Reflections: The Enchantress of Florence

A man with cascading yellow-colored hair, donning a multicolored leather coat, strides confidently into the lavish court of the great Mughal emperor, Akbar. He calls himself by many ambiguous names, charms the emperor with his wit, his pleasing scent, and his mysteriously magical stories. At a time when the Emperor is longing for company, and for intellectual discussions on religion and life, the questions of which were stirring his soul, the yellow-haired man makes himself the Emperor’s listening board and confidante. He soon earns the name, “Mughal of Love”. Yet, Akbar’s mind is not at peace, for this strange man was slowly unwrapping a story about his grand-aunt, Babur’s bewitchingly beautiful sister, the supposedly banished princess, the enchantress, Qara-Koz. The implications of the story were profound - it meant that the strange man in multicolored clothes, bearing an Italian name, could be a half-Mughal. The weight rested on Akbar to cull the truth from the story.

The book is no doubt, alluring. It crafts an incredibly imaginative story, combining fact with fiction in a way nobody would have previously considered. The woman who was cast away from the Mughal lineage finds her way to Florence, Italy, after passing hands from the Shah of Persia, who had earlier captured her and her sister as conquests of war. This enchantress, Qara Koz, lights a flame within the hearts and minds of the people of the Mughal land. Merely through a story, whose truth nobody could ascertain, the persona of the enchantress creeps into people’s lives, making them curious, cautious, anxious, jealous, suspicious, and venomous. A mere wisp of a thought floating from a story, had the power to corrupt and fascinate. The Emperor is however, obsessed. He passionately adores his grand-aunt, completes missing gaps in her life and personality, and gives life to the figment of his imagination. To him, she soon started to exist in life, much like his other imaginary, but most beloved wife, Jodha.

This, in essence, is the main take-away from the book. Akbar’s imagination, and the will of his thoughts were so strong and vivid, that he could give life to a fragment of his thoughts. Reality blurred with illusion, the boundaries bled into each other and reversed roles. That which is real, fades away in the background, while the illusion, comes alive. It might seem silly and hallucinogenic, but that’s how most of us live our lives. We selectively snatch aspects of reality and ignore several others. We form a cohesive story out of the little bits of reality we piece together, extend and complete the missing pieces with a favorable, imaginative bent. Once the will of our imagination solidifies, we become blind to reality itself. This is how half-baked, rigid opinions are formed, and then stagnate, impervious to any form of rational intrusion. This is also how  most of our likes and dislikes of people are born.

Surely interesting. However, as an anticlimax, Rushdie’s words were not as layered or deep, and I didn’t  have to wait till the end of the book to glean this. The symbolism or message, so to speak, was obvious from the first few chapters of the book. I relished these initial chapters, and even thought so far as to consider this as one of the best books I would read. But, a huge but at that, I was disappointed. The story meandered far too much. It was convoluted and bizarre, but didn’t convey much, or so I think. There was plenty of potential in the initial part of the book - wonderful questions on God, Religion, reality and the Human Ego, that Akbar muses on. But sparing a few wise sentences, none of the questions were developed or integrated into the story.

The book also hints at the need for tolerance between cultures. The story highlights Akbar’s tolerance and openness (specifically, between the East and the West). Akbar viewed the integration of new ways of thinking and living to be paramount for the development of the human race. Rushdie fabulously portrays Akbar’s progressive attitude. His personality was sketched well, and the Mughal Empire was tantalizingly described and brought to life.

I never thought I would say this, but Rushdie’s prose was a delight to read. I finally understand why he is extolled for his word-plays. His sentences are simple, yet complex, sparse, yet lush. Although I lost interest in the story, I latched onto the book to read the prose. Of course, I also harbored some measure of curiosity to learn how the story ended, if at all Rushdie had a surprise waiting there. But there was none, or so I think. I can never be sure after reading Rushdie’s books.

Digested Thoughts: It is worth reading the first 100 pages of the book - for the clever writing, and the threads of wisdom and wit. Beyond that, I found the story stretched out and without much meaning. Qara-Koz’s tale was enigmatic, and incestuous. I don’t understand the need for, and the import of the latter part. So, in comparison to Rushdie’s other works, I would rate this book as surely not as interesting or deep. If you’ve read this book, please share your thoughts and educate me on the other aspects I’ve missed. 

