The Moor’s Last Sigh

I have spent quite some time resizing this image, so it’d better work now!! 😀

Now, I just finished the book last night, so my impressions are pretty fresh – and I also loved it, but here I am biased because Rushdie happens to be one of my favorite writers. Still, there’s some mixed feelings there because it was a lot easier to let go than “Midnight’s Children” – its counterpart in storyline and style. And whilst I was englufed in the story of the Zogoiby-Da Gama family, I was a bit more detached when it came to their last heir Moraes (Moor) Zogoiby, the narrator, whose own life experiences occupies about 50% of the book. He seems a rather unfinished, one sided character, defined by his double-speed aging process and his inner struggles (a reflection, I should think, of his multicultural descent, his lack of a firm sense of identity), while his mother, Aurora Zogoiby, accomplished painter and mediocre mother, is far more attractive, complex and alive.

In the end beautiful – beautifully written, it’s typically rushdie-esque and much smarter people than I have commented on its themes, on the recurrence of India as a mother(land), on the recurrence of the witch woman – Parvati in “Midnight’s Children”, Uma Saraswati here, creator and destroyer, on the rise-and-fall story in a family, on the added realism, the accuracy of impressions on the life after The Independence. It seemes like it’s all been done, but I don’t think anyone does it better than Mr. Rushdie, simply because his prose, while slightly complicated and suffocating on first sight, draws you in and, once you’re there, it’s pretty hard to walk out.

Now, I may sound a bit small minded and naive, but there’s nothing I can say, that hasn’t been said before. (I’m not a very good commentator – as you must have noticed by now – but this review is quite close to my own take on the book. ) But it’s definitely worth reading, because (if for no other reason) for most of us, this is as close to India as we’re gonna get 😉

And now that I see I closed the Moor subject in 400-words-or-less, I feel a bit disappointed, because I expected I’d have a bit more to say. Maybe I’ll get better at this in time..

~ by ameer on November 28, 2007.