Salman Rushdie in his new novel, the classic “Don Quixote” to America today. A fantastic novel about a world in crisis.
The hero of this novel with the title “Quixote” is Ismail Smile, an Indian immigrant who has traveled for years as a sales representative of medicinal products by the United States. Be home in a cheap hotel room, his world, the TV-series and Shows that he consumed nightly. After a heart attack, he loses more and more grip on reality and takes refuge in a dream world. A consequence of the overwhelming love he feels for the Unknown is: Salma R. coming as he is from India, lives in New York and is a real celebrity with his own TV Show: Oprah 2.0. As Ismail will be sent Smile of his Cousin and Boss in retirement, he is finally free to reunite with Salma R. He gets in his old car, called henceforth Quixote, and imagines himself as a travel companion, the so long-awaited son named Sancho – one more quote from the literary original by Miguel de Cervantes.
There is a second level in the book
The journey is a Trip through a bleak America. The two of them experience racism and violence, are confronted with populism, Fake News, the opioid crisis – current on it. The Name Donald Trump falls not Once, but in the book there is a “obstinate President (…) who was obsessed with Cable News, the the Basis of white racists flattered, the (…) changing Shit on women had talked.”
What is real? What is invented? In this novel you will find no answers.
And then there is also a second level in the book, a book in the book, as “Quixote” is the invention of an Indian-American writer by the name of Sam DuChamp who wants to experience with this novel, his major breakthrough, after he has for years written a mediocre espionage thrillers. With his hero, he shares the age, the origin and the longing to belong in a world in which he feels nowhere at home. Above all, the question of identity is again and again. How we see the world and how they perceive us?
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An Overview of Salman Rushdie’s work“Quixote” (2019)
Salman Rushdie’s “Quixote” modernise Cervantes’s classic and laid the quest of an aging traveler in today’s USA. He plays with fact and fiction, tells the story of everyday racism and the opioid crisis and drifts at the same time, into the Surreal. The novel is nominated for the prestigious Booker Prize in 2019.
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An Overview of Salman Rushdie’s work“Midnight’s children” (1981)
Rushdie’s first novel, “Grimus” (1975) little attention was given. But already the second was the British-Indian author to an international literary Star: “midnight’s children” is an allegory for the independence of India. The book was awarded the Booker Prize, and a good 20 years after the first publication of the Indo-canadian Director Deepa Mehta filmed.
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An Overview of Salman Rushdie’s work“The satanic verses” (1988)
“The satanic verses” changes in the life of the writer fundamentally. Radical Muslims perceived the novel as blasphemy. In 1989, the Iranian head of state Ayatollah Khomeini condemned the author to death. For many years Rushdie lived then in the underground. The so-called Fatwa has not been lifted until today officially.
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An Overview of Salman Rushdie’s work“The ground beneath her feet” (1999)
Post-colonial culture, and magical realism, Rushdie’s trademark. Other ingredients of his work, with countless references from world events, literature and Pop. From this he shaped so many different works, such as the family Saga “The moor’s last sigh” (1995) or “The ground beneath her feet”, an alternative history of rock music. The rock band U2 used the title later on in a Song.
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An Overview of Salman Rushdie’s work“Luka and the fire of life” (2010)
Rushdie has also written two children’s books. The fairy tale “Haroun and the sea of stories” (1990) revolves around topics such as censorship and freedom of expression. “Luka and the fire of life” is a Fantasy novel in which a Boy has to his father – a storyteller – save the life.
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An Overview of Salman Rushdie’s work“Joseph Anton” (2012)
Nine years spent Rushdie in the ground. There he adopted the Pseudonym Joseph Anton – in honor of his favorite writers, Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov. In this time, he had his second wife divorced, and two more marriages, both of which broke after a couple of years back. By this stage of life, Rushdie tells in his autobiography, “Joseph Anton”.
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An Overview of Salman Rushdie’s work“Two years, eight months and twenty-eight nights” (2015)
“Two years, eight months and twenty-eight nights” – the number of days in the title of this book refers to Scheherazades tales of the “thousand and one nights”. Also, Rushdie’s novel offers at least as many stories. In the year of the book publication of the Frankfurt book fair, invited him as main speaker. Because of his participation in the Iran called for a Boycott of the event.
An amusing read, overflowing with the wild imagination, Rushdie’s
“Quixote” is a typical Rushdie: magical, funny, full of jumps in time and space, between reality and Illusion. With many references to the world we live in currently. A novel with endless quotes from the American pop culture, References to the world literature, based on real events. But the endless lists of television programmes, Celebrities, brands and phenomena that have also a little Tiresome. Since the novel is a Symptom of a world that he wants to criticize actually. And not only that, Rushdie does not trust the reader, even the Connections to real life, and explains to us also.
At best, the novel is then, if it’s a matter of life and death, about feelings. And because these subjects occupy a great space, “Quixote” alone, therefore, over long distances is an amusing read, overflowing with the wild imagination of the author.
“Quixote” is Rushdie’s fourteenth novel and is on the Shortlist for the prestigious Man Booker Prize. The book was published in August in the UK, in September in the USA and is now available in German.
Salman Rushdie was born in 1947 in Mumbai, the son of a Muslim family. World fame with his 1981 novel “midnight’s children” and published in 1988 “the satanic verses”. Iran’s head of state Khomeini imposed a Fatwa, a death sentence on the writer, who lived afterwards many years in the underground. The verdict is not lifted until today.