Eastern Fury and Other Tales

But, they don't come together, and to be honest, I have no idea what they needed to be there for. The main character is a philosopher called Malik Solanka, who doesn't do we The 3 stars are a very generous assessment of Fury. The main character is a philosopher called Malik Solanka, who doesn't do well academically and decides to become a dollmaker. The doll becomes bigger than its creator and while Malik appreciates the royalties pouring in, he's still overcome with rage and ends up holding up a knife over his sleeping wife and son. This gives him the excuse he needs to abandon them without so much as a note, and to run off to New York.

In New York, he has a weird but sexy neighbor Mila who enacts her daddy issues with him as a surrogate. He dumps her as well for an impossibly beautiful and sexy denizen of Lilliput-Blefescu which in the context of this book is real, but they seem to be of normal size , called Neela, who he wins from a best friend. But the best friend may or may not be involved in a secret BDSM club whose rich-fuck members may or may not have killed and scalped their slaves. There is another plot involving a fictional sci-fi universe called [I can't remember already], where a doll maker makes living dolls who take over their universe and a coup d'etat in real in the context of the book Lilliput-Blefescu who use the symbols of the sci-fi universe.

None of this makes any sense whatsoever except Rushdie maintains that we are meant to be seeing FURY in all of the character's situations. But it still works in a way as a curiosity piece. He speaks of how everything is America centered, and even the anti -Americans center their envy and their rage on America. He has a character speak in a fit of road rage, you will be cleansed by the righteous fire of Islam! While this has nothing to do with the plot, it's certainly prophetic thematically, considering that Fury was scheduled to release in Sep There's also the fact that Rushdie makes the stylistic choice of inundating the book with pop culture references.

While I would argue this might be a bad thing with other books, I think it works very well here. Fury tells the story of a New York with the twin towers still standing, but vulnerable to envy and rage nonetheless. This is the only reason the book is worth checking out. Unfortunately, there's nothing in it to really recommend it as a story worth reading. Malik Solanka is a weak character to base a book on, and he's not at all sympathetic. His infidelities are brushed over, and his being painted as helpless in the face of a desirable woman is really creepy especially since it sort of parallels where Rushdie himself was at the time of writing this.

The plot dangles in several different places. There's a lot of noise, but not much worth listening to. The only dubious worth it has is as a keepsake from a seminal period of world history.

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Everything I've heard about this one is terrible. I guess those truckers like to get their late Rushdie on while they're gassing up?

View all 13 comments. Jan 21, Kobita rated it it was amazing. You'd want to qoute every single line in this novel. Apr 14, Inder rated it it was ok Shelves: I read this a while back, and I did not love it the way I have loved Rushdie's other work. Perhaps it's brilliant, but I just don't get it.

First, there was the autobiography of a dirty middle-aged man aspect. It turns out much of the book was semi-factual, and Rushdie really did leave his loyal wife who stuck by him through his exile and hiding for a hot young thing with a scar on her arm - sheesh, we're pushing "semi-autobiographical" here. Well, good for you, but don't act like you're someho I read this a while back, and I did not love it the way I have loved Rushdie's other work.

All of the talk of "fury" is supposed to symbolize some kind of postmodern anomie, but it reads like the usual middle-aged-male-discontent to me. Eventually, the main character's overwhelming fury is sated by what That's not postmodern anomie. The NYC references were cool, and it wasn't a boring book - I wanted to know what happened. But I'm not a big fan. I am, generally, a Rushdie fan, however. Midnight's Children is still blowing my mind, ten years later. Is that era over now? The critics don't seem to think so, but I wonder.

My first Salman Rushdie book and I loved it. He has become one of my favorite authors. This book is about a cambridge-educated professor who has a messed up childhood and becomes a creator of alternate worlds in his bid to live a better life. His creation becomes wildly popular and lucrative.

But in its popularity, he loses control of his creation which combined with his earlier childhood experiences creates a seething fury within him. This latent fury betrays his external successes and echoes t My first Salman Rushdie book and I loved it. This latent fury betrays his external successes and echoes the US prosperity boom of the late 90's and its dormant rage due to people's disappointment in themselves for not being "successful" enough.

This book also shows the power of imagination in creating social realities and the loss of the creator's ideal perfection when his ideas are implemented, sometimes with disasterous consequences. Sometimes when life imitates art, the consequences are not as a great as the ideal. A real life parallel to this theme is communism. I wonder what Marx and Engels would think of their utopian idea of communism if they were alive to see his how it effected Stalinist USSR? Sep 01, Vignesh Athreya rated it really liked it. I dont understand why it has garnered so many negative reviews.

