Shalimar the Clown

By: Salman Rushdie

Narrated by: Aasif Mandvi

Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

From Salman Rushdie, New York Times best-selling author, Booker Prize-winner, and one of the great voices in contemporary literature, comes a majestic novel that solidifies the author's right to a Nobel Prize, which Kirkus Reviews says "he deserves more than any other living writer".

When Maximilian Ophuls is murdered outside his daughter's home by his Kashmiri Muslim driver, it appears to be a political killing. Ophuls is the former U.S. ambassador to India and America's leading figure in counter-terrorism. But there is much more to Ophuls and his assassin, a mysterious man calling himself "Shalimar the Clown", than meets the eye. One woman is at the center of their shared history, a history of betrayal and deception that moves from World War II Europe to the troubled Kashmir region to contemporary America.

Rushdie effortlessly weaves a series of interconnected narratives to form a sweeping and ambitious tale, at once timeless and startlingly modern, that reaches back through the years and across the continents.

©2005 Salman Rushdie (P)2005 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

• 2005 Publishers Weekly Listen Up Award, Fiction

"Shalimar the Clown is a powerful parable about the willing and unwilling subversion of multiculturalism." (Publishers Weekly)
"If Rushdie cannot make you see and smell and feel the loveliness of life in Kashmir, he does, finally, make a commanding story of its loss." (The New York Times Book Review)
"A masterly deployment of interconnected narratives spanning six decades....Dazzling....A magical-realist masterpiece." (Kirkus Reviews)
"A cogent descriptor of Rushdie's sheer and magnificent talent. His beautifully metaphoric language and sly sense of humor keep his complex plot, with its layers of personal and cosmic meaning, tightly woven." (Booklist)

Well done

Although slow in parts, overall, I enjoyed it.
I knew little about Kashmir, its people or its struggles when I started but by the time I finished the book, that had changed. And, like all fine education, I was so entertained by the story that I never realized that I was learning. I had not read anything by the author before, although I certainly knew about him from the media. He is a skilled writer, in my opinion.
The narrator added to rather than took away from
my enjoyment.

A writer in need of an editor

I agree with a previous reviewer: all the major characters are self-absorbed. It's hard to care about them. My major objection to the novel is the excessive reliance on the back-story of inconsequential characters that impede the story line rather than contribute to it. Too often they were digression that irritated rather than enlightened. Like India's potato woman, did we really need to know all about her and her daughters to understand her excentricity or attachment to India?

Kudos to the narrator. He was superb even if he did stumble over some words a few times.

Lyrical

I have always had difficulty reading Rushdie's novels although I admire him as a public speaker. Hearing the book read aloud was very different. It gave the lyricism and satire a more natural cadence. Very interesting book in terms of understanding many attitudes that continue to impact headlines today.

Good, but...

Rushdie is undeniably a good writer. His style and prose is excellent, and his characters and plot exceedingly well crafted. I have a great deal of respect for him as an author. But for some reason, this novel just doesn't do it for me. It certainly picked up in the last quarter, but I had to slog through for ages before reaching the point where I wanted to keep reading. I want to read another of his books, perhaps Midnight's Children or The Satanic Verses, seeing this was my first Rushdie, but after reading this one, I just can't bring myself to dive into another Rushdie just yet.

Beautiful book -- one of the best I've read

Would you consider the audio edition of Shalimar the Clown to be better than the print version?

Actually, yes! The narrator does a superb job of bringing this book to life. Definitely the best narration I've heard of any book to date.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Shalimar the Clown?

It's difficult to choose a single memorable moment from this book. The book does such a beautiful job of depicting the social and political history of India/Kashmir/Pakistan and developing, in a work of fiction, how that background has led directly to the modern state of affairs in the Middle East.

What does Aasif Mandvi bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

His accent totally transports the reader to India and to the role of direct observer of the events as they unfold.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

No clue!

Any additional comments?

This is truly a must read book.

Complex, Exotic, Suspenseful

I have never read Rushdie before but now I am beginning to understand his popularity. This book begins with a murder and then proceeds to fill in with backstory of extreme detail. It is this story in Kashmir that I found to be, at first, somewhat daunting. The names, words, customs and history were very foreign and a bit difficult to wrap my mind around. However, after hanging in there I became more comfortable with it and began to understand and get very involved. By the second half of the story I was hooked. The story kept me on the so-called "edge of my seat" to the last line.
The writing is excellent and has a supernatural quality. The narration was perfect, considering all of the foreign words and accents required.
Excellent, although not for everyone.

Timely story of Kashmir, the Pak-Indio argument

I'vr never read Rushdie before, and wasn't sure what to expect. Lovely prose, with detailed embroidery, sometimes interfered with the movement of the story but usually swept me along. The reader was fine, though some consistent mispronounciations were irritating (camino "ray-al" was replaced with camino "reel," for instance). All-in-all enjoyable, and it really shed some light on the battle over Kashmir. The earthquake coverage is far more meaningful having read this book.

Great listen

WOW! This was my first Rushdie book, but not my last. This is a great story, with lots of background that helped give the characters real depth. I'm not a fan of airplane books, so unlike some of those user reviews that criticized the backstory, I loved the fact that Rushdie took the time to flush out these characters, in depth. If you like a good story, with a foreign culture to add some real color to the tale, you'll really like this book.

The narration was excellent, not too characterized, but enough that it gave real depth to the story.

Highly recommended.

Superb!

I can't think of a better way to spend money than to buy this book--it is masterful, intelligent and provides considerable insight into culture and the development of terrorism, extremism and civil strife. As always, Rushdie is entertaining and understanding in matters of the human heart.

Loved it

What did you love best about Shalimar the Clown?

Aasif Mandvi brought Rushdie's book alive. Having already read many of Rushdie's books I was reticent to listen to one thinking it would not have the same feeling. I was happy to find that Mandvi was an addition to the telling. The story has all the best of a Rushdie story, humor, irony, history and human drama told with wit and insight. It is the one audio book I have listened to more then once. If Mandvi narrated all his books I would purchase them all again in audio format just here him read them.