27-oji XX a. Aukso fondo knyga. Dažnai šis kūrinys yra vadinamas alegorija apie Pakistaną. Už kritiką šalies politikams ši knyga Pakistane yra uždrausta. Aš pati negaliu įvardinti šios knygos žanro - parodija?alegorija?magiškassis realizmas? sunki knyga, nes sekti jos siužetą, šokinėjanti per laikus su panašius indiškus vardus turinčiais veikėjais ura nemenkas iššūkis.

i support women’s wrongs

So much to say about this novel... It was my first introduction to Salman Rushdie, and as such, it was hard to get into at first. Rushdie is definitely a unique writer. Once I got used to the style and the wholly unfamiliar characters, setting, and culture ("an unnamed country that is 'not quite Pakistan'"), I began to luxuriate in the narrative and the writing style itself. *Shame* is funny, disturbing, and poignant. About midway through the book, the main conflict became clear and I had come to know the characters well enough that, at that point, the narrative took off like a bullet and I was eager to read it as quickly as I could. The last couple chapters of Part IV, and the chapterless Part V, gripped my attention and kept my heart literally pounding. Such an odd, phantasmagoric, beautifully written ending!

Ultimately, it's hard to recommend this book. I went back and forth on whether to give it four or five stars, but decided it rated five: "it was amazing"! If you're looking for something new, fresh, like nothing you've ever read, yet still expecting to feel the way a good book makes you feel at the end, then "Shame" is perfect for you. But be patient, understand that some things are likely to go over your head; but in the end, the narrator will get you where you need to go and you'll be glad for the ride.

On a personal note: I once visited Pakistan, briefly, and this book changed my already odd perception of that very different country.

Not as impressive as I remembered. I knew it wasn't as good as Midnight's Children or The Satanic Verses; I was surprised to find how grating and frustrating this novel is the second time around. The choice to produce roman à clef about Pakistan seems less inspired than, say, Rushdie's more free use of allegory in Haroun and the Sea of Stories. He's taking aim at particular targets in both stories, but the later book seems more concerned with telling a tale well than scoring points and, as a result, scores more points anyway. The irruption of the novelist himself discussing his novel also seems a failure of imagination for a writer so richly gifted with fanciful turns of phrase and plot. At the level of characterization, the novel also seems less successful than other efforts by Rushdie--many of the lesser characters are difficult to tell apart. In his best novels, Rushdie hangs all the fantasy and magical realism on taut, heartrending stories of family and marriage and love. Again, it just feels as if the attempt to sum up Pakistan or key elements of its history under the ambit of 'Shame' crushes all the personal and family parts of the story that might have more securely anchored the reader's interest. Instead, the dedicated reader is sent packing to wikipedia or histories of partition and after to figure out which character is which Pakistani general or politician. While Rushdie's passion for what is clearly a personal story rings through on every page, the novel ultimately lacks the control and precision and beauty of his best books.

"E' tra la vergogna e la spudoratezza l'asse su cui noi ruotiamo; su entrambi questi poli le condizioni meteorologiche sono le più estreme, le più feroci. Spudoratezza e vergogna: le radici della violenza."