Once you plow past the initial few pages of languid storytelling and excessive emphasis on unimportant details, its a truly enthralling read. The narrative vacillates from borderline facetious to a melancholic antipode. Its a given that Rushdie novels are not natural page-turners and require patience and coaxing. But it has paid off for me every single time so far. Even the few instances of irrelevant verbosity is alleviated by the I dont understand why it has garnered so many negative reviews. Even the few instances of irrelevant verbosity is alleviated by the flowery language that leaves you spellbound nevertheless.

Once you hit the stride its smooth sailing then on. The final fourth held me captive, completely oblivious to my surroundings. And despite the compelling story he weaves, the somber themes he explores, it somehow doesn't weigh on your mind much, which can sometimes be a good thing. I think I'd honestly rate different parts of this book differently, if that would make any sense.

It takes a while to explain enough to get things going, and wanders off in the weeds toward the end a bit in my view. There's some good stuff in here, but the book as a whole didn't function as a complete machine for me. There was a lot I liked, but I've liked other things Rushdie has done more.

May 13, Mark rated it really liked it. For me, Rushdie is an author that requires my full attention. His writing is complex but beautiful. This book is no different. I would recommend it to anyone who has not previously read a Rushdie as it introduces you to the author without being as intimidating as one of his other, larger, novels. Definately a good read. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.

To view it, click here. Glancing at the other reviews here that say this is one of Rushdie's worst books, I seem to be in the minority. I actually liked this, whereas the only other book I've read by Salman Rushdie — Midnight's Children — I pretty much hated. Fury tells the story of Malik Solanka, a successful dollmaker who stepped out on his family one night and left them behind in London as he went to escape his inner demons in New York City.

Give me a name, America, make of me a Buzz or Chip or Spike. Bathe me in amnesia and clothe me in your powerful unknowing. Enlist me in your J. Crew and hand me my mouse ears! As he makes his new way in America, his backstory slowly unfolds to reveal that he had tremendous success followed by bitter disappointment, with his invention of the doll Little Brain, that he's had two unhappy marriages and that he suffered abuse at the hands of his stepfather while a child in India.

He's described as a rather unattractive man in his 50s, but yet he has a somewhat unbelievable ability to attract beautiful women. It's hard not to imagine that Rushdie wrote Solanka in his own image. As Solanka story unfolds, along the way there are murders of socialites and a coup in the fictional Lilliput-Blefuscu that ultimately comes to engulf Solanka and his lover Neela. Were all empires so undeserving, or was this one particularly crass?

Who paved Paradise and put up a parking lot? Yes, it had seduced him, America; yes, its brilliance aroused him, and its vast potency too, and he was compromised by this seduction America was the world's playing field, its rule book, umpire, and ball. This was, Solanka realized, and exact mirror of the divine experience of time.

Until the advent of hyperlinks, only God had been able to see simultaneously into past, present, and future alike; human beings were imprisoned in the calendar of their days. Now, however, such omniscience was available to all, at the merest click of the mouse. Jun 07, Kailash rated it it was ok. The overwhelming feeling after reading this book is of an immense waste - of the reader's time, of the writer's undoubted talent and of the multitude of pages on which its printed, which could have been put to much better use. Right from the start, it seems like a pointless book.

The story is about a man in the grip of fury the reason for which we aren't given until almost the end, and that reas The overwhelming feeling after reading this book is of an immense waste - of the reader's time, of the writer's undoubted talent and of the multitude of pages on which its printed, which could have been put to much better use. The story is about a man in the grip of fury the reason for which we aren't given until almost the end, and that reason, to me at least, is not convincing enough. Anyway, he has become a threat to those he loves and so just takes off to another continent without so much as a goodbye to his wife and son , where he tries to undo his old self, hoping that whatever is wrong with him will be destroyed along with his old identity.

The book chronicles his efforts to defeat his furies with the help of the people he encounters. So, not a wholly stupid plot. What makes it bad is the unbelievably bad writing. Sometimes its hard to believe this is the same guy who wrote 'The Moor's Last Sigh'. There is no continuing thread through the story. It frequently runs off on tangents and doesn't bother to rejoin the main theme. Rushdie's books usually need a lot of patience and I've become quite patient reading his books, waiting for the point to appear out of the fog of fancy words and tedious abstractions; but with this book it was a hopeless exercise because there is no point to it.

