The 7th book I read this year was ‘Victory City’ by Salman Rushdie. This got to the outskirts of that Rushdie genius I’ve been missing for some time but didn’t quite hit. 

It was about a year ago (August 12, 2022 to be precise) that Salman Rushdie was brutally, viciously attackedin New York. This horrible act was extremely depressing and overwhelming for me. I felt that reading his next book was one way to show my support and gratitude for one of my favorite authors. The book has a lot going for it. Historical fiction, a perfect plot device for Rushdie to weave his magic realism around. A forgotten story of a great Indian empire that had an outsized influence on the subcontinent. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t live up to its promise. The plot and characterization don’t quite deliver. It was easily his best book since the brilliant ‘Enchantress of Florence’, published way back in 2008, to which it is thematically similar, it just goes on for too long and spins around ideas that aren’t fully baked or deliver the kind of narrative punch one expects from one of the greatest living authors.

Magic realism is experimental by nature. You know going in that there will be fantastical ideas, and some may not work. Ultimately, the ideas that do work have to be the ones that drive the narrative rather than those that don’t. Unfortunately, for me, this story didn’t quite work out that way. Which was disappointing given I was really rooting for it. Life isn’t fair like that I suppose. Our wants and desires are often met with reality in a head-on collision.

And yet, I wish Rushdie a long life and hope that he is already working on something new, and I cannot wait to read what comes next.

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