Spoilers ahead.

The Barebones Summary: Flapping Eagle, an Axonian Indian pariah, achieves immortality via a liquid given to him by his sister Bird-Dog, who has gotten them from a peddler called Sispy. After living for centuries among humanity, he is at last directed to Calf Island, where other such immortals as himself have founded a community. The whole island is subjected to the Grimus Effect, which is a kind of encroaching madness that can only be staved off by obsessive behavior. Therefore, obsessiveness is the doctrine of the village of K - even if it is, partly, an obsession to deny the Grimus Effect. When Flapping Eagle arrives at the shores of Calf Island, he is found by Dolores O’Toole and Virgil Jones, two recluses who eschewed living in K.

Virgil Jones, throughout Flapping Eagle’s quest to find Bird-Dog and a home, plays the guide. He leads Flapping Eagle through the forest up the mountain to the village of K. On the way they meet an intergalactic being obsessed with order, symmetry and word games, a Gorf, who is first meddling, then simply watching, the happenings on Calf Island. In K, Flapping Eagle, first viewed strangely, soon becomes part of the locale, finding his place within the richer echelons of the town. This momentary “happiness” is only of a brief duration, however, and he soon becomes wanted and has to seek refuge in the town’s sanctuary-like brothel, the House of the Rising Son.

At the heart of Calf Island, the residence of Grimus, lies the Stone Rose, an extraterrestrial tool to link several dimension. It is responsible for the Grimus Effect, and also what keeps this pocket dimension Calf Island alive. Destroying it is the final quest. To this effect, Flapping Eagle and Virgil Jones travel to Liv’s house (Liv being Jones’ ex-wife) where they expect to be the gate to Grimus’ residence. Liv (following her own journey of revenge against Grimus) reads to Flapping Eagle from Virgil’s diary, which describes in detail how they found the Stone Rose and experimented with it.

Ultimately, the path to Grimus is shown to Flapping Eagle by his sister Bird-Dog, who has been Grimus’ devoted disciple all these years -- Grimus being the man Sispy. It turns out that Grimus has orchestrated the entire journey through the power of the rose. He has not only fashioned Calf Mountain, but also found Flapping Eagle and led him to this very point. The purpose of which is to kill him, Grimus, and then take over in his place. To Grimus, self-determination is everything, and so what he wishes for the most is to be able to choose his own death, having orchestrated it in minute detail. The final battle between the two entails a trickery in which their minds meld together. In a final push, after a brief visit to the planet of the Gorfs, Flapping Eagle conceptualizes a paradox with the help of the Stone Rose: a dimension created by the Rose, in which the Rose does not exist. Grimus (Simurg - bird of legend) is shown to be a former prisoner of war, explaining his obsession with self-determination. He is lynched and burnt by a mob from K. Shortly after, the entire dimension collapses and everyone is gone.

General Thoughts: Grimus reads like a fever dream. It has some genuinely funny moments (Virgil and Dolores), and some heart-wrenching ones as well (Dolores O’Toole, Elfrida, etc., come to mind), but on the whole the characters lack much of the depth and strength that is the hallmark of Rushdie’s later work. At times, the premise of the story itself, a fusion of many culture myths with elements of science-fiction, seems to take on hallucinogenic proportions. The Sufi poem about Simurg appears to be the basis on which are grafted many other parts, like an imagined Indian tribe, mentions of Valhalla, etc., creating a chimera that makes for a quick if confusing read.

Does the story reach the heights of other Rushdie yarns? Not quite. Midnight’s Children, The Satanic Verses, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, etc. are all of a much higher quality, which should be readily apparent to anyone familiar with Rushdie’s writing. Beyond the veneer of its slightly convoluted story and language about reality, Grimus reads more like a sandbox style exploration of the writer into his ability. What works? What doesn’t? How to shape characters, etc. Much of the writing shows traits that he heavily builds on and modifies, leading, in later works, to the style we have come to know and love. The subject matter, too, seems to be more about finding himself. Calf Mountain is a bastardized form of Mount Qâf, which has roots in Islam and already shows a link to Rushdie’s high (albeit secular) interest in religion. Once he has refined and coupled this with the issues of reclaiming the country of his birth, of claiming the countries of his current residency, and of depicting the transmigrational consciousness, his works begin to take off.

In any case, just for completeness’ sake, and for the few laugh out loud moments, I did enjoy myself reading Grimus. If there is a critique to be leveled beside the stylistic one, it lies in the matter of the ending. For everything to disappear, to be atomized through this conceptualization of a dimension without that which created it, makes the whole exercise somewhat meaningless. It feels much like one of the stories where, in the end, the character wakes up from a horrible dream. Even the echo of the Weakdance, a neat point and a pithy last line, does not resonate or save the ending.

I could not finish this book. I really like Mr. Rushdie, I'll just pretend this was not one of his...

First off, this book contains rape, incest, murder and suicide, so if you're sensitive to that, don't read this book.
I can appreciate the idea and concept behind the story, but everything about it was just... confusing? Everything made mostly sense in the end, but it's not enjoyable reading a book where you constantly have no idea what is going on. I didn't really root for Flapping Eagle and wasn't interested in the characters at all.
This was my first time reading Salman Rushdie and I've heard his books should be amazing, and since this is just his debut novel, I might give him a second chance, but this was not enjoyable for me.

Profoundly strange but I’m glad I read it.

Though operating in his magical realism paradigm, this one is not one of Rushdie’s best. Parts are very funny, the pretext is interesting, but somehow the whole does not add up. I can’t even say why. It just didn’t hang together for me. Read Grimus over this one.

i'd go 5 if i understood more, but loved it anyway. this man has definitely taken some acid in his lifetime

It took me a long time to get through this one - only for the die-hard Rushdie fans, I think.

actually a horrible book. but even rushdie said that about it! it was his first novel, and really sucked. but it is worth reading because he wrote it - and if you are an aspiring author it should give you hope that you can write a piece of crap and come back to be an amazing and well-respected writer.

yow. incredible journey. the first chapter was my favorite. my favorite moment? when the rocking chair stopped. beautiful & simple. loved reading it as it was rushdie's first foray into fantastic realms. i prefer his other works, but as rushdie's 'beginning,' found the read fascinating. i would say the read was more interesting than the end, but enjoyed it nonetheless. oh, and p.s.? there was a brilliant meta-moment about 2/3 of the way into the book. loved it.

A strange book, hinting at some of Rushdie's later brilliance, but not anywhere near as clever or profound as it seems to think it is.

This quote, from page 141, just as you start to wonder what the point of it all is, pretty much sums up the book:

"I do not care for stories that are so, so tight. Stories should be like life, slightly frayed at the edges, full of loose ends and lives juxtaposed by accident rather than some grand design. Most of life has no meaning - so it must surely be a distortion of life to tell tales in which every single element is meaningful... How terrible to have to see a meaning or a great import in everything around one, everything one does, everything that happens to one!"

Listened to the audiobook and, as is often the case with fiction, I found it very hard to follow the story. May try reading it with my eyes in the future, since I do normally like everything he writes.

What a weird little book. I understand that this was Rushdie's first published novel, and it's hard to imagine the heights he would scale from such bizarre beginnings. It's part myth, part fairy tale, part western, with an distinct biblical feel. I read it not even sure if I was enjoying it or not, just plodding through it to see what Rushdie was doing with these odd ball characters he had created. I'm happy I finished it, always interested to read first novels, particularly ones by writers I enjoy. The ending was underwhelming. Guess you can never judge an oeuvre by a first novel.