Shame

This, Rushdie's third novel, explores the universal theme of shame in the context of an - somewhat imaginary but simultaneously all too real - Islamic society. The characters swim up to their necks in the stuff. From the three sisters, Chhunni, Munnee, and Bunny (who remain locked up in "Nishapur" with their deadly dumbwaiter), who think more of their inheritance than their father's death to the immaculately conceived, fat, passive, and eternally inverted Omar Khayyam (but rumors fly that the sisters - who share in all the burdens of Omar's birth - scandously seduced Angrez men) to the self-proclaimed "simple soliders" who ultimately turn into brutal dictators (and some shamelessly use Islam to gain public support) to the public that grieves "Did we really do that? But we are ordinary people..." shame fills up and drowns every letter of this novel. And not just "shame", but the nearly untranslatable ultra-nuanced Urdu word "sharam". Even the "family tree" at the beginning of the book, with its numerous nicknames and references to "illegitimate children", seeps with shame. Most of all, the central character (according to the opening of part II), Sufiya Zinobia, physically and metaphorically embodies all of the horrors that shame can produce. The most violent and stomach-churning scenes in the book involve the manifestation of this "Beast" inside of the tiny, innocent girl. By the end of the novel she takes on the role of the classical Greek furies. She leaves a venegeful sopping bloodbath on her way to President Raza Hyder's compound. But, as always with Rushdie, the expected doesn't occur. Much like Rushdie's second novel, "Midnight's Children", "Shame" contains an obstrusive narrator. This character (Rushdie himself?) pokes in and out of the story to make salient points or to "clear up" matters of language and history. This nameless narrator intrudes far less than Saleem Sinai. And one wonders if he also feels the sting of shame and so meekly hides behind the paragraphs. Regardless, this narrator admits early on that "The country in this story is not Pakistan, or not quite. There are two countries, real and fictional, occupying the same space, or almost the same space." He also states that he's writing a "modern fairy tale", which arguably suggests a moral. Even so, a cursory glance into the history of Pakistan will reveal that many of the events related in this book reflect the actual history of that young country. The real General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq gets fictionalized as Raza Hyder; Zulkifar Ali Bhutto becomes the comic-tragic Iskander Harappa; and Benezir Bhutto receives the name Arjumand Harappa. But this knowledge only expands the book's possible intentions. It does not preclude enjoyment of the actual text. Enough universal themes and cliffhanger stories scatter the words as to make their potential source in reality almost irrelevant. Though it does admittedly increase the controvery of the book. And, as we all know more than twenty year

Rushdie is absolutely brilliant in this novel. I have not seen any book that contains such a confluence of histories, comedies and tragedies wrapped up so neatly in 300 pages.This novel operates in several layers. The first layer is the rough history of Pakistan -- with the characters of Jinnah, Bhutto etc. The second layer fictionalizes the entire history, by changing the names of the historical figures and finally, adding Rushdie's patented "magical realism." The result is half fiction, half history and brimming with hilarious anecdotes, mysterious mythology and a gripping chronicle of the rise and fall of a military dictator and his rival, a debauched elite.

"Shame" is an absolutely brilliant allegory about the political and social chaos that helped give birth to Pakistan and, later, to Bangladesh. If you're up on your modern history, some of the characters will be instantly recognizable. Bhutto is the Virgin Ironpants; and Zia ul-Haq, who wanted to throw Pakistan back into the middle ages, is General Raza Hyder, who ends up fleeing for his life, only to be destroyed, in an ending similar to a Greek tragedy, by the Three Furies, in the guise of the three "mothers" of the protagonist, Omar Khayyam, a lazy, indolent man without shame or much of a conscience either. Neatly balancing Omar is the book's other protagonist, a little girl so engulfed in shame that her blushes burn everyone who touches her and almost set water to boil; when she grows up and loses her shame and thus her modesty, all hell breaks loose. Rushdie is also a terrific humorist, and some sections of the book will have you on the floor laughing. Above all,"Shame" is a tour-de force, a non-stop page-turner, a dizzying melange of allegory, parody, fantasy, mythology and modern history, told by a writer whose love/hate relationship with his country is reflected all over the book. It's Rushdie at his finest and helps to secure his place as one of the best writers of his generation.

Let me start by saying that if you have never read a Salman Rushdie book before, I do not recommend that this be your first. My first encounter with Rushdie was Haroun and the Sea of Stories, a friend of mine began to appreciate his writing after reading Midnight's Children. Stick to those (or perhaps East, West) if you are a Rushdie neophyte. Shame is not necessarily the best introduction to one of the best writers of the 20th century. Why, you might ask? The fact is that Shame homes in on a specific theme and doesn't let go. The book is essentially about the birth of Pakistan and its painful, turbulent early years. It is so focused on these themes that Rushdie goes so far as to include personal asides in the middle of the prose in order to further clarify the points he is making. Shame is a fun, clever and tremendously enjoyable novel but I can see people being put off by an almost educational, preachy tone in these little asides. Don't get me wrong.... Shame is a GREAT book! For any of you who are familiar with Rushdie's style, you will find that he is up to form here. The plot is full of clever devices (much like in The Moor's Last Sigh) which will have you placing the book down, simply awestruck at the inventiveness and foresight. What else can I say? I am enraptured with Rushdie. Anyone interested in reading simply astounding prose needs to do themselves a favor and read this author's work. Be forewarned though, this in not a light afternoon read, it requires a certain intellectual investment.

Shame is, in my opinion, the finest novel Rushdie has written yet. It's much darker thanany of his other work, disturbingly so, and the violence is of a kind not found in his other novels.The book traverses the sub-continent, moving through Bangladesh, India and Pakistan as effortlessly as the consciousness of most of the people who call themselves Bangladeshi, Indian or Pakistani. The emotion of Shame is a hook on which the novel is built. It isn't the center, though Rushdie often focuses on instances where his characters flush with redness. Rushdie spent part of his childhood in Pakistan (and has gone back since), the novel is pieced together, like most of Rushdie from a remembering that is incomplete and where the gaps are filled by fantasy. Shame attains a balance between the imaginatively outrageous and the real as it moves through time in the "other" country on the sub-continent. The story of a man/child who grows up in and, perhaps, out of a house with three aunts, each of whom is his mother, Shame stands for the people of the north-western sub-continent as only a work infused with divinely sharp humour can. Before the Satanic Verses, there was Shame, and Shame engaged in the same mode of literate heresy that Rushdie employed later in Satanic Verses. Only in Shame it was the root of all middle-eastern religions, Zoroastrianism that Rushdie focused on. And his repetition of a similar ancient heresy, like SV questioning the sharp distinction made between darkness and light (in God and creation), in the context of a faith that acknowledges, even births the Manacheean heresy. In a similar manner, Shame explores the realm between the human and barely human, and the madness that is in all of us. Shame isn't an easy read, it may even be so disturbing as to irritate you. But for me it is the supreme height of Rushdie's fiction to date, the strangest and most penetrating of all his work. -- Subir Grewal