Why Rushdie, why do you do this! Why do you play with the reader's emotions so much. You think you can make the reader have absolutely disparate feelings - from disgust to elation- all at the same time, just when the reader was least expecting it! Well, fine! You got it! Here you go, take your award and leave! Just leave! Just leave now as I have to pick up another Rushdie novel to go through the same journey again. You won!

هل هذه الرواية هي أفضل ما كتبه سلمان رشدي؟.. لا أدري ولكنها مزيج ساحر وباهر جدا من الواقعية السحرية (سلمان رشدي هو أحد أساتذة هذا الفن مع ماركيز وغونتر غراس وميخائيل بولغاكوف) والملاحم العائلية اللذيذة والميلودرامية وتمتزج مع أسلوب سلمان رشدي الفكاهي والمضحك في تناول تفاصيل التاريخ الهندي من بعد الاستقلال عن بريطانيا. أظن أن هناك ترجمة عربية صدرت حديثا، أتمنى أن تكون أمينة لجمال وذكاء النص الأصلي.

أنصح بها.

Des Mauren letzter Seufzer ist eine fast 90 Jahre umfassende Familiengeschichte, die gleichzeitig auch eine Geschichte des modernen Indiens ist. Erzählt wird sie von Moraes Zogoiby, genannt Moor, dem jüngsten und letzten Sprössling dieser Familie. Beginnend bei seinen Urgroßeltern um die Jahrhundertwende bis zum Beginn der Neunzigerjahre des 20. Jahrhunderts berichtet er von den Geschehnissen, die seine Familie und sein Land prägen. Der Moor lässt sich dabei neben Benjamin Button und Dorian Gray einreihen: Während diese beiden rückwärts bzw. gar nicht altern, so altert der Moor doppelt so schnell wie normale Menschen. Geboren in den Fünfzigerjahren hat er am Ende des Romans bereits ein Greisenalter erreicht. Und sein Leben ist nicht gerade ereignisarm.

Des Mauren letzter Seufzer war nach Mitternachtskinder und Harun und das Meer der Geschichten (beides extrem gute Bücher) mein dritter Roman von Salman Rushdie. Ich war daher mit seiner sehr ausschweifenden Erzählweise bereits vertraut. Mir war auch von Beginn an, nicht zuletzt durch die Sprache, klar, dass das Buch etwas besonderes ist. Dennoch tat ich mir am Anfang schwer damit und brauchte wirklich lange um in die Erzählung hineinzukommen. Im mittleren Teil flog ich dann nur so durch die Seiten. Dann kam jedoch der sehr langatmige letzte Teil und erst gegen ganz zum Schluss nahm die Erzählung wieder an Fahrt auf. 100-150 Seiten weniger hätten nichts geschadet.
Bei allen Ausschweifungen und Längen kamen mir aber gleichzeitig auch einige Dinge zu kurz: das betrifft zum Teil die indische Geschichte (viele Entwicklungen hätte ich ohne Wissen aus anderen Büchern vermutlich nicht verstanden), zum anderen den Tod der einzelnen Familienmitglieder. Diese waren oft so plötzlich verschwunden, dass ich noch einmal zurückblättern musste, ob ich nicht etwas überlesen hatte.
Insgesamt überzeugte mich das Buch dennoch, insbesondere sprachlich: das war teilweise schon große Kunst.

