Све до ове књиге нисам знао да су rock & roll историју писали индијци, и то једна млада девојка божанског гласа и прелепи момак који сјајно свира, који су се први пут срели у продавници плоча у Бомбају да би се њихове судбине поново спојиле у Лондону. У дугом низу година колико су наступали свет су погађали снажни земљотреси и камење се котрљало! Опрости ми, Фреди Меркјури, нисам знао! Нисам знао.

A reimagining of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth set in the modern world of rock & roll. There are many cultural references, but often twisted in interesting ways. Famous people appear, but in different roles than readers expect. I found this the most fun aspect of the book--wondering how many of the jokes I actually got.

Ormus Cama is a brilliant musician born in Bombay, India. The love of his life is Vina Apsara, a half-Indian woman who moves to Bombay when she is a young adolescent. The two lovers share enormous musical talent and bizarre families. Their love affair is a strange one, as they spend most of their lives pining for each other and very little time actually together.

The story is narrated by Rai, a childhood friend of Ormus and Vina (later Vina's secret lover).

A challenging read due to the vast number of literary and cultural references/allusions, as well as Rushdie's extensive vocabulary. Profound insights about religion, life, and love make this one worth the effort.

In case you saw the U2 video of the same name, here's the inspiration for the song. This is one of the strangest books by Rushdie that I've read so far (I've read about seven of his books). It has an interesting premise of parallel worlds being bridged but Rushdie doesn't do much with it. It's more a love-triangle story than anything else. One of the main characters has a bread obsession (same as a character in Midnight's Children) -- why, I've no idea.



EDIT: Oh, I found out why. When Rushdie arrived in England from Bombay, he was amazed by the bread in English markets. The impact never quite left him.

I also forgot to mention that Rushdie as himself has a cameo near the book's end. It could be argued that the narrator of this book is Rushdie, but that's definitely Rushdie himself in one of the alternate worlds.

Příběh z (asi) alternativního světa, plný odkazů na západní kulturu - od starověkých mýtů až po rockovou muziku. Čekal jsem něco trochu víc ve stylu Dětí půlnoci, což je pro mě pořád to nejlepší, co jsem od Rushdieho četl, ale až na nějaké okrajové odkazy ty dvě knihy moc společného nemají. Není to až tak "indická" kniha (byť hrdiny jsou Indové), tentokrát se děj odehrává především v Anglii a Americe, nejsme ve slumech, ale v prostředí rockových hvězd a módních fotografů.
Přesto i Zem pod jejíma nohama stojí za přečtení, kdo máte rád Rushdieho magický realismus, nebudete zklamaní.

There was some good stuff in this one, and it was interestingly different from the other Rushdie works I've read, but it was a bit too sprawling for me. Maybe I took too long to read it, far longer than I normally take to read a book, but it just seemed bigger than it needed to be. This time, I didn't have as much patience for that.

A truly magnificent book, which swept me up and took me away. This one, and Shalimar the Clown are, IMHO, novels which belong in the Pantheon of Books.

Greek Odyssey and Rock 'n' Roll - awesome combination and not a real surprising one either. After all, the Greek Gods of the last several decades may be Rock stars. Rushdie blends the myth of Orpheus (an actual rock god) and the story of fictional musicians, that incorporates fictional Madonnas, Jim Morrisons, Hendrix's and others. Rushdie did his hmoework for The Boss is in there and even the Girevious Angel himself. The story takes place in Europe (U.K and India) and The States. This one as a music fan, was a true pleasure to read. Sort of like a Ulysses for pop culture nerds.

When I finished reading this book, instead of feeling that was a complex story very well told, I thought, well that was clever. I mean clever in the way an accomplished wordsmith can play around with words and give something the appearance of masterful erudition. Mr Rushdie over and over – too many times over – falls into using lists to define or emphasise his meaning, even sometimes slipping into a rhyme that would have stirred Dylan Thomas's muse:

“...that rhinestone treasure chest full of the antiquated ditties of an older generation's moonsters, junesters and toupéed croonsters...”

