Number 10 - Quichotte - Salman Rushdie

 

This month's book group read, and the meeting had to be postponed last week because only one person had actually finished it.

This is the first time I've read a Salman Rushdie novel. Obviously I've known the name ever since the Satanic Verses inspired the slight overreaction from some groups, but I'd never got around to reading any of his books. Apart from something highbrow, I had no idea what to expect.

This is a modern day take on Don Quixote. The eponymous character is on a foolish quest for the love of a woman he has never met, only seen on television. he lives his life according to tv and reality has become a blurred concept for him.

He's accompanied on his quest by Sancho, his son who he has literally imagined into existence. 

The other lead character is Sam DuChamp, a writer of tacky spy novels, who is trying his hand at writing an existential novel about a man called Quichotte who can't tell fact from TV and who is on a quest to win the hand of a beautiful celebrity with the help of his imaginary but somehow corporeal son, Sancho.

Yes, it's gone all meta and Quichotte is a novel within a novel with lots of commentary about the nature of writing and the relation between a writer and his characters.

Of course the lines between Sam's life and his book also begin to blur.

It's all very clever and knowing, but in a way I found to be too obviously trying to be clever. The magical realist elements don't seem to fit naturally into the story when they appear.  It felt overwritten and "try-hard" and for me, it didn't quite work. The mastodon chapter particularly felt ridiculously out of place.

There are sections that are very good indeed.  The chapters from Sancho's POV are excellent, and the emotional highpoint of the book for me was the end of Sancho's journey. The title character though, is vaguely irritating. 

The ending of the book would be better if it wasn't stolen from an old twilight zone episode (also from a joke in HHTTG). It was also foreshadowed far too much, and gave us one of the sources he stole it from.

It may be that if I knew more about Don Quixote apart from the tilting at windmills I might have enjoyed it more... but we will never know.

My first Salman Rushdie novel, and I can't say that I'm overly enthused to rush out and buy his back catalogue. there were flashes of greatness, but overall I'm not hugely impressed. It was a chore to pick it up some days and that's never a good sign.

6/10, don't try so hard