Monday, June 9, 2008

Salman Rushdie's "The Enchantress of Florence"

1st/NW Quadrant The Approval Matrix

At its heart, The Enchantress of Florence is about the power of story--whether it is the imagined life of a Mughal queen, or the devastating secret held by a silver-tongued Florentine. Make no mistake, it is Rushdie who is the true "enchanter" of this story, conjuring readers into his gilded fairy tale from the very first sentence: "In the day's last light the glowing lake below the palace-city looked like a sea of molten gold." At once bawdy, gorgeous, gory, and hilarious,

The Enchantress of Florence
is a study in contradiction, highlighted in its barbarian philosopher-king who detests his bloodthirsty heritage even while he carries it out. Full of rich sentences running nearly the length of a page, Rushdie's 10th novel blends fact and fable into a challenging but satisfying read. --Amazon\Daphne Durham

David Gates of the New York Times wrote in his review of the book, "From the very beginning of his new novel, “The Enchantress of Florence,” Salman Rushdie plunges us into a world of marvels ... And sure enough, that’s where he began to lose me."

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