Book Review: GRIMUS

(Let me preface this by saying I feel very awkward about writing a blog-length review of a book by Salman Rushdie. His books generally require a minimum of ten pages to discuss, and that's if you just want to scratch the surface. But there it is.)

I have to say that as I read this book (Rushdie's first novel), I wondered if J.J. Abrams read the Cliffs Notes before he began production on LOST, dealing as it does with a mysterious island governed by mystical forces--an island that draws the chosen few to itself. The ostensible plot of GRIMUS deals with an Indian who is granted immortality, but after being robbed of the ability to choose death is forced to wander the earth for 777 years before coming to Calf Island, a mist-shrouded land populated by immortals. Searching for his sister and a manner of death, Flapping Eagle must come to terms not only with the nature of the universe, but the nature of his own soul.

But that's just the plot. The novel itself is really about The Big Ideas: free will, fate, destiny, control (and the illusory nature thereof), love, hate, life, death. Rushdie writes with confidence and strength, weaving philosophy and science-fiction together with linguistic and imaginative fireworks. His writing takes you into a headspace where anything is possible, and, based on the compelling eloquence of its rendering, highly probable. In the hands of a lesser writer, this novel could have been Philosophy 101 crammed between the lines of third-tier magical realism, but Rushdie never misses the balance between story and subtext, and the one always strengthens and supports the other. Masterful writing.

Although I found some of his later novels to be overly intricate and willfully convoluted (Hello, SHALIMAR THE CLOWN), this novel shows the promise that Rushdie would later fulfill with MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN and THE SATANIC VERSES. If you have never read anything by this literary giant, GRIMUS is as good a place as any to start.