Dopo il successo del suo primo vero grande romanzo, Rushdie tenta di bissare l'operazione, narrando questa volta del Pakistan, di nuovo ricorrendo a elementi del realismo magico. Con risultati decisamente deludenti. Se in I figli della mezzanotte Rushdie è stato capace di costruire un romanzo imponente, corale nonostante il predominio del protagonista assoluto, fondendo in un intreccio indissolubile storia politica dell'India, magia e storia personale, La vergogna è un romanzetto che esplicita la sua tesi, distaccandola da una storia confusa, ben poco allettante, sempre più noiosa e inconcludente.
L'esordio del romanzo è ben promettente e stimolante: una singolare triade femminile, una reggia- prigione, un figlio senza un padre e con tre madri. Ben presto però Omar scompare dalla scena, e con lui il sapore fiabesco, mentre Rushdie concede sempre più spazio alle vicende politico-militari del Pakistan e delle due famiglie più importanti: intrighi, giochi di potere e quant'altro che stritolano il lettore in una annoiata confusione mentre il senso sembra scivolare via inesorabilmente. Quando Omar ricompare sulla scena, lo si trova a fianco di Sufiya, una giovane bellissima ma ritardata, paziente di un Omar adulto e medico. Nella loro strana coppia, elaborazione tutt'altro che fiabesca di una pakistana La Bella & la Bestia, si ritrovano a incarnare gli spiriti contraddittori del Pakistan: vergogna e spudoratezza. E nemmeno questo è certo: perché se all'inizio non v'è dubbio che il sempre più grasso Omar sia la Bestia, ben presto la sola Sufiya si rivela essere volto doppio del Pakistan, Bella e Bestia insieme, posseduta da un male, uno spirito, o chissà cosa, che non è altro che la Vergogna stessa.
Nell'elaborazione della sua tesi della Vergogna, Rushdie è convincente, illuminante e disarmante. Singolare è la scelta, esibita per lo più nella prima parte, di interrompere la narrazione con interventi in prima persona, passaggi didascalici delle sue intenzioni, oppure autobiografici. Ma nella tendenza generale che vede la storia di intrighi prevalere su tutto, mentre il senso si va perdendo e annacquando, anche queste piacevoli e interessanti incursioni si fanno rare, fino a sparire. Ciò che resta è un romanzo, come detto, dalle buone premesse, ma che finisce con l'annoiare a morte il lettore.

3.5 stars.

Enjoyed the book. I picked up this particular title by Rushdie recently to read (out of so many other potentially good ones of his), due to my current interest in understanding the self-destructive nature of Pakistan.

The book has some idiosyncratic characters, intriguing and humorous scenes, good prose, all being the usual trademarks of Rushdie's works, but not as much as in his The Moor's Last Sigh.

My third Rushdie and probably the most entertaining one. But also complex. And confusing (but that could be my current headspace’s fault).

The theme of shame is explored in various ways: most notably, internalized shame, as well as the absence of shame; causing most of these characters to be secluded either physically or psychologically.

Really enjoyed all of the tangents and yarns of storytelling. His imagination!!

This novel may have prepared me for the juggernauts of Midnight’s Children or The Satanic Verses.

Σπονδυλωτό.... παραμυθένιο... αιθέριο... σουρεαλιστικό

Πρωταγωνιστούν ανόητοι τρελοί....Ουισκομανείς, καταλαβαί��ετε....
��άτρεις του ωραίου και του αμαρτωλού, που θέλουν να το τσούζουν κ έτσι είναι έτοιμοι να τα διαλύσουν όλα...

Αλλά δεν κατάφερα να μείνω μαζί τους, με τον τρόπο που θα θελα

Toate stelele din univers, e absolut monumentala. Nu îmi amintesc ultima data când am citit o carte cu atât de multă plăcere.

n  “Between shame and shamelessness lies the axis upon which we turn; meteorological conditions at both these poles are of the most extreme, ferocious type. Shamelessness, shame: the roots of violence.”n

Brilliant. Just brilliant. In this surreal parable, Rushdie makes a compelling case that shame is the perhaps the most important—and overlooked—influence on public and private life. Shame is the “paltry” translation of the Arabic sharam, which protagonist Omar Khayyam Shakil’s three mothers “forbade [him] to feel, but also embarrassment, discomfiture, decency, modesty, shyness, the sense of having an ordained place in the world, and other dialects of emotion for which English has no counterparts.” Shame has its role in each of these.

Reading Shame is like peeling an abstract onion. At its most obvious, Shame is a farcical tale about Pakistani macro-politics from the period of partition from India to the early 1980s. It is buttressed by occasional musings by the “author” about actual political events, linking the story with the real world. A deeper knowledge of Pakistani history certainly would illuminate many details; not having it does not detract from the novel in any way. (For those who want a synopsis of the plot, the New York Times review provides a good overview.)

