Short Stories, Irish literature, Classics, Modern Fiction, Contemporary Literary Fiction, The Japanese Novel, Post Colonial Asian Fiction, The Legacy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and quality Historical Novels are Among my Interests








Monday, August 4, 2014

"The Shelter of the World" by Salmon Rushdie (Feb 25, 2008, The NewYorker)



If Salman Rushdie (there is background information in my prior posts) never receives the Nobel Prize it can be attributed to the fear of the petrol-dollar.   Rushdie's prose is lush and his imagery is magnificent.  His plots are incredibly imaginative, often drawn from elements of Indian history and culture.  There is no place with an older literary culture than India.  Edmund Burke tried to tell the English this.

"The Shelter of the World", available for a while in the archives of The New Yorker, is a historical work of magic realism centering on the Mogul ruler Akbar. The story very imaginatively takes us inside the mide of Akbar and lets us see how being raised to see your self as a divine being and ruler since birth impacts a mind.  Akbar comes to see himself as being India, the world is defined by the limits of his ego.  He has many wives but his true love is an imaginary wife he conjured up.  

The story really helps us see how a divine ruler might see his domain and himself.  Rushdie does a great job of bring the capital city to life and showing us how the ordinary people are impacted by Akbar.

If you have never read Rushdie, this story will give you an excellant feel for his work.

You can read it here.


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