Shame: A Novel

Absolute perfection. What a complex and gorgeous tour de force. I cannot recommend this book enough! The characters are rich and plot lines sophisticated. I cannot even put into words how much this booked touched and impressed me. Modern classic and truly enjoyable. It strikes that rare balance of literary mastery while being entertaining and just enjoyable.

“Shame” by Salman Rushdie is a story that is fabricated based on an imaginary country – a dream that eventually crumbles. Rushdie uses the elaborate intricacies among characters and fuse these fantasies together with the Pakistani reality. It is essentially a historical escapade being narrated both allusively and fictitiously. The plot centers around the personal enmities and bad blood between the two family clans: Harappa and Hyder. This actually is an indirect insinuation to the partitioning of the Indian subcontinent and the situation in Pakistan that was characterized by turbulence and intranquility in its modern history. According to Rushdie, irrational religion and political violence are the driving forces in society where the culture of shame and shamelessness is originated. Through this novel, we see how the process of a modern country is being established and how it eventually self-destructs. “Shame” possesses a complicated and yet aureate style of writing, the blend of magical realism, mythology, religion, oral literature, and other elements. It is established in the Indian subcontinent where there is a unshakable, ingrained cultural background. Because of the fact that Rushdie is both deeply and equally implicated in Indian and English literature, it allows him to create this bold, imaginary world and still preserves his courage and responsibility to accept all the ramifications.The setting of “Shame” is quite exotic and distant. Undoubtedly, the depiction of utopianism is in existence and full of madness in the novel, and Rushdie has indirectly placed some irony and sarcasm towards civilization itself. He is accused of misrepresenting Pakistani history, and basically vilifying the Islamic faith. In the beginning, he narrates a very odd story in which the three sisters in the town of Q have established an agreement that they will sleep in one room and endure the same consequences and shame. Even when one of them is pregnant, the other two simultaneously show signs of pregnancy. Their son Omar Shakil is the outcome of their actions. Here, we see the structural background of allegory: the three people are sisters and yet are dissimilar creating a fat Omar Shakil – the structure of the Holy Trinity is very close who the Rushdie is – being nourished by India, Pakistan, and England.In the real world, the word shame leads the reader to connect to the word disgrace in which people feel embarrassed. Rushdie's “Shame” wants to unearth the origin of such concept. According to him, there are two kinds of violence that create shame and shamelessness: psychological impact of religion and the every day political violence. Rushdie endows “shame” as a resisting power, a hidden power, to disintegrate the fictional country that is supported by religion and political violence. It is cyclical that a country that is built based on shame will be crumbled too because of it. However, the reality is more cruel because even if a utopia is eradicated, there will be another one established because violence follows the principle of shame.

Shame met all my expectations. Rushdie writes in a lyrical way that draws the reader into the story. Also, his wry since of humor compels the reader to stay involved with the story.

In my opinion, this is the best book written by Mr. Rushdie. Rushdie's sentences make even the most mundane details memorable. Once you start reading the book, it is hard to put it down!

It’s a complex and intricate novel but uneven at times. Many shimmering moments and lines, but it’s easy to get disoriented and lost. Quite graphic too so def not for young ones. For fans of his other works, it is probably right in the ballpark of what they have come to expect, a mystical and daliesque world, full of shape shifting and jumps back and forth in time and space. For first time readers of him, I would not recommend.

Incredibly written, each sentence evokes a different thought. Taken one way, brought back again another, a story weaved as intricately as one of Rani's shawls.

All the books I am getting the pages are wavy, why?I just ordered a bunch of different books from different people. and they are all weather damaged. The pages (both hard back and paperback) are wavy, which happens when the books are in a moist area too long.And two where left o u t s i d e in the rain, the d r i v e r never told me they where there. And the books where only protracted by a thin paper.But I do not recall which two books it was.But all the books the pages are wavy.The paper the books are made out of are cheap ad will not last long, if they are already deformed - all the books should be new.I have not yet read any of the books as I have heavy books sitting on top of them all trying to flatten the books

Rushdie has his fingers right on the pulse of Muslim society, in Pakistan and elsewhere.

Je recommande

Paper quality is good and received the delivery in time.If you want to know more about the book.. check it on Goodreads

This is the second time I’ve tried reading this book, and I finally managed to get through it.A story that is part semi-historical and part fantasy, it tells the story of Pakistan through two families as they come together, fall apart, come back together, in a realistic chain of political and romantic events. At times difficult to read, but overall it absorbed me completely.My only quibble is with this kindle edition and some errors that the proof-readers missed. The use of 1 (Ones) instead of the capital I. The last three chapters bore more spelling errors of names and other words (weire instead of we’re, which is implied by the context). It’s nothing that can’t be figured out which I done, but breaks the immersion in the story for a moment.Despite this, I have to give this book a 5 star rating. I don’t do this often, but books rarely impress me as much as this, and possibly not since Yuya Sato’s Dendera. I would definitely recommend this book.

Gift for dad in law he loved it

A book to read. A page turner.