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Shalimar the Clown: A Novel
 

Shalimar the Clown: A Novel

by Salman Rushdie


“Dazzling . . . Modern thriller, Ramayan epic, courtroom drama, slapstick comedy, wartime adventure, political satire, village legend–they’re all blended here magnificently.”
–The Washington Post Book World

This is the story of Maximilian Ophuls, America’s counterterrorism chief, one of the makers of the modern world; his Kashmiri Muslim... (read more)

Top tags: fiction,  kashmir,  rushdie,  literature,  india (all tags)

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Amazon Reviews (5)
 

Most Helpful Reviews

Liked It

lil kerry
  • Rated 5 stars

“This is it. This is it. This is it.
magical language. magnificent writer. everything all at once. amazing. read it.”

lil kerry’s full review »
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Didn’t Like It

Himanshu
  • Rated 1 stars

“Ever read a 649 page poem? No? Read Shalimar the Clown then. It really does feel as if you are reading poetry. And before you jump to any positive conclusions, a novel feeling like a poem is not a complement. But apparently magical realism is a part of Salman Rushdie’s brand of writing. Maybe it works for his fans. It didn’t for me.

The story, if I had to encapsulate it in one sentence, is about an American Ambassador to India, Maximilian Ophulus, who comes to Kashmir and has sex...”

Himanshu’s full review »
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Community:
  • Rated 3.725275 stars
Amazon:
  • Rated 4 stars
  

Newest Comments

  • Fu Manchu

    fu manchu said:

    “the clown is the author but no one laughing many people crying”

    posted Saturday, July 5 2008
  • Biongo M

    biongo m said:

    “wonderful...while reading it, your heart will move more than an inch in no particular direction...”

    posted Friday, July 4 2008
  • Christina F

    christina f said:

    “Beautiful post! I think I'm going to choose this book when it comes to my choice for our book club. I picked it up on a whim from Borders, and was mesmerized by its lyricism. I think it's a jewel of a find.”

    posted Monday, June 2 2008
  • Teduardo

    teduardo said:

    “A particularly beautiful passage (p. 358):

    "You have come into our story at the end," he told her. "If my dear father were still with us he could answer all your questions. But maybe the truth is that, as he used to say, our human tragedy is that we are unable to comprehend our experience, it slips through our fingers, we can't hold on to it, and the more time passes, the harder it gets. Maybe too much time has passed for you and you will have to accept, I'm sorry to say it, that there are things about your experience you will never understand. My father said that the natural world gave us explanations to compensate for the meanings we could not grasp. The slant of the cold sunlight on a winter pine, the music of water, an oar cutting the lake and the flight of birds, the mountains' nobility, the silence of the silence. We are given life but must accept that it is unattainable and rejoice in what can be held in the eye, the memory, the mind. Such was his credo. I myself have spent my life in business pursuits, dirtying my hands with money, and only now that he is gone can I sit in his garden and listen to him talk. Only now that he has sadly departed but you have gladly come."”

    posted Sunday, May 25 2008
  • Roopa M

    roopa m said:

    “there is magic in his writing, and not all of it is good magic too. There is a suspension of disbelief -- Coleridge should share his theory with him. Rushdie, more than anybody else can make the impossible possible, fantasy into reality.”

    posted Sunday, November 18 2007
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