 

Reflections: Luka and The Fire of Life

Since I loved reading Haroun and the Sea of Stories, I began reading its sequel, which is also Rushdie’s latest book, Luka and the Fire of Life. This book is a sequel in that it has the same core characters and settings, but is not an extension of the story of Haroun’s adventure. Luka is Haroun’s younger brother and is the apple of his parents' eyes (especially his father’s), as his birth seemed to have stilled the notion of Time for the aged couple. Luka yearns to go on a magical adventure similar to Haroun’s and eagerly awaits such an opportunity. Little did he realize that he had to be careful of what he wished for. When his dad, the famed story-teller Rashid, falls ill, the onus of reviving him falls on Luka’s shoulders. Luka desperately races into the World of Magic to steal the Fire of Life for his father.

This is again a fun, fantastical adventure on the surface. Salman Rushdie creatively incorporates the notion of virtual reality in this adventure, as Luka’s quest for the Fire of Life is represented as a game he has to play in the World of Magic. In this age, most of us have gone through several vicarious experiences of traveling in magical/dangerous lands, taking the avatar of heroic princes, intrepid warriors and ruthless soldiers and battling our way to win the precious gem, treasure or the beautiful princess! The real-to-life experiences are sometimes so vivid, it becomes hard to separate our real identity from that of the virtual avatar. I got the sense that Rushdie was hinting at the possibilities of Life if we started focusing on the virtual platform as being more real than our “real” lives. If so, we would start viewing most things in our “real” life in terms of virtual-symbols and elements of fantasy, thus causing our perception of reality to be colored by magical/fantastical hues. Luka’s adventure to save his father seems to be a combination of Luka’s and his fathers’ vivid imagination, since the boy is an avid gamer, and the dad is a brilliant story-teller.

However, the core theme of this story is not as straightforward as I found its prequels’ to be. Perhaps there is no new theme other than the importance of story-telling and imagination (just as its prequels’), and this is meant primarily for young adults (as some reviews seem to say). But I find it hard to agree...if it’s magical realism, I am bent on finding the abstractions to “realism”. If anything, this book has a lot more convoluted and deep references to reality than the previous book. And I don’t think they are mere word plays on Rushdie’s part.

My hypothesis is that the Fire of Life is the symbol for the ephemeral spark within us that defines our unique Life. A certain crackle of spark and fire within us fuels our drive to live, and keeps us alive. When Rashid’s fire (and life) was receding, his son tries to bring back that fire. But where is that fire located? Is it in the depths of our mind? Or locked at the bottom of our heart? Perhaps we can learn about this fire only during that defining moment in the past when we came to life? If so, can we travel back the River of Time to get to that moment? Our memories get us only so far into the past... beyond that we get stuck in oblivion. How do we cross that chasm? Luka seems to travel into that point of Infinity beyond the realms of memory, to fetch the Fire of Life. And this entire journey happens within Rashid’s mind (at least that’s what made the most sense to me). Rashid’s mind wills him to fight through his illness by imagining a magical adventure that takes place in a world he created in his mind. The adventure makes him focus on the aspect that matters most to him, and that energizes his will to survive. To Rashid, the Fire of his Life is Luka himself - the apple of his eyes, who seemed to have coagulated Time for him. It can also be argued that in addition to Luka, Rashid's unparalleled talent to tell stories is what keeps his Fire burning.

Salman Rushdie hence applies Einstein’s notion of Time, as a dimension that is relative. If we choose to not let Time hang on us and learn to live in the moment, notions of past and future don’t constrict us anymore. At the end of the day, all our life’s battles are against Time, aren’t they? All of Rushdie’s word plays are quite a treat as he explores the various phenomenon of our mind - the source of knowledge, wisdom, creativity, imagination, dreams, memory, identity and ego. I am not sure if I’m viewing everything as related to the mind and the psyche, but the last two books of Rushdie’s definitely seem to explore the depths of the human psyche. Again, I may have read too very much between the lines, as always.

Digested Thoughts: Although I’m giving this book the same rating as Haroun and The Sea of Stories (due to the obvious limitation of employing a rating heuristic), I enjoyed the former much much more than this book. I liked the simplicity of Haroun’s adventure. While Luka’s was interesting as well, I found it a little more murkier to decipher. I still am not sure if my understanding of the book and its themes are anywhere close to Rushdie’s intentions! But according to me, it sends an optimistic message that we can conquer our fate, and win the battle against Time, if we can keep our inner Fire fueled.

Reflections: Haroun and the Sea of Stories

This is my first Rushdie read. I know, how can I call myself a reader without having read Salman Rushdie for so long. Well, I was extremely intimidated by his books, confident that I would never grasp his dense themes. Further, it's in my nature to stay away from books/authors/situations that carry controversy. And finally, I have never completely understood the genre of “magical realism”.  I find it easier to just call it fantasy. Anyway, silly reasons that they are, I finally read a book of his. And I’m happy that I started with this book - a simple, not-so-celebrated book that I could enjoy, appreciate and interpret without much literary pressure.