Even more unforgivable than the bad writing is the fact that the story seems forced, somehow. As if the writer's publishers told him to come up with something quickly and he started writing about the first thing that came to his mind without bothering about plots, themes, coherence and all the other things that make a decent book, trusting his reputation to ensure it would be accepted, even acclaimed. And sadly, it worked. Reading the reviews, you'd think this was a masterpiece. When in actual fact, it could be the worst book Rushdie has ever written 'Shame' was depressing, but at least it was well-written.

This is just an ego-trip of sorts, most evident by the resemblance of the protagonist to the author himself, and the tiring fact that rather than battling his furies, he seems to be spending too much time encountering stunningly beautiful women with all of whom he has his way. In the end I'm left salvaging what little good I can from this disaster of a book. Not only was this packed with cool shorts for our viewing pleasure but there were quite a few extras as well including trailers, Another World DVD trailers, bios, a intro on Movie Battle and some stills and artwork. Very fun and informative stuff.

Let's hope the success of this release warrants future anthology releases or even a release of the last Movie Battle Start your free trial. Find showtimes, watch trailers, browse photos, track your Watchlist and rate your favorite movies and TV shows on your phone or tablet! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Full Cast and Crew. IMDb's Guide to Streaming. Apocalyptic, post apocalyptic, timetravel, dystopian, futuristic world and other earthbound Sci-fi, action, adventure and horror fun.

Share this Rating Title: Give me all the sapphic fairy tale retellings! Give me retellings with no romance! I agree that Ash was a disappointing read. But alas, it let me down. More retellings in different genres would be great! Especially thriller and sci-fi! How cool would sci-fi The Twelve Dancing Princesses be?? Post-apocalyptic Red Riding Hood?!

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Oh retellings with no romance would also be great. I was so stoked for Ash too but it was just so flat. Also, Sleeping Handsome please? It would be awesome for a prince to be rescued by… say, a huntress! Or even a pirate, pirate would be amazing! I love that Cinder takes place in Beijing and that Winter is a person of color! Though I love greek myth, I think we've had enough and I need more! I think The Star Touched Queen, though not excecuted too well, is so full of potential for featuring Indian myth.

Basically every retelling ever needs to be genderbent at some point!?? I love how the Lunar Chronicles basically goes through and ticks off everything on my list quite easily hehe. Especially the diverse settings and the originality twists on the old tales!! This is SUCH a good point. Ahh, thank you, Daley! I wrote a re-telling of H. The original is very grim.

I decided that my telling of the tale would contain mirth and whimsy. My book is silly, but so is Marks. He has a grim ending, though, and mine remains whimsical. When i read it, though, I did not care for it too much. I have written the story now. Do you have any re-tellings, Cait? Actually, I am pretty sure you do. I have actually not read either of the originals from your retellings so you definitely get points for the obscurity hehe. I wrote a Napoleon retelling in space a few years back which was very fun haha.

I just finished writing a fairy tale retelling!!!!!!!!! But you have given me sufficient courage to hack my story into pieces and then put it back together like a delicious puzzle. My retelling is of Beauty and the Beast, in the twentieth century probably, in Wales. I mentioned this before. It is the one with the five story mansion.

In my story, Beauty or Ceinder, as she is called in Welsh never came back to the Beast Hanifail and eventually her son goes, and has to figure out the mystery of the Beast, and his mum and all that jazz.

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Does that sound okay to you? If you ever want to read it, just say so. Hahaha, about six years ago, I was writing a retelling with my best friend. Oh my genius 9 year old self. Also, it was narrated by the seven dwarves, all named after different foods. I want more gender swapped obscures. You are so right! It could be worse.

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But duuude, your story sounds amazing! It is fun… if you like boiled brains… I suppose. It could be like overcooked eggplants. I am pretty excited about it. I am obsessed with fairy tale retellings right now. Oh my goodness I love fairytale retellings. And Marissa Meyer is queen of them. My entire table started fangirling and fanboying because guys write too.

I hate it when retellings stay super close to the original story. I love getting to mess with the original story to make it my own. Fairytale Retellings are my favorite stories ever. Okay, A Eater Extroardinare no idea how you spelled that is the most fantastic name ever. And pfft, I am here to torture you and your TBR. This should be the checklist people have to go by when writing retellings.

Also read more of them. I really need to read the rest of the Lunar Chronicles! I want a retelling to respect the original fairy tale. I want new twists to keep me at the edge of my seat. That;s the main reason I love Ella Enchanted so much — it follows the original story almost perfectly, but because it has a new conflict, I had NO idea how things would turn out. One thing I hate, though, are retellings that seem to think that Disney is the original fairy tale. Just … just …. And yayyy for a genderbent Cinderellla! I was unfortunately super bored with Ella Enchanted.

