The Science Fiction Dimensions Of Salman Rushdie

"This work focuses on the science fictional dimensions of Rushdie's later novels, Fury, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Shalimar the Clown and Luka and the Fire of Life, and Rushdie's first unpublished novel, The Antagonist, to show how the author's oeuvre moves towards a more consistent engagement with science fiction as a generic form and an ideological investment"--

This book focuses on the science fictional dimensions of Rushdie's later novels, Fury, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Shalimar the Clown and Luka and the Fire of Life, and Rushdie's first unpublished novel, The Antagonist, to show how the author's oeuvre moves towards a more consistent engagement with science fiction as a generic form and an ideological investment. The author demonstrates how Rushdie recreates personal and national histories in a science fictional setting and mode, and contends that the failure of his first novel Grimus may have led Rushdie away from SF for some time, although he returns to it with a much firmer conviction and a much stronger voice in his later novels, showing his commitment to this imaginative form which he describes in Fury as providing "the best popular vehicle ever devised for the novel of ideas and metaphysics."The science fictional mode is the most appropriate vehicle for expressing these thematic and ideological concerns and the organizing feature of Rushdie's oeuvre. The author rereads the later novels in light of recent critical engagement with SF as a vehicle for reimagining national histories and as a potentially subversive tool for social and political engagement in a fictional realm.

After drinking an elixir that bestows immortality upon him, a young Indian named Flapping Eagle spends the next seven hundred years sailing the seas with the blessing–and ultimately the burden–of living forever. Eventually, weary of the sameness of life, he journeys to the mountainous Calf Island to regain his mortality. There he meets other immortals obsessed with their own stasis and sets out to scale the island’s peak, from which the mysterious and corrosive Grimus Effect emits. Through a series of thrilling quests and encounters, Flapping Eagle comes face-to-face with the island’s creator and unwinds the mysteries of his own humanity. Salman Rushdie’s celebrated debut novel remains as powerful and as haunting as when it was first published more than thirty years ago.

How does one read a foundational postcolonial writer in English with declared Indian subcontinent roots? This book looks at ways of reading, and uncovering and recovering meanings, in postcolonial writing in English through the works of Salman Rushdie. It uses textual criticism and applied literary theory to resurrect the underlying literary architecture of one of the world’s most controversial, celebrated and enigmatic authors. It sheds light upon key aspects of Rushdie’s craft and the literary influences that contribute to his celebrated hybridity. It analyses how Rushdie uses his exceptional mastery of European, Anglo-American, Indian, Arabic and Persian literary and cultural forms to cultivate a fresh register of English that expands Western literary traditions. It also investigates an archival modernism that characterizes the writings of Rushdie. Drawing on the hitherto unexplored Rushdie Emory Archive, this book will be essential reading for students of literature, especially South Asian writing, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, linguistics and history.

Salman Rushdie and the Genesis of Secrecy is the first book to draw extensively from material in the Salman Rushdie archive at Emory University to uncover the makings of the British-Indian writer's modernist poetics. Simultaneously connecting Rushdie with radical non-Western humanism and an essentially English-European sensibility, and therefore questions about world literature, this book argues that a true understanding of the writer lies in uncovering his 'genesis of secrecy' through a close reading of his archive. Topics and materials explored include unpublished novels, plays and screenplays; the earlier versions and drafts of Midnight's Children and its adaptations; understanding Islam and The Satanic Verses; the influence of cinema; and Rushdie's turn to earlier archives as the secret codes of modernism. Through careful examination of Rushdie's archive, Vijay Mishra demonstrates how Rushdie combines a radically new form of English with a familiarity with the generic registers of Indian, Arabic and Persian literary forms. Together, these present a contradictory orientalism that defines Rushdie's own humanism within the parameters of world literature.

This unique and comprehensive volume looks at the study of literature and religion from a contemporary critical perspective. Including discussion of global literature and world religions, this Companion looks at: Key moments in the story of religion and literary studies from Matthew Arnold through to the impact of 9/11 A variety of theoretical approaches to the study of religion and literature Different ways that religion and literature are connected from overtly religious writing, to subtle religious readings Analysis of key sacred texts and the way they have been studied, re-written, and questioned by literature Political implications of work on religion and literature Thoroughly introduced and contextualised, this volume is an engaging introduction to this huge and complex field.

This updated and expanded new edition reviews Rushdie's novels in the light of recent critical developments. It also features new chapters which examine the author's latest works including Fury (2001), Shalimar the Clown (2005) and The Enchantress of Florence (2008), bringing coverage of this important British author up to the present. This updated and expanded new edition reviews Rushdie's novels in the light of recent critical developments. It also features new chapters which examine the author's latest works including Fury (2001), Shalimar the Clown (2005) and The Enchantress of Florence (2008), bringing coverage of this important British author up to the present.

Mapping out the Rushdie Republic differs from existing studies on the work of Salman Rushdie by dint of its seriousness of intent and profundity of content. Every major work of the writer is paid due attention as separate articles are devoted to every aspect of his literary persona. As such, the contributions raise pertinent issues and questions that invite the perceptive reader to enter into a meaningful dialogue with the views of a range of formidable academics of national and international repute. A long interview with Timothy Brennan, a notable Rushdie critic, offers further insights, making this a book that designedly stops short of being merely encomiastic about Rushdie’s achievement as an author. The significant act of mapping out the Rushdie republic makes this a must-read for those who find the Rushdie phenomenon an interesting one as part of ongoing debates and discussions.