4/5 stars
Borderline five star for me, this. Ticks a huge number of the boxes for books I love: Lyrically-written magic realism, unreliably narrated from multiple perspectives, set in the 16th century (flicking between Medici Florence and the court of Akbar the Great), weaving together elements of real history, fiction, fable, philosophy, and inventive ideas.
My issue with it is hard to pinpoint, but throughout I had a niggling dislike of a book whose writing and concept I loved. I think it’s probably to do with how every single female character is an archetype: the whore, the jealous wife, the bitter mother-in-law, the spurned lover, the unattainable object of desire, the witch, the imaginary ideal.
This is, of course, thematically kind of appropriate for the story – which revolves around the romanticised fiction of a mythical woman’s life – but it still grated. The inner workings of the mind of the Mughal emperor are so interestingly explored, yet none of the women in this novel seem to have any layers of complexity to them at all.
Is that just because the women are presented through the eyes of the men in the novel, or because Rushdie lacks the ability to create a convincing female character? It’s the first book of his I’ve read (have been meaning to get around to him for ages), so hard to judge. But I’ll still certainly try more of his stuff after this.