Chaitra's Reviews > Grimus

No. Just no. Rushdie never lacked for imagination, and it is ample evidence here. But sometimes, all that imagination can go absolutely nowhere. This book not only feels like a fever dream, but also makes as much sense. Which is to say, not at all.

Flapping Eagle is an (Amer)Indian, who has been given a potion for immortality doesn't drink it. Then he does. Then he wanders around aimlessly for seven hundred years, during which he comes across a mysterious figure wielding a stone wand. Nothing happens. Then he meets this figure again, and he gets thrown to Calf Island, which seems to be in a different dimension. Its denizens have the habit of speaking very pedantically about something completely different than was asked of them. And it's obvious Eagle's presence there is a catalyst for all manner of mayhem, all of which is directly related to a being that may or may not exist, called Grimus.

Everything goes obviously, because this is a badly written fantasy. Things are convoluted to the maximum degree possible. Flapping Eagle is a craven and nasty piece of work, so there's no inclination whatsoever to see him succeed. In fact, it's so horribly foreshadowed, that I don't believe what happened in the end. There is no reason to suppose that Eagle has the willpower or the morality to resist the power of Grimus. The other characters were just as hard to relate to. In fact, I was hoping for all of them to boil their heads. Which they do after a fashion.

This is a mess. It's hard to believe the very next book this author wrote was the splendid Midnight's Children. Just as well he had India to turn to for inspiration. Out of all of Rushdie's novels that I've read, Rushdie's worst books (Grimus, Fury) are the ones that did not overtly reference the subcontinent. Two stars, because I did not detest it, and I cannot deny his language.