Fury

Rating:
Summary: Unimpressed.
Review: I read and loved Rushdie's 'The Ground Beneath Her Feet' and have since tried other Rushdie books with varying degrees of success. 'Fury' was extremely disappointing. I simply did not believe the characters. Try instead: 'The Ground Beneath Her Feet'.

Rating:
Summary: another gloriously pompous, boring novel from Rushdie
Review: I have most of Rushdie's books - Midnight's Children, Satanic Verses, Ground Beneath her Feet, Haroun, and this one, and to tell you the truth, I have not completed a single one. I usually struggle through the first 3 or 4 pages and then I put them on my shelf, where they will reside untouched, until I am forced to move. Nonetheless, I feel a stupid sense of pride in knowing that he is from the same sub-continent as I am, and so I buy his books, even though I am thoroughly puzzled at his fame. Who in their right mind would expend their valuable time plodding through this gibberish? Oh well, I am still proud to be among Bombay's upper-class who have Rushdie's books on my shelf.

Rating:
Summary: 5 stars...from anybody other than Rushdie
Review: I started this book expecting the greatness that I had found in The Satanic Verese and Midnight's Children (both of which I actually finished unlike a lot of people who enjoy bashing them without actually getting past the first page). Rushdie is a master of style. He entertains by using unconventional punctuation and diction. He uses present day allusions on every page to weave a metaphorical tale. In Fury he develops a weak character in order to clearly define his weaknesss. The novel is a study of human character, of the emotions and ideas that drive people to do what they do. The plot is, as always, a labyrinth, but is really quite simple compared to Rushdie's other work. This book is not for everyone...hell, it may not be for anyone except Rushdie. That's why his works are so great, he writes things in a ways he understands. If you miss his allusions or metaphors, it's not going to make him feel bad...it's your loss. If you want a quick introduction to Rushdie I suggest you pick up Fury. If you want a book for an enjoyable read as you hop on a plane for your next business trip stick to Clancy and Steele.

Rating:
Summary: Save your money
Review: This book is an interesting study in how little work you need to do to get published if you have a brand name like Mr. Rushdie's. Mr. Rushdie, interested primarily in showing off his worldliness and making sweeping judgements on the state of things, misses the mark repeatedly and comes off as a wide-eyed arriviste completely blinded by the glitz. He has no personal reference point for New York and any reader who knows a bit about the city will immediately feel herself in the fraudulent company of a novice trying to pass off as an expert. This makes the wordplay and bombast and topical commentary especially untenable. Oh yes, he throws in a "murder mystery" as a plea to readers to stay with him through his gratuitous ramblings. Overall, the book reads like a first novel your college roommate wrote after visiting New York City for the first time.

Rating:
Summary: Post card from America
Review: I have read this book twice now and I just cannot seem to make my mind up.

First time through, my little girl was teething so I read as and when I could and found "Fury" enthralling. Brain food. Rushdie writes like Kubrick films. There seems to be a whole lot going on behind what you have in front of you.

In terms of what you have in front of you.

Professor Malik Solanka. I give that a sentence in its own right, because that - he - is what the book is about. There is more than likely a certain amount of intended confusion between Solanka and Rushdie but - either way - the majority of the book resides in the professor's head. What we know we know through him. Professor Malik - Solly - left his wife and young child in England (because - well, whole host of reasons but - primarily - he found himself standing over his wife and child in the dead of night wielding a knife and - didn't know how or why or what he could and would do). The problem - whatever the problem is - does not evaporate upon arrival in New York. He is in the grip of a fury (such that he is asked to leave restaurants after bursting into torrents of expletives that he is not aware of). The fury does not always leave post-it notes explaining what Solly got up to in its grip. Hence, when a serial killer starts bashing in the heads of debutantes, Solly wonders if the deaths are down to him. Mix in the fact that Solly is something of a celebrity - having created a doll called Little Brain (in fact, mix in the idea of dolls, mix in the history of dolls, mix in all the doll shaped ingredients you can find) - and add a pinch of civil strife from overseas and you have -

Well. What do you have? You don't have a novel, as such. Not really. Even first time, through, it feels more like reportage than fiction: Salman Rushdie's thoughts on New York. Everything else feels incidental (oh how kind: he created characters for us - even if those characters appear to be vague biographical sketches). And, first time through, that is okay (aside from the mess that is the end, but we'll get to that). I would want to know what Rushdie thinks about New York, and by extension, America.

Second time through, you get more critical. The fact that this reads like an episode within an oevre (as if Rushdie no longer has to write novels, he can now dash off a postcard recounting his latest views on the world, the way a - important this - pop star might: this is novel as album) starts to gall. Also, the fact that Rushdie is a kind of geographic chameleon (in that, Rushdie's books are always about cities