Rushdie’s characters are trapped by tradition, greed, power, and gossip, which “is like water” and “probes surfaces for their weak places, until it finds the breakthrough point.” His narrative “must reconcile [itself] to the inevitability of the missing bits” but we can fill them in as we read along. A teacher disgraces himself by accepting paternity for a pregnancy he did not cause. A woman jilts her fiancé only to marry a man whose insatiable need to procreate leads to the birth of 27 children in six years. An executed dictator’s voice haunts the ear of his successor as his widow, who obsessively creates embroidered shawls, echoing Madame Defarge, to create a Bayeux Tapestry-like historical record about her family and nation.

It’s not all serious, though. Rushdie sprinkles his tale with raucous, biting humor. In a land dominated by vegetarians, he notes how the most popular cinema films are “non-vegetarian Westerns in which cows got massacred and the good guys feasted on steaks.” When the virgin Ironpants, the beautiful daughter of a dictator, who has no interest in carnal pleasures, accompanies her father to diplomatic receptions, “elderly ambassadors were found clutching their groins and throwing up in a toilet after their groping hands had been answered by a well-aimed knee.” Even when she was sent to an all-girl school, her classmates were mesmerizingly captivated to commit hilarious deeds. As another daughter of a military leader annuls her arranged engagement because she falls in love with another, “all hell broke loose, because love was the last thing anyone had been expecting to foul up the arrangements.”

But Rushdie’s creation of Sufiya Zinobia Hyder—who shames her parents because her birth breaks a family tradition of male progeny, after her older brother, the last male of the line, is strangled by his umbilical cords in the womb, whose mental impairment deepens her family’s shame, whose marriage to Omar Kayyam Shakil only confirms her as “the incarnation of shame” as she transforms into the Beast of shame—ultimately confirms his genius in Shame. Shame is the key to understand not only Pakistan, but indeed, humanity.

As I thought about history, is it not true that shame, perceived or real, is fundamental to understanding all wars and conflicts? For example, didn’t the shame of Versailles plant the seeds for Nazism and WWII? Didn’t the shame of the American presence in the Arab peninsula spark the events of September 11? Wasn’t the shame of the feared Domino Theory the ultimate reason for American involvement in Vietnam? It has been argued that President Obama’s shaming of Donald Trump at a White House Correspondents Dinner fueled his motivation to run for the presidency. And how about the decisions we make in our personal lives, both fundamental and petty? How many times have we been motivated to act because of what others think or what we think others might be thinking about us? And could shame be the source of denial of things we either cannot or refuse to explain? As Rushdie wrote, “It is the will to ignorance, the iron folly with which we excise from consciousness whatever consciousness cannot bear.” Can we bear to give shame its due as it shapes our lives, whether we admit it or not? Or is it a beast that we cannot escape, try as we might?

العار هو ما يَصم كل الشخصيات و الأحداث في هذه الرواية ... رواية مستفزة سواء في أحداثها أو تدخلات الراوي و تعليقاته.
تحكي القصة عن الباكستان و الشخصية الرئيسية فيها هي شخصية هامشية لا دور لها لشدة سلبيتها و انهزامها و تسلقها إنها شخصية عمر الخيام شاكيل المولود من ثلاثة أمهات و شيطان.
تسير الرواية بشيء من التعقيد من المصادفات و من التناص بين الشخصيات و المواقف لكأن كل فعل لا مجال إلا لأن يحصل له رد فعل في الصفحات القادمة و بالتالي يكون محصلة القوى هذه هو الصفر و الرواية كما يُقال تفسر بعضها بعضاً.
يُنصح بها بدون تردد

I absolutely hated the first half of the novel. It seemed to drag on and on, introducing characters that I didn't find interesting in the slightest. However, it is interesting to note that as the book progresses, as the characters become more deranged (and consequently, more fascinating), I began to devour the book instead of checking how close I was to the end of a chapter every few pages.

Rushdie's style is sometimes a bit verbose, especially if you're not paying very close attention. However, he has added humourous little details, but only for the careful reader. With his long paragraphs, I was tempted to simply skip or skim, something that has never occurred to me in a very long time.

But there is much to be said for his use of symbolism, the use of the 'white panther'. I found that the white panther was very similar, although much better explained, to Paul's 'bad-gunky' in 'Lisey's Story'. Also, the book deals much with the politics of the middle east, so it would be much better to gain some knowledge on this subject, to give the book more context.