This is the third book by Rushdie which I’ve read after
Midnight’s Children and The Satanic Verses. The book is good and narrative has
such a catch that if you don’t read it in one sitting it will keep calling you
to finish it till the last page. The story is a mix of reality and imagination
as some anecdotes of Akbar are quite famous. It makes the book sometimes unbelievable
but who wants a history record and it is definitely an entertaining one. There is
some lack of seriousness as we’ve seen in some older books by Salman but it
still has his signature style. Sex and illicit relations are abundantly used in
the whole story (I must say that it has been a major part of all his books I’ve
read till now).
The story about a lost princess Qara Köz who is characterized
as an enchantress of high capabilities. She is claimed to be enchanting the
whole city. The dwellers worship her like a messiah first and later they realize
that she was not what they thought her to be. First they think of her like
Christ and later an evil enchantress. She went through a lot of trying
conditions and always had to make a choice which was a difficult one. It is
really difficult to judge her on the basis of her judgments as she was not
having much choice. She made the most favorable ones and for this we can’t call
her selfish also. Even being an enchantress comes with its own curse.
The book is definitely a good read and entertaining one. But
it can’t be taken for the historical characters and events it depicts, Rushdie
has definitely taken a writers freedom for using the anecdotes to fit it into a
proper narrative and it really fits well which is generally coined as Magic
Realism.
