Salman Rushdie. Allow me to take this moment to wax lyrical about genius. Alright, so I’m not feeling terribly lyrical this morning, but this man has put together some of the best books I’ve read. Out of his body of work it’s awfully difficult to pin-point which is my personal favorite, but this book right here is one of his best.
I’ve heard Rushdie’s novels refered to as magical realism and The Ground Beneath Her Feet most definately qualifies. Although I am somewhat loathe to admit it, it’s a love story of sorts, but told against a beautifully woven backdrop of mythology and the history of rock and roll as it occurs in a world existing parallel to our own.
Title: The Ground Beneath Her Feet : A Novel
Author: Salman Rushdie
LC Rating:
We start at her death, so you have the feeling that you know exactly how this is all going to wind up. so you feel the sadness, the futility when we flash back to the start of her story.
Once the story gets rolling, the prevailing theme is mythology. We start in India and the tale is all about the gods and how they intercede in mortal life. Most importantly in terms of how this book fits into my general world-view was the idea of how the same stories are told, with different characters, from culture to culture.
This really is the tale of an epic love, told by the third wheel in the relationship. The two lovers themselves will create the greatest rock-band in the world.
Once the tale drifts away from India, moving first to England and then America, we are treated to a history of rock and roll, albeit one that is just ever so slightly skewed. Different bands wrote different songs, and none of the line-ups are quite right. The rock allusions come hard and heavy, so many of them in fact that I found myself wondering how many of them were actually planned and how many simply emerged on my end because the author had done since a magnificent job of setting up a scenario where rock allusions could be born.
It really is a wonderfully told story, made more realistic by the fact that the issue of parallel worlds is yet another omnipresent theme, suggesting that this is all taking place in a world right next to ours.
For literary rock fans, it’s worth the read just to enjoy the allusions, the love story is beautifully crafted, and Salman Rushdie never falls back on horrible cliches or snappy endings. His entire body of work is worth reading, and this is a great place to start.