Devon Wilson Hill
Anybody know? Or can fwd the email I obviously deleted? Yhanks
On Monday, January 24, 2011, Devon Wilson Hill <dev...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, Book Club!
>
> Here's to the month of romance! I will be hosting February's reunion e festa. We will be reading The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie. It's been very popular and received great reviews. I will send out the date later this week, but get reading!
>
> Here's a quick review from Publisher's Weeky (June 2008) as found on Amazon <http://www.amazon.com/Enchantress-Florence-Novel-Salman-Rushdie/dp/product-description/0375504338/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books>:
>
> Renaissance Florence's artistic zenith and Mughal India's cultural
> summit—reached the following century, at Emperor Akbar's court in
> Sikri—are the twin beacons of Rushdie's ingenious latest, a dense but
> sparkling return to form. The connecting link between the two cities and
> epochs is the magically beautiful hidden princess, Qara Köz, so
> gorgeous that her uncovered face makes battle-hardened warriors drop to
> their knees. Her story underlies the book's circuitous journey.A
> mysterious yellow-haired man in a multicolored coat steps off a rented
> bullock cart and walks into 16th-century Sikri: he speaks excellent
> Persian, has a stock of conjurer's tricks and claims to be Akbar's
> uncle. He carries with him a letter from Queen Elizabeth I, which he
> translates for Akbar with vast incorrectness. But it is the story of
> Akbar's great-aunt, Qara Köz, that the man (her putative son) has come
> to the court to tell. The tale dates to the time of Akbar's grandfather,
> Babar (Qara Köz's brother), and it involves her relationship with the
> Persian Shah. In the Shah's employ is Janissary general Nino Argalia, an
> Italian convert to Islam, whose own story takes the narrative to
> Renaissance Florence. Rushdie eventually presents an extended portrait
> of Florence through the eyes of Niccolò Machiavelli and Ago Vespucci,
> cousin of the more famous Amerigo. Rushdie's portrayal of Florence pales
> in comparison with his depiction of Mughal court society, but it brings
> Rushdie to his real fascination here: the multitudinous, capillary
> connections between East and West, a secret history of interchanges
> that's disguised by standard histories in which West discovers
> East.Along the novel's roundabout way, Qara Köz does seem more alive as a
> sexual obsession in the tales swapped by various men than as her own
> person. Genial Akbar, however, emerges as the most fascinating character
> in the book. Chuang Tzu tells of a man who dreams of being a butterfly
> and, on waking up, wonders whether he is now a butterfly dreaming he is a
> man. In Rushdie's version of the West and East, the two cultures take
> on a similar blended polarity in Akbar as he listens to the tales. Each
> culture becomes the dream of the other. (June)
>
> The NYT also wrote something in the magazine <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/books/review/Gates-t.htmlu>
>
> Devon
>
>
--
DEWH
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