Took me a while to finish it. Didn't think it would be so disturbing. At least in my case. Also, my rating has no justification behind it; 3 stars just for the 3 what-the-fuck sisters. Rushdie, did you really have to obfuscate the political scene so much? I get that the 13th through 15th century in Hegiran calendar bore some pretty tough scenes, but man oh man...Oh, and to talk humour...I let out quite a number of puffs, but mind that those were the I'm-gonna-burn-in-Hell kind of nasal laughs...I liked the book...I guess...Hope that the Beast won't rip my head off tonight.

Geceyarısı Çocukları’ndan sonra ikinci Salman Rushdie kitabım oldu Utanç. Salman Rushdie’nin fikirlerini ve bunları anlatma biçimini çok seviyorum, hem çok zeki ve hayalgücü çok zengin, hem de kalemi çok güçlü bir yazar olduğunu düşünüyorum. Utanç’ta, Pakistan’daki (her ne kadar isim vermese de) birkaç siyasetçinin yaşantısı üzerinden yine ülkesinin acılarını anlatıyor bize. Önce Hindistan-Pakistan bölünmesi, ardından askeri darbe ve Bagladeş’in kopmasıyla göçmen olmak, toprağından ayrılmak, geçmişini bir valize sığdırmak bir insan için ne demek bunları anlatıyor. Hırsızlıklar, yolsuzluklar, rüşvet, sansürler, adaletsizliklerle dolu siyaset, bunlardan hiç utanç, mahcubiyet duymayan siyasetçiler ve bu hissedilmeyen utancın namus, ahlak adı altında kadınların omuzlarına yüklenmesi, adeta faturanın onlara kesilmesi, Rushdie’nin yine o harikulade metaforları ve masalsı anlatımıyla aktarılmış. Tüm ahlaksızlıkların adeta ‘meşrulaştırıcı cila’ görevi gören katı kuralların arkasına gizlenmesini ve acısının kadınlardan çıkarılmasını atlamaması ve yine çok etkileyici şekilde anlatmasına bayıldım Rushdie’nin. Kitabı okumadan önce biraz Pakistan tarihiyle ilgili bilgi edinmek faydali olacaktır. Salman Rushdie artık külliyatını tamamlamak istesiğim sayılı yazarlardan biri. Geceyarısı Çocukları’nı da Utanç’ı da çok ama çok sevdim, mutlaka tavsiye ederim.

رئالیسم جادویی که بی‌شک یادآور قلم مارکز است: (خودکامه چطور سقوط می‌کند؟ یک ضرب‌المثل قدیمی و بی‌اندازه خوشبینانه می‌گوید که سقوط در ذات خودکامگی نهفته است… البته، من نباید فراموش کنم که دارم یک قصه‌ی خیالی می‌نویسم. پس، دیکتاتور قصه‌ام را هم به‌طریقی افسانه‌ای و به دست اجنه سرنگون می‌کنم. بدون‌شک خرده‌گیران خواهند گفت: به! این‌که زیادی راحت است. درست است. حق با آن‌هاست. اما من بی‌آنکه قصد بگومگو داشته باشم به آن‌ها می‌گویم: اگر راست می‌گویید، خودتان سرنگونش کنید. _ص ۳۱۳ و ۳۱۴_) وقایع و اسامی افراد و شهرها در هاله‌ای از ابهامند اما واضح است که وام‌دارِ نگاهی تمییز بر دگرگونی‌ها، کشمکش‌‌ها و تعصبات دینی رفته و جاری در پاکستان است. مردها باهم در جدالند اما سرنوشت آنها بدون زنان در این قصه پیش نمی‌رود. شخصیت‌هایی که از “شرم” و حتی “بی‌شرمی” رنج می‌برند.

شرم یکی از بهترین کتابهایی هست که در این چند وقت اخیر خوندم. نویسنده در این کتاب به بررسی مفهوم شرم و نقطه مقابل آن یعنی بی شرمی در زندگی عمر خیام، قهرمان حاشیه ای داستان و آدمهای پیرامونش در کشور تازه استقلال یافته پاکستان می پردازد. نویسنده برای گفتن واقعیت ها و حقایق سیاسی و اجتماعی این کشور همیشه بحران زده از افسانه کمک گرفته است. و گاه چقدر ماجراهای این کتاب و سیاستمدارنش و مردمانش شبیه آدمهای کشور من می شوند. و البته باید این رو هم یاداوری کنم که من ترجمه این اثر رو خوندم و مترجم یعنی مهدی سحابی هم بسیار در کارش موفق عمل کرده است..

My favourite Rushdie book, and probably his most under-rated. In the pages of Shame, Rushdie invents a Pakistani town, and fills it with all of the reverence, mythos, and splendour of any of his other literary creations. A unique feature of the novel is the use of three interchangeable women as the mother of the main character. We follow their son Omar through his entire life, and the different ways that shame, and the various forms it can take, defines, expands, and corrupts his character. Shame has the world building of A Hundred Years of Solitude with the poetic justice of Beloved. It loses a star because it doesn't fully live up to its potential; the book has a lot of Rushdie's inflated hyper-realism and tendency to go in all of the directions at once, at the sacrifice of character development.

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If you are reading a book by Salman Rushdie or have come across someone reading one, never ask the question: What is the story all about.
I do not know about others, but I will never be able to answer that.

Rushdie can weave the story along with the history of the two countries such that, at times, the reader has to search if said character was present in the event mentioned.

When did you first experience shame? Did you realize it was the feeling of "Shame" you are experiencing or did someone point you in that direction? Who decides what action gets to bring shame and what does not? These were some questions that ran through my mind while reading the book.

