Closed the back cover of two books this week - well, one was on Kindle, so it was just a matter of selecting "Menu." They had taken an inordinately long time to finish for very different reasons.
, by Salmon Rushdie, won the Booker prize for literature in 1981. Rushdie is more infamously known for , the publication of which earned him a fatwa from the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1988 ordering his assassination.
I haven't read The Satanic Verses. My only other venture into Rushdie was which I found delightful. There were qualities in it that reminded me of Umberto Eco, another writer I have come to love.
Midnight's Children was harder for me to access. I gave it three stars on Facebook, and the following review:
The three stars do not indicate any lack of ability on Rushdie's part, only my lack of connection. I can read an Eco novel and laugh myself silly because I have enough knowledge of his references to get most of the metaphors. I suggest this website that promises to unravel Midnight's Children for westerners who don't have a background of Indian history and mythology
, the third of Anthony Trollope's Palliser novels, is something else altogether. It wasn't hard to finish because it was a difficult read. It's just so damned long. And I'm not certain I can highly recommend it unless, like me, you are determined to read the Palliser novels from end to end. One thing I will say for the Kindle edition: it's free. As are all of the Palliser novels I have read so far. The Eustace Diamonds has tantalizing glimpses of Planty Pall and Lady Glencora, and one worries that one won't have the delightful Duke of Omnium with us much longer, but the main characters are people we neither enjoy nor applaud. I think dear little Lucy Morris was given short shrift, and the novel could have used her to much greater advantage.