The Enchantress of Florence: A Novel

On occasion a novel receives harsh treatment from critics not based on the actual work, but rather because it is not what the critics want it to be; this then is the only explanation I can find to explain the harsh, often shrill, reviews received by Rushdie's equisite "The Enchantress of Florence." Having read several of these negative assessments I find the same sub-text runs through them all, namely the complaint that "Enchantress" is neither Rushdie's masterwork "Midnight's Children" nor that lesser work for which he became broadly famous - or in other circles infamous - "The Satanic Verses." To be sure, "Enchantress" is a far different book than Rushdie's previous work, less meditative and more fantastical, yet what is the problem with a great writer branching out into new genres and worlds? While I have loved several of his earlier work, for his choice to create the extraordinary world of "Enchantress" I celebrate Rushdie's genius and thank him for giving me what I can only describe as an extraordinary read. Other reviewers have offered excellent plot synopsis of "The Enchantress of Florence" and therefore I will offer only the briefest details of the story lines. A blond haired stranger, calling himself Mogor del'Amore (the Mughal of Love) appears in the quasi-magical city of Akbar, the Mughal King of Kings. The stranger claims to be the descendant of Akbar's grandfather's lost younger sister, carried into captivity earlier. He regales Akbar with the tale of the "lost princess" and how she journeyed across Eurasia and found herself eventually in the city of Florence. Overtime a horde of historical personages make appearances, some major, others less so, such as members of the Medici family and Machiavelli. The story itself is so rich with detail that on occasion the reader feels as if they have been a guest at a feast. One constantly questions which details are true and which are products of Rushdie's extraordinary imagination. Interestingly, Rushdie spent years researching this work and in interviews claims that much of what one might think the most fantastical - the Shi'a monarch who uses his enemy's skull as a drinking goblet or the Ottoman Caliph who's gardeners double as his executioners - are in fact the ones that are true. On occasion on really wishes that there were a study guide to go along with the book. Like the best fairy tales, Rushdie's "Enchantress" layers in many deep and vexing questions that transcend any age: What does it mean to be real? What is the good life? How can one be happy? All of this arrives in a story written with such incomparable talent, that one can not easily put it down. "The Enchantress of Florence" may not have been the work that the critics wanted Rushdie to write, but I have little doubt that in generations to come, readers will recognize it as among his greatest works.

In THE ENCHANTRESS OF FLORENCE, his 11th work of fiction, Salman Rushdie has given the breath of life to a world completely alien to our own, and yet, in distinctive ways, rooted in a reality possible for us to recognize. Rushdie is a master teller of tales, and the seductiveness of this delightful work, which blends characters from the historical to the fantastic, is certain to burnish that reputation. The novel opens in the late 16th century, when a yellow-haired character in a multicolored coat, calling himself Mogor dell'Amore, appears in Fatehpur Sikri, the gleaming capital city of the Mughal Empire, ruled by Akbar the Great, a descendant of Genghis Khan and Timur the Lame (Tamerlane). Akbar is in many ways a strikingly modern man, questioning the existence of God and presiding over spirited debates in the Tent of the New Worship between competing philosophical schools --- the Water Drinkers, religious thinkers and mystics, and the Wine Lovers, philosophers and scientists. And yet this same rationalist skeptic has created an imaginary queen named Jodha, to whom he's more devoted than any of the dozens of beautiful wives who comprise his harem. The Mogor, bearing a stolen letter containing credentials as the ambassador of England's Queen Elizabeth I, describes himself as "a man with a secret...a secret which only the emperor's ears may hear." Woven through the balance of the novel, the storyteller (born Niccolò Vespucci) unveils that secret, narrating the mysterious, enthralling tale of the devastatingly beautiful Qara Köz (Lady Black Eyes), the enchantress of the novel's title, and her companion, the Mirror. Born into the Persian Empire, Qara Köz is captured by Antonino Argalia, a Florentine soldier of fortune now in the service of the Ottoman Turks. Argalia's boyhood friends include the starkly realistic political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli and Agostino Vespucci, cousin of the New World explorer, Amerigo. Argalia returns with his gorgeous prize to Florence, and when Qara Köz and the Mirror arrive, Rushdie tells, in a typical example of the lavish description with which the novel is suffused, how "their faces shone with the light of revelation, as though in those early days of their unveiling they were capable of sucking light in from the eyes of all who looked upon them and then flinging it out again as their own personal brilliance, with mesmeric, fantasy-inducing effects." Argalia assumes the role of condottiere of the city, chosen by the ruling Medici family to protect its interests in the myriad political and religious conflicts of the early Renaissance. Qara Köz, now known as Angelica, captivates the citizens of Florence, and it appears a golden age is at hand. But when the Medici ruler, Lorenzo II, dies suddenly and under mysterious circumstances, the Florentines suspect their cherished enchantress has practiced witchcraft to bring about his death and drive her into exile. Rushdie's tale overflows with fantastic characters an