Haroun is a young lad living in a city so sad and dismal, factories manufacture sadness. His father, Rashid, is a talented story-teller who can craft the most ingeniously imaginative and bizarre stories that burst with optimism and happy-endings. Haroun marvels at his father’s unending imagination to come up with new and creative tales. It seemed like a faucet of ideas were being turned on in his head to gush out all the stories. However, an unfortunate episode soon leaves his father tragically empty of stories. Haroun slowly realizes that there indeed is a vast sea of stories streaming with the world’s collection of all stories, which is facing a crisis. In his quest to return his father’s story-telling ability, Haroun enters a fantastical adventure to save the Ocean of Stories.

On the surface, the story might seem like a children’s fantasy fable. But being a Rushdie book, this is not so. It’s completely allegorical... with most characters and episodes being metaphorical. He provides Hindi/Urdu names to his characters, making it a tad easy (and fun) for Indians to interpret the story and its layered meanings. Despite a layered narrative, the entire book is very fluid, and is actually comical and heart-warming! In addition, Rushdie’s word play is quite clever and witty, and adds to the light-hearted feel of the story. It also gives a unique character to the book.

Although there could be several interpretations of the story, here is my reflection or interpretation. The underlying theme of the story is on the unending potential of the human mind, or rather, on the unending boundaries of human imagination. Our brains are brimming with a vast sea of neurons carrying so many different streams of thoughts (both ours, and that of others). These streams collide, intersect and combine in so many billions of different ways and patterns to give rise to new ideas and creations, that it seems like humans will never ever run out of creativity or new thoughts! The mystery behind such ceaseless creativity is an unknown process (or as Rushdie puts it, it is a P2C2E - A Process Too Complicated To Explain :)). So in essence, we all carry the potential to subscribe, and draw from our inner “Sea” of stories and ideas. But most often, we either struggle to find the “on” switch, or we let depressing circumstances throw a wrench into the waterworks (too many puns, I know :)). We also constantly let the inner streams get polluted by our stringent, non-imaginative side of the brain. As one hemisphere (of the brain) tries to be creative and imaginative and weaves stories and ideas, the other “rational” hemisphere of our brain tries to critique and conform our thoughts to plain, concrete facts. The rational hemisphere believes in austerity and parsimony - encouraging thoughts and words only when necessary, and only when absolutely in line with reality. But just as opposites complement one another, it’s more profitable for both hemispheres to work together, rather than work against, or work separately from each other. In this tale, story-telling ability and speech (freedom of speech) compose one “hemisphere”, while silence, muteness and the curbing of verbal expression is the other “hemisphere”. So, I interpreted freedom of speech to be freedom of expression and imagination.

Rushdie basically states that our fears, negativity, and stipulation to stick to facts fog our imagination, but they are no match to the profound human will, and the bountiful fountain of our imagination! He provides his view that imagination and the ability to look through colored glasses, is as much a necessity for a healthy mind as it is a luxury for dreaming. I was quite impressed that the seemingly simple story was embedded with such depth of meaning! I may have read too much in to the story, but well, my imagination was kindled and it soared and pattern-matched :).

Digested Thoughts: I loved the book - its fantastical story, its deep meanings, and creative narration! I can well understand and agree with why Rushdie is celebrated. His writing is simple, yet very intelligently crafted. This might seem like an endearing story for children, but it teases the adult's mind to break down the clever metaphors. The book spells the necessity for freedom of expression - even at the level of origination of thoughts, and the freedom  we give our thoughts to seek uncharted areas of our imagination. 

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Addendum: My husband read this book on 2/11/2013 and these are his thoughts. 

For most adults, when a conflict arises in the mind between a creative and a rational thought, the rational thought invariably wins. Although the creative thought process can kindle new ideas, the reality of the outcome forces the adult to shun all possibilities of an unlikely thought. In other words, a purely creative thought is "just a story",  and  to quote Haroun, "what is the use of a story". This is a perfectly logical and rational question, and for most adults, once such a question creeps into our minds, we tend to latch on to the logical part of the thought process and go forward on a path that may or may not lead us to the "end". 

Salman has portrayed the entire book in the eyes of Haroun, who being a child has the gift to pursue both the creative and the logical thought processes that stem from his brain. The interpretations that an adult derives from the book are once again logical & rational. Your interpretation of the neurons in the brain serving to ignite several streams of stories is one example. Attempting to decipher which town the different alphabets referred to, which I attempted to do while reading the book, is another example. Being a child, Haroun is not as biased towards a logical inclination as some of us are, thus leaving him to explore a world of imaginations. The end result is that he is able to go beyond his status-quo, and actually "solve" a problem (ie., Rashid running out of stories) by purely using his imagination.