Haha this post has such good timing. I just recently started working on a Genderbend Mulan retelling mixed with with the Greek myth of the Amazons. Ooh yes fairy tale retellings! I love your project and I hope it goes really well for NaNo!! Also the Caribbean is an awesome setting. I want to write one of the seven wild swan brothers.

Okay, but you forgot something. Like, the original stories started out that way and then Disney made them all feel good and happy. I want you to rip out my heart. Seriously, I have yet to write a bloodless book myself. I lovelovelove fairy tale retellings! And gender-swaps tend to be hit or miss for me. But books like Cinder? Also, I would totally read the version of Cinderella with you as Cinderella.

It sounds like it would be hilarious. Pumpkin pie is delicious. This is a great post! The voice was brilliant, but having Scarlet in a love triangle with John and Robin kind of sucked everything good out of the story. It had a couple of clever twists though. They have Scarlet and Cress, but not Cinder. Like we can imagine dragons and wizards but not matriarchies?!??! And I really want a gender-bent Rapunzel now that you mention. Can I just say YES to all of these??!?!?!?!

GO my 14 year old self! Go forth and rule the world! Also, I am reading Cress now and I. That is all, I take my leave. Oh yay go your 14 year old self for sure!! I agree that retellings need to add some new elements. However, I also think the right story needs to be chosen to begin with. Also, there has to be a good main character. The main character was this weird, emotionally stunted girl.

But that part of her personality was never addressed. Actually, all of the characters in that book were completely awful. It was almost as if they were all in an asylum, suffering from various mental afflictions, but none of them knew it, and neither did the author. So their odd and sometimes nasty behaviour was passed off as completely normal. I just wished it had lived up to my expectations. I find the world-building in that series to be extremely weak.

The idea of the world-building is good… just not the execution. If that makes sense. My go-to authors for reliably good retellings are Diana Wynne Jones who delves more into mythology , Gail Carson Levine who writes straight-up fairytales… and I actually liked Ella Enchanted with her unusual curse , and Charles de Lint who writes some more obscure retellings, often based on Celtic mythology.

Now that was a book that got throwing in a whole bunch of fairytales together right! It was one of my favourite fairytales, and I heard about Disney possibly doing it years ago and was so excited. The original story has this beautiful friendship theme going on between Gerda and Kai, and I wanted to see that. The author would probably either be accused of getting the story wrong because people are familiar with the messed-up Disney version now or ripping off Frozen if they went with a sisterly theme.

Like I think the world-building of Cinder was awesome. I seriously dislike fantasy retellings because they almost always have zero of the qualities on your list. Agender, gender fluid, demiboy, demigirl, and gender flux just to name a few examples gender-swaps are also needed!

Ellie On the Other Side of Reality. All of these were amazing. I think retellings should have something different in themselves, something that makes them special. Why would I read a story which is the same as the original one, just in different setting? I definitely need something more. Btw, Petra Pan would definitely work in Slavic countries, Petra is common woman equivalent of the name Peter.

And it would awesome retelling. Splintered is definitely a retelling!! Writers need to have more imagination than that!

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I have gotten so hooked on fairytale retellings lately! Oh—and if you want to read retellings of more obscure fairytales in fascinating settings, look up Suzannah Rowntree. Yay and congrats on writing retellings too!! Thanks for the recommendation! And also retellings with disabled characters. As for how closely it should stick to the original… I think it depends. What does annoy me though is when authors do retellings of the Disney versions.

Those are already retellings! I prefer when authors retell the actual originals. Well-known to the point where they have displaced the original how many kids know the true ending of The Little Mermaid, for example? How about getting inspiration from a Disney twist, but then taking it in another direction. Twisting the twist or twisting it he opposite direction.

Or something like that. But also looking at the older tales. Maybe you could look at why the Disney adaptations made such choices and their roots in the similar tales as well. In the original tale, the cast is very small — much of the story takes place in the castle, where it is Beauty, the Beast, and invisible servants. So make visible the servants and have them enchanted as well. The servants are under the same curse as their master — all are lions by day and their human forms by night.

Common girl makes an exchange for father, princess for the kingdom. So many levels in between. Plus the nature of the Beasts in both tales are very different indeed. Even the earlier de Villeneuve version of BatB contained elements that the later version popularised by de Beaumont omitted, and a retelling restoring some or all of these elements would immediately stand out.

The queen left him in care of an evil fairy, who tried to seduce him when he became an adult; when he refused, she transformed him into a beast. Rather, even more ridiculous. I understand that many authors might make a purposeful decision to do it that way since those have become the more well-known versions, but I also wonder sometimes if every author bothered to research the original at all.