As I leaf through the pages I have annotated in my copy of Shame, I realize I am incapable of writing a review. There is nothing to be reviewed here, only lines to be viewed and internalized. I reiterate something that I have said before, one needs to have a certain level of knowledge about the countries and their political scenarios to get the entire gist of what Rushdie’s books are about.

A book about Pakistan but not really Pakistan.

That near tautology encapsulates the essence of this novel. The argument can easily be made that Rushdie is not even discussing one specific culture or one specific country; shame is indeed a universal human emotion, as the social psychologist Paul Ekman has found. Young children acquire it and adults practice it, as Rushdie's characters do with alarming frequency. The actions engendered through feelings of shame and shamelessness are breathtaking in their scope and impact in this novel.

Rushdie is brilliant in prose, thought, conveying action and feelings, and especially in narrating. The invocations of 'dear reader' can be flattery-laced and seemingly superfluous, but Rushdie speaks to us throughout the book. These authorial interjections were my favorite parts of the story. He discusses on shame, muses on politics and history, and bemoans unfortunate social norms. His insights are fantastic.

It is a complicated book, at once amalgamating feelings of deracination, oppression, and power. It narrates the story of women, immigrants, and power-holders. Power is shared, stolen, and treasured. Lives intertwine with the political, social, and historical fabric of a 'nation.'

Everything is in here. It is time for me to embark on a Rushdie tear.

This book is like middle child in the family which has been underrated and overshadowed by the stardom of its most popular elder sibling Midnight's Children and most controversial younger sibling The Satanic Verses. However, kudos to Mr. Rushdie! As a parent, he did not force this poor soul to follow the footsteps of sure-success of his first famous child. Shame flourished following its own shameful/ shameless (?) destiny and stands out by its own merit!

Rushdie made a beautiful braid of modern fairy-tale with perfectly interlacing strands of - political history, magical realism and the story itself. He wove the past, present and future of a country with pieces of fantasy from Beauty & the Beast and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - their sides interchanging every now & then ~ Beast lurking inside the Beauty and vice versa! And at the same time, his own intervenings from time to time added essential layers and textures to the story he was building - like the inevitable topping, a master touch.

شرم حالتی درونی که انسان را از کارهای زشت باز می دارد.
در واقع مفهوم شرم در زمینه فرهنگی یک جامعه اسلامی می پردازد.یک رمان اجتماعی و زبان واقع گرایی جادویی که برگرفته از تاریخ پاکستان و با استعاره از شخصیت های سیاسی این کشوره.
هر کسی شرم رو یه جوری بروز میده
خجالت
بی خیالی
خشم
غم توی همه اینا تعریف کار زشت از همه مهمتره کاری که توی فرهنگ شرق زشت و قبیحه شاید توی فرهنگ غرب خیلی هم جاافتاده باشه
ولی شرق هنوز درگیر سنت هایی که باعث عذاب وجدان میشه و شرم به دنبال خودش داره
بدترین حالت شرم در خصوص زنان است و حکومت های اسلامی از این استفاده میکنند
مثل دکتر شکیل که با تمام پیشرفتش در طول عمر هرگز شرم حرامزاده بودن ازش پاک نشد

The overcaffeinated narrator of this exasperating novel brought me to the point where the obvious linguistic dexterity, the crazily exuberant frolic in words and wordplay taking place—normally characteristics that earn my instant devotion—made dragging myself through another page a masochistic exercise. Too entertaining and amusing to abandon for the most part, the novel teased me past the point of no escape (200pp or so), and with each manic, madcap précis of the thousand events taking place in every paragraph, the comically cardboarded revue of characters, the knowing and smug narrator, and the bustling density of the ideas on show, and the writer’s flamboyant flaunting of his style, my hands began clenching the page corners as though squeezing my digits round Salman’s neck. Some of the above were admirable qualities, and for the most part I coasted along on the comedic brio and swagger of the thing. In the end, I was slain. For shame.

3.5 stars

"It was once explained to me by one of the world's Greatest Living Poets we mere prose scribblers must turn to poets for wisdom, which is why this book is littered with them."

"The epicure against the puritan is, the book tells us, the true dialectic of history. Forget left-right,capitalism-socialism,black-white. Virtue versus vice, ascetic versus bawd, in the Fifteenth Century ?God against the Devil: that's the game."

I Loved Loved Loved it till infinity. Soon I'll give a re-reading to it again.

I loved the way it had depicted the political vibes of Pakistan during 70's and 80's. I loved Virgin Ironpants and it loose resemblance with Benezir Butto. Iskander Harrapa and Shakil, and darkness blended with Shame of the life. Love, wait, revenge, betrayal, memory, history and the last one, anyone guess ? Shame associated with all ...

"Imagine shame as a liquid, let's say a sweet fizzy tooth-rotting drink, stored in a vending machine. Push the right button and a cup plops down under a pissing stream of the fluid. How to push the button? Nothing to it. Tell a lie, sleep with a white boy, get born the wrong sex. Out flows the bubbling emotion and you drink your fill . . . but how many human beings refuse to follow
these simple instructions! Shameful things are done: lies, loose living, disrespect for one's elders, failure to love one's national flag, incorrect voting at elections, over-eating, extramarital sex, autobiographical novels, cheating at cards, maltreatment of womenfolk, examination failures, smuggling, throwing one's wicket away at the crucial point of a Test Match: and they
are done shamelessly. Then what happens to all that unfelt shame?"


I think Sir Salman Rushdie has Ocean of stories within him and a knack perfectly crafted to dissolve the story in its reader's blood.

This book was as good as 'The Satanic Verses' and 'The midnight's children'. Giving it less than 5 is shame.