That the occurrences penned in the book were merely a dream is nothing but a mundane rational explanation. That positive experiences encountered by Haroun can actually result in an uplifted mood for an individual who is looking for new avenues in life may potentially present a more colorful interpretation of the book.  

Reflections: One Hundred Years Of Solitude

This much glorified piece of epic literature was on my indefinite wish-list for years together, until recently a dear friend of mine was clairvoyant enough to realize that it was about time I read the book, and had it knocking on my door. The last several days with this book have been a very interesting and exasperating experience, as I still try to pull together enough thoughts to cogently convey my reflections. I guess this is what happens when you start a book with high expectations, and mount double the amount of expectations on you to be able to gather every ounce of brilliance that the book has to offer.

The synopsis is seemingly simple - too simple, as a matter of fact. The book traces seven generations of the South-American Beundia clan, through their trials and tribulations, in the mythical village of Macondo. It might seem like just an epic family saga, but no, the idiosyncrasies of the characters and the magical-realism that is threaded throughout their tales, open multiple vistas of thought and wonder. It’s been discussed that the tale’s newly discovered village of Macondo, with its raging civil wars, and its baby steps towards civilization have parallels with Latin-American History. Just as History repeats, the Beundia family traits are inherited and repeated across generations. But unfortunately, I know nothing of Latin-American history to have grasped the underlying symbolism of the characters and the occurrences, which is perhaps one of the reasons I am still beating around the bush trying to define the tale or the book. If I’m begged to not over-think it, I would say it’s a tale which vividly sketches both the intensely mundane and the extremely profound aspects of humanity. The tale is a mixture of everything stark and contradictory about human nature, and the journeys we undertake.

However, my biggest angst with the book is that I couldn’t orient myself to a theme...a nice sturdy one to anchor myself to the tale and let the words guide my exploration. I’m not sure if my lack of historical knowledge or my needless pressure to find a profound theme has left me floundering in the depths of this book. Books dealing with magical realism tend to cause such a reaction in me - I’m never sure if I am reading too much, or too little into the tale, the symbolism, and the metaphors. I’m left nervous like a school kid trying to decipher a cryptic puzzle, which only the smart kids can solve. Surely, a Nobel Prize winning book has much more to say than humanity’s weird afflictions, and repeated patterns? It surely has so many more rich layers which have completely bounced off me? If I had induced myself to forget the book's phenomenal accreditation, I might have simplified the experience of reading this book, and maybe even unraveled more from the tale.

But these are just frustrations with myself, not necessarily with the book. The brilliance of the prose, the beautiful imagination, the creativity of the narration and its psychological preciseness leave one spellbound. The tale’s mysticism and eroticism are bewitching, making the reader hang on to hypnotic words which move in and out of the lulling mundanes of the tale.

Without the fear of being labeled a simpleton, I will venture to say that to me, the book spoke a lot about the significance of solitude (how easy, let me run with a theme that the book’s title has). Every character went through their lives with their flaws, acted rashly on instincts, fed their irrational fires, and kept occupying themselves with ignorance and the desire to evade their inner-self, until the ruins of old-age and loneliness left them to their own solitude. In solitude, understanding dawns, wisdom sprouts. It disconnects people from reality, but keeps them within a safe distance, to judiciously help them understand the boundaries of reality, and their place in it. When solitude is shared between two people, nothing gets them closer - emotionally and mentally. I truly believe that silence conveys more than words. Each character vacillated in and out of solitude, trying to grapple with the illusions in their life, and the realities of their existence. Some choose to stay in their world of illusions, for reality is far too boring and mundane, while others nourish their understanding of themselves by actively seeking solitude.

And while history definitely repeats itself in the Beundia household, so it does in the grand scheme of humanity. For centuries we have done the same things, acted on the same impulses, lost on the same instincts, won on the same shrewd  territorial games, disguised as higher, nobler causes. The cave man ate, drank, mated, reared children, brought home material, fought, made mistakes, and grew up in much the same way as the present generation does - the means maybe different and “sophisticated” now. But we are driven by the same forces, and we act on them just as our ancestors did, eons back. In that sense, what really is progress, from then to now? As the wheels of time circles on, where is the peak, the end? Do we ever break out of the cycle? How dramatic should a change be to reinvent the scales of progress, and the ways we lead our life?

The book has assuredly sparked such interesting questions, but for the most part I’m still disconcerted that I have missed plenty more. If you would care to enlighten me on other aspects of the book, I’ll be much obliged!