrative dilutes the book's attempts to serve as a critical documentation of the Kashmir conflict. The thriller aspect compromises the depth and focus the story could have achieved if it had solely centered on the conflict. While the novel has its moments of brilliance, the disjointed structure ultimately makes it less compelling than it could have been.

Undisputedly, Salman Rushdie is a smart, clever and deep thinking writer. An eloquent linguistic acrobat whose voice shines through with every character, every description, every metaphor in his rich dense magical-realist, political allegories. He IS that verbose, stellar and sometimes obnoxious party guest who never shuts up; who entertains without pause, lights up the room, until you realize there is no oxygen left in it. His books are wonderful treats, but for myself, I can only take them in smaller doses, say one book per year.

'Shalimar The Clown' proves no exception. This is a beautiful, heart-rending story and richly told spanning four continents about a beautiful smart capable young woman in Los Angeles searching for her identity through her origins; her wealthy, influential, world-shaping Ambassador father, his murder, his past in WW2, escaping Nazi overrun Strasbourg and working with the French Resistance; her deceased mother, Boonyi's idyllic Kashmiri village - paradise on Earth; the rape, murder and annihilation of that village: and her mother's husband, Shalimar the Clown's descent from a loving open young tight-rope performer and clown into a stone-cold assassin and terrorist in Kashmir, Afghanistan, the Philippines and and at last, full circle to the story, back in Los Angeles during the riots of the '90's. There are many summations of the book's plot here on GR, so I am reluctant to belabor that with any more.

The characters personify the strifes, pains and beauties of the places and times they are from. The places and times exemplify and inform the character traits of the characters. The painful history of one region echo's that of another, and then another. Ancient myths and legends play out on stages and in modernized parlance of our characters. The book as a whole is a tightly interwoven tapestry or symphony, ideas and images doubling and trebling back on themselves; spiraling to resonate and reinforce. Oh, and every now and then the magic kicks in; a snake curse sneaks up and bites with real snakes.

The language is a joy to read. The plot, pacing and characters of the underground French Resistance is heroic, paranoid and enthralling. The descriptions of simple village life in pre-war-torn Kashmir will made me want to go there and live there forever. The descriptions of war and atrocities will made me weep that I can't go there. It doesn't exist anymore. The descriptions of Los Angeles made homesick for that City of Angels, even in it's dark days of racial strife and rioting. Following the path, both inner and outer, of Shalimar the Clown made me finally begin to understand how and why it can be so easy, so inevitable to turn young men into terrorists, suicide bombers, assassins. I have to admit, I was not wholly on board with the ending. Rushdie has a very optimistic outlook and in India, the smart capable young woman of riot torn and healing Los Angeles has melded past and present, myth and reality, strong and soft into a perfect hope for the globalized future. I appreciate his optimism, in embracing Rodney King's "Can't we all just get along?" I would like to think so too, but, sadly, I'm not convinced. (For a story, it was a great ending though!)

So, when you find yourself invited to that cocktail party and hear Salman Rushdie start spinning his web of stories: accept. Go, listen and enjoy. The man knows how to tell a tale. His voice is a fascinating one. Yes, I know, it gets to be too much after awhile. Take a break, go outside; but do come back in again, his tales are worth it.

Rushdie knows how to transform words into music. Not necessarily a comfortable or relaxing book, but definitely worth reading

I am going to call it the Rushdie effect:
So far with every book by this author at first thought I would not like it.
This resulted in me starting every book about 3 times and in the end loving it so much, to start reading at the beginning once again ...
So far this is my favourite. It is not a nice story, but a very rich one with more facets than I could have imagined.
Definitely one of my favourite authors.

“STC” is an interesting novel that I would describe as one that has takes a lot of unusual and detailed turns. It starts off with the assassination of a US diplomat that laters centers on the life of his murderer/ex-chauffeur when his “so-so” happy life with his life Boonyi is destroyed when he learns of her having an affair. Later, it’s form into an intense story of revenge, payback and tragedy.

I liked the novel’s storyline as it does have its harsh and tragic moments, but I felt that it was kinda overwritten with too much uninteresting details that drag it. No tears from this broken clown, only revenge. B+ (83%/Very Good)

Holy shit

there's enthralling rushdie (midnight's children), and maddening rushdie (the ground beneath her feet) - this one was somewhere in between. i got a bit tired of the mythology to be honest, but that sort of single-mindedness was a kind of magic.

2,5 zvaigznes. Indiskais un Rušdi stils nav man, lai gan stāsts interesants.

The book explores the fall of Kashmir from a haven of tolerance and peace to a hotbed of extremism and fundamentalism through the smaller story of two people who grow up there, fall in love, and then are torn apart by circumstances that result in murder, bloodshed, and tragedy.

Spell binding ! Riveting ! Perhaps Salman Rushdie's best work. Definitely on my re read list. I guess I love stories set within wider geo-political contexts.