Sometimes the lists can go on, and on, floating away into meaninglessness. This single sentence eulogises an urban Bombay for the narrator:

“I yearned for the city streets, the knife grinders, the water carriers, the Chowpatty pickpockets, the pavement moneylenders, the peremptory soldiers, the whoring dancers, the horse-drawn carriages with their fodder-thieving drivers, the railway hordes, the chess players in the Irani restaurants, the snake-buckled schoolchildren, the beggars, the fishermen, the servants, the wild throng of Crawford Market shoppers, the oiled wrestlers, the moviemakers, the dockers, the book sewers, the urchins, the cripples, the loom operators, the bully boys, the priests, the throat slitters, the frauds.”

Going on like that is fun two or three times but after the fifth or sixth one begins to think, oh not again, surely he can think of a more concise, equally effective way of providing a description.

I loved the playful weaving in and out of times and the jumps between alternative realities. The ground-shaking earthquakes and tremors as a metaphor for life's uncertainties comes across as a little heavy handed. I know the ground my life stands on has always been moving beneath my feet. Sometimes I haven't noticed it, sometimes I have had to ride it as a surfer on a wave, sometimes it has tripped me up and – who knows, there's enough life left in me yet – one day I may be unlucky and it will swallow me whole. Like most people I try not to think about it. That is, unlike Vina Apsara and Ormus Cama, who dedicate themselves to 575 pages of worry and analysis, delving into the history of their triumphs and woes.

On the whole I enjoyed reading the book, though there were times when I wished the wordplay would be toned down. I don't need a writer showing off to impress me. It gets to be as annoying as a young child demanding that you look at what he is doing or admire her latest scribbled portrait of an unrecognisable parent. Salman Rushdie has always been a stylist who doesn't need any of that. His genius is on firm, stable ground and will always be apparent without window dressing the words.

I either love or hate Salman Rushdie. This book comes into the second category.

I'll never finish this book nor Haroun and the Sea of Stories, nor the Satanic Verses. Life is too short to plough through more than the first 50 pages if you haven't got into it by that stage. On the other hand though, I will probably reread Shame and Midnight's Children once in a while, I loved those books.

I started off loving this book but it became one of those that I was pushing through rather than being pulled by the story. Rushdie tried too hard or his style has changed. The book got to be frenetic with the interspersed poetry, song lyrics, and pop culture references forcing me to concentrate on them and not the plot and characters. At over 500 pages it is far too long for this kind of pace.

By the last third I no longer cared what happened to Vina, Rai, or Ormus. I finished it last night out of my preverse code of always finishing a book rather than any interest in how it would end. Very disappointing. Oh, and it may well be that not being a greek mythology scholar inhibited my ability to enjoy the work but that will be the case of 90% of the people who read it.

i will confess that i started "satanic verses" ... key word, started. i read the first 10-15 pages, and realized that i had NO idea what i was reading. so i turned to a nifty cliff note thing on line and realized that what i had read and re-read four times was the protagonists falling through the air after their airplane kabooms ... surprising to me. and thats when i did not read anymore (maybe some other day).

i picked this one up hesitantly. i wanted to read something by rushdie, and a good friend of mine highly recommended this. let's just say, he has yet to fail me :)

this is a brilliantly written story. it's a soap opera ... a tale of lovers' woe ... there is not much surprise or originality in the love story ... in fact i didnt care about any of the characters much ... our diva is a selfish bi-atch who does not deserve the love she gets ... her beau is an idiotic hopeless romantic ... and then there is the other hopeless romantic, who pines for a woman and takes what he can get -- pathetic. there was not one character i liked.

but it is how the story is told that is fantastic. it is the language of the story, rusdie is a magician with words. sometimes i would read the same sentence half a dozen times ... no word was misplaced or misused ... it was perfect. i guess there is something to be said about writing un-likable characters, but still being so brilliant that your readers cannot help but to keep reading.

that said, i did not like the ending of the book ... the resolution, how each character's life is resolved. there is some mysticism in this as well, which i still do not know how i feel about. nonetheless, it is an amazingly written novel. a gem ... a beautiful and poetic novel.

Too dense for me at this time of life. If it wasn't due back at the library I'd probably push through, because it is good. But I just can't right now.