Rushdie has often been torn between two opposing interests. On the one hand, he often has a moral that he wants to impart. Midnight's Children was about the dissolution and insanity of India; Shalimar the Clown was an overwrought, heartbroken thing about Kashmir; The Moor's Last Sigh was an impassioned story of a writer on the run from a death sentence -- an obvious allusion to the price that the government of Iran had put on his head. (That death sentence was, itself, in retaliation for The Satanic Verses, which is Rushdie's worst novel. If you're going to be sentenced to death, I say, be sentenced to death for a great work of art.) On the other side, he wants to just tell a good story, with or without a moral. Sometimes, as in the case of The Satanic Verses -- and to an extent in Midnight's Children -- Rushdie loses all discipline. He's self-consciously creating a phantasmagoria, which is a danger for someone who writes in the magical-realist tradition of García Márquez: rather than injecting bits of magic into the daily lives of your characters, sometimes you dive off the deep end and create a work of fiction that really wants to be a fantasy work. This was the trouble in The Satanic Verses. Finally, Rushdie sometimes wants to paint the world as a carnival, and the brushstrokes lose all control. (Think here of the films of Federico Fellini.) Midnight's Children almost suffered from this, but Rushdie reined it in. All of which is prologue to The Moor's Last Sigh and The Enchantress of Florence. These are Rushdie's masterworks. They inject fantasy where it's necessary, tell a captivating story, keep Rushdie's frenetic intelligence in check, and never let a moral overpower the novel's own momentum. Structurally, the story is similar to the 1001 Arabian Nights, though it doesn't recurse as deeply as the Arabian Nights does. The story begins at a beautiful oasis of a city, presided over by an emperor who -- at least according to his PR -- possesses all the virtues and none of the faults of ordinary mortals. He is the living Truth itself. He refers to himself as "We," inasmuch as he embodies the people themselves. Into this city, and directly to this grand emperor, comes our hero (sort of -- remember that there are stories within stories, so there are several heroes) with a vast secret to tell. He's a magician of sorts, wearing a strange coat in which endless objects can hide. Where has this strange man come from? What does he have to tell the emperor? How will he get through the many walls surrounding His Majesty? This is the stuff of great fun. I don't think I'm giving away much if I tell you that he does make it through to the emperor, through the use of magical potions of a special sort. Every time Rushdie could stop and tell a little story -- say, about how the potions were made, or what they contain -- he does, and each time he does I got tickled. These are terrific stories. Our hero himself has a story to tell the emperor. That story c

Years ago (more than I'd like to think about), one of my tutors recommended that I read Salman Rushdie's "Haroun and the Sea of Stories." I tried to finish the novel but have to confess that I didn't. I probably lacked the sophistication back then to appreciate the exquisite prose style and painstaking craftsmanship that went into creating that award winning novel. And truthfully speaking I rather thought that Salman Rushdie was going to be one of the many winning authours that would never make to my reading pile. But something about "The Enchantress of Florence" beckoned, and I decided to give it a go. And I'm truly glad that I did. What an exceptionally enthralling and compelling read "The Enchantress of Florence" turned out to be. The Mughal Emperor, Akbar, is ready for a diversion away from the woes of family and ruling a vast nation, when a mysterious yellow-haired stranger arrives at his court in Fatepur Sikri, claiming to be an ambassador from England. The stranger has many tales to tell about the distant European city of Florence, and the enchantress from the East that enraptured the people of Florence with her beauty and grace, and soon everyone in Sikri is enthralled by the young storyteller's tales. But will these stories prove the undoing of the court, and will Akbar's growing affection for the storyteller cause even more strife amongst his family? When I was a child, my mother used to subscribe to an Indian magazine for women that had recipes, articles, sewing tips and vignettes about Akbar and his wise advisor Birbal. Reading "The Enchantress of Florence" transported me back to those wonderful carefree days. Constructed somewhat like "The Arabian Nights," with the mysterious stranger playing the part of Scherazade, "The Enchantress of Florence" is a series of short stories that follows the supposed adventures of Qara Koz, a grandaunt of Akbar's, and that of her greatest love, the mercenary general, Argalia. Many of the stories are based on historical fact, but are told with elements of the fantastical, so that the mood and atmosphere of the novel is really quite fairy-tale like and dazzling. Also adding to this magical tone is Rushdie's powerfully lyrical and vivid prose style and brilliantly rendered scenes. All in all, this was a very, very fascinating and beguiling read that enraptures, dazzles and seduces. Not a book to be missed -- and I think I may be finally grown-up enough to appreciate the authour's other novels.

This mesmerizing novel, even more charming, entertaining and thought-provoking than his Booker-winning "Midnight's Children", dazzles like a genuine gem. Written in prose so indescribably beautiful and absorbing that I found myself holding my breath involuntarily countless number of times, this book will most certainly elevate Rushdie's well earned lofty place in the literary world even higher. This novel is not one long story; rather, it is a marvelous narration and compilation of several stories, each bewitching in its own way. On the surface, it is the story of a handsome, golden haired man named Mogor dell'Amore (Mughal of Love), who claims that he is a descendant of Emperor Akbar's grandfather's youngest sister, a princess of great beauty, the Mughal princess Qaara Koz. Also, this novel is partly based on history, the rest is a combination of fable, fantasy, and Rushdie's florid imagination: the great Mughal Emperor of India, Akbar, and his sons are historic; but the golden haired enchantress of Florence, I think, is a product of Rushdie's imagination or fantasy. The novel can also be read as a story about the clash of two civilizations: The Mughal Empire in the East, and the "empire" of the Medicis and Machiavelli of Florence in the West. This book can be called novel only in a broad sense; to call it an epic, perhaps, would be more appropriate. Very rarely do readers get an opportunity to read prose as lovely and grand and mesmerizing as Rushdie's prose in this book. The cumulative effect of reading lovely passages on top of dazzling passages will surely overwhelm the reader: "Fires began to burn in the twilight, like warnings. From the black bowl of the sky came the answering fires of the stars. As if the earth and the heavens were armies preparing for battle, he thought. As if their encampments lie quiet at night and await the war of the day to come." This book reminded me of Rudyard Kipling's "Kim"; it is written in the same grand style. Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" was considered a monumental work, and it was a commercial success too, and after winning the Booker prize in 1981, it went on to win the "Booker of Bookers" award (the best Booker prize) - Booker's twenty-fifth anniversary prize. And it is the leading contender for the Booker's fortieth anniversary prize also. The "Enchantress of Florence" is so grand that it will win, I think, the Booker prize next year. I have no doubt that this book is Rushdie's finest work.