Sometimes a book's title completely sets its tone, as in this case. It is a kind of tuning for the entire text: sad like a farewell, elusive like a sigh, full of mystery, like the word "Moor" itself, like a museum antiquity. This is what it is, a confession, a testament, a man's last will, "a farewell sigh for a lost world.
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is a novelist and essayist. Much of his early fiction is set at least partly on the Indian subcontinent. His style is often classified as magical realism, while a dominant theme of his work is the story of the many connections, disruptions and migrations between the Eastern and Western world.
It begins very far away, long before the main character is born. It begins with the pepper. Yes, yes, it was he who once made us seek and discover the magical land of India in search of its chief treasure: spices. "...though how could we be discovered if no one had ever shut us down before?" The whole story of Moraish Zogoibi, our narrator nicknamed Moor, is steeped in spices, for both the family's wealth was based on growing and selling spices, and events themselves took a decisive turn literally on sacks of pepper. That's how it happened: spicy, bright, searing, often scalding, and peppery. That's how it's described: the text is lavishly laced with beauties that create its complex, flamboyant flavor, which will appeal to fans of the many components that are closely intertwined with each other.
Perhaps books like this, in which magical realism is often a necessary element, are especially organic to writers of exotic lands. Sometimes one wonders, "Who knows, these people who invented gods with many arms and the head of an elephant... Maybe they really have it that way!" There are many strange and mysterious things in Moor's story, which he will tell, beginning with his great-grandfathers, one can only guess where is truth and where is fiction, and in his relatives there is "much red chili pepper," as his own mother will say.
His mother was an outstanding artist of her time, born Aurora da Gama (her ancestor was Vasco da Gama). It is she, perhaps, who is given the most attention in the text; it is with her that Moor develops such a complex, fractured, painful relationship, where it is one step from love to hatred. From a mother's love for her long-awaited son, the heir to a huge empire, smelling of spices and blood, the smell of paint and the smoke of burned plantations, to a wild hatred, when all the threads are torn, fates are broken. Her paintings are also the heroes of the novel. Sometimes it seemed that the writer pays too much attention to their description, it seemed that the text seemed to hang, but in the finale there is such an explanation that makes you only admire the author's intention.
The author also endowed Moor himself with such unprecedented features that one can only wonder, only pity this prisoner of such a strange body, which was given so much from birth, but perhaps even more taken away.
There is room in this voluminous family saga for a huge number of characters, both main (clan members) and secondary. With the main sometimes happens a real metamorphosis, as in the ancient myths, then under the influence of historical events, and then under the influence of their own passions. Where, when they are genuine, real? The reader will have to change his opinion more than once, following Moor, who is also often mistaken sometimes in the closest people. Alas, both stories and fates often end quite dramatically.
India is not only the backdrop against which the complex, colorful, ornate, mehendi-like farewell song unfolds. It's some kind of element that people are trying to influence, but who's who? There are many references to authentic historical events, to real names like Jawaharlal Nehru, the Gandhi family, while at the same time their interpretation is given from such positions, as if the invented characters play an almost decisive role in them.
The book is steeped in love for India. "Christianity, Portugueseism, Jewry; on ancient tiles lewd action; perky women in skirts-not saris; Moorish kings-sovereigns... And this is India?! Bharat mata, Hindustan hamara*, is this it?" It's a complicated love - through pain.
A novel leaves a bouquet of sensations as complex as a dish with many spices: you will not immediately understand them, you will rejoice at some of them, you will want to drink water with some of them - they burn. But you will remember them for a long time.
This article was sponosred by Edwina C Murphy
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