عبقرية ، الكلمة التي رافقتي طوال المدة التي كنت اقرأ فيها هذا الكتابز .
رواية عبقرية ، اسلوب يأخذك من اللنهاية الى البداية الي المنتصف ثم الى النهاية مرة اخرى دون ان تنسى الاحداث لتدرك بعدها تسلسل الاحداث الطبيعي دون الحاجة الى تسلسل خطي.
البحث التاريخي خلف الكتاب عظيم، ابحث عن اي نقطة في الكتاب وسوف تجد الحادثة التاريخية، لا تدري ان كانت الاحداث حقيقية ام من خيال الكاتب .
فعلا رائعة !!
تستحق القراءة

I could go into a lot of detail about the formalistic aspects of the novel which Rushdie does remarkably well: the 'Indian' English, the sprawling cartography, the multiple threads weaved together-yet what I find drawn to is the (rather clichéd) problem of history. Similar to Rushdie's other 'big' novel, this one is also an exercise in telling the history of a newly independent nation. This is where my (slight) discomfort in reading the novel is at-it seemed overwrought. I don't want to return to the (again clichéd) question of fiction and history; Rushdie's novel (for me) falls short of both the categories. Nonetheless, for the formalistic characteristics, this is worth slogging through if you feel up to it.

O beție de povești este istoria familiei Da Gama-Zogoiby și nici că putea să îmi placă mai mult această Matrioșka doldora de povestiri mici și mari.

Pont pentru cititorii conștiincioși: cărțile lui Rushdie e bine să fie parcurse în ordinea apariției deoarece reapar personaje și aluzii la povești din romanele anterioare.

This book was my introduction to Salman Rushdie's writing. I'm sad that it didn't fully captivate me.

This is a catastrophe!

I didn't add a review when I finished reading The Moor's Last Sigh, thus depriving myself of the only relatively secure method of remembering a Salman Rushdie novel in detail. Well, maybe not detail, but at least in broad strokes.

As it is now, my empty brain will have to reread instead of just quickly checking what I hoped would be a gushing review matching the stars.

The Reader's Last Sigh! To be reread, a quixotic quest for lost memory of reading pleasure past.

Mislim da je kraj malo zbrzan, sto je totalno nevazno, samo mi je malo umanjilo uzivanje. Ovo epsko putovanje kroz meni totalno nepoznatu kulturu itekako zasluzuje max. ocenu.
Jedva cekam da se ponovo druzim sa Rusdijem!

Review part 1 - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

So don’t let Rushdie fool you into thinking that “it is Moor/Zogoiby’s story and heck!, they’re somewhat flat, or Rushdie makes an allegory and fails on both counts – both the upperstory and understory are not
well-developed – happens when you want to ride two horses at once.” But, oh, dear, it is one horse, not two.

*sigh* this review just doesn’t end. But Rushdie is a crazy fellow, maker of an atom bomb – large scale destruction squeezed into a bomb the size of a fist. But I should end now, though I have a lot more to babble-o-fy about, I know…

What all did I like in this Rushdie, let me sum up fast – the blasphemy, the profanity, the creativity, the chutneyfication of language, the masterly interweaving of fact and fiction, the literary references generously peppered all over the hot, spicy dish, the scathing political references that only a bold, fearless, audacious and blasphemous person can dare to make. (Dear Indian, do you have the guts to call Hindustan Dumpistan?)

I’m quite surprised, (not really, when the readers do not have EXTENSIVE knowledge of India) that the book is rated badly or averagely. Let me tell you, even if it sounds pompous. I’ve read this book the 10th time today in 5 years. I read it for the first time just after I read To Kill A Mockingbird for the first time. (How vastly different the tone, the manners, of the two books!) Then in two years, I read it 8 more times, until I got used to it. I’ve picked it up again after a gap of three years and am actually amazed by the fact that I’ve got a lot more out of this reading than any of those before. Simply because I am far better-armed with Indian History now than I was three years back. My recent obsession with Indian history, mythology and politics paid off today in very unexpected ways.


And yet, I still know I have failed to understand some points he made, and will need to read more history still. And much more of global popular and literary culture as well. I mean, I was introduced to
the legendary Johnny Cash and his civil war songs only two years back – how could I have discerned the reference 4-5 years ago when Rushdie brings in a new character, a businessman-cum-charming musician/guitarist singing country songs about trains, named Jimmy Cash (Cashondeliveri)?


So I still don’t know who Kekoo Mody is in real life, or Justice Kachrawala is (the Bofors scandal judge, I think) This little book, didn’t I say, is a dynamite filled to the brim with everything Rushdie could squeeze in…?


If A Fine Balance, a book I love immensely, is one of the finest pictures of the contradictions of modern India, A Moor’s Last Sigh too shares the pedestal. While AFB is stoic, serious and
mournful, MLS is loud-mouthed, comic and mocking. AFB is the incarnation of naked, unadulterated pain, but MLS is the incarnation of pain masquerading as comic, insincere blasphemy – the only way left
to tell honestly one’s sordid saga without making someone flinch. AFB is the ultimate Indian tragedy. MLS is the ultimate Indian tragi-comedy. Take away from it what you will.


(The review has ended. Don’t roll-o-fy your biggie eyes at me, you chose to read it, Sir-or-Madam, I didn’t force-o-fy your decision. I’m not the impotent Jaw-Jaw all-bark-no-bite-bitch, I bite-o-fy real hard, and I won’t bite so fast, and like little 13-year old Aurora who bide-o-fied her time to kill her grandma Epifania, I will bide-o my time too, to bite-o you. I’m no sweet Mother India).

I think perhaps Rushdie is above my head. I think perhaps this book is worthy of five stars but I simply didn't see it. I think my review is that of one reader who didn't follow his magical tale well enough. But, I am one reader and I can only review a book for what I actually took from the book, and for me this book didn't allow me to connect. I was impressed with the quality of the writing which was absolutely sublime, but I never really cared about the characters. I found myself flipping forward to try to find the next chapter break because I really just wanted it to end. For me it is between 2 and 3 stars with a round up for the attentive writing.

Kodėl sagos apie šeimas tokios patrauklios? Ar ne todėl, kad primena giminės paslaptis, genijus, nevykėlius ir piktadarius, kurių turi kiekviena šeima, taip pat ir maniškė? "Prisikasti iki šaknų - visų tų šeimos kivirčų, belaikių mirčių, sužlugdytų meilių, beprotiškų aistrų, silpnų krūtinių, galios ir pinigų, ir doroviškai net labiau abejotinų meno vilionių bei slėpinių"... Rushdie ieško šaknų. Pasaulio perėjūno, atstumtojo, "nenormalaus", asmenybės, ribojamos valdingos šeimos ir istorijos, šaknų; Indijos tapatybės.
Rushdie kartais, regis, daugžodžiauja, mėgaujasi purvu, glitumu, žodžiais dėl žodžių, o ne dėl prasmės. Bet jo, kaip homeriško, archajiško pasakotojo, "pasakų sekėjo", talentas nepaneigiamas. Rushdie pasaulis margas, ironiškas, magiškas. Tai indiško gyvenimo painiava, tikra "masala", perleista per žodžių filtrą, perdirbta į europiečio akiai priimtiną pavidalą - daugiasluoksnis pyragas iš legendų, meno, temperamento, politikos, religijos... Į jį patenki pamažu, o įsitraukęs nė nepastebi, kada kalbėsenoje pradeda figūruoti tokios frazės kaip "pribaigsioti", "peliukovas po šluotova" ir "palūkėsiu-o".
Netikri leninai; sūnus, parduotas tikrai pasakų raganai; tėvas, reguliariai besivaidenantis sinagogos plytelių raštuose; kontrabandiniai smaragdai ir karūna; Aurora prie tuščio Vasko da Gamos kapo; varliafonas; buldogo iškamša, stumdoma ant ratukų; pamišėlė mylimoji; Benenchelio mistika... Lectura - locura!
"Nusidirti odą ir atskleisti savo slaptąją tapatybę - tai yra visų žmonių tapatybės paslaptį." Mauras dūsauja ir odą diria tiesiog pasigerėtinai.
O, be to -
"Nugalėta meilė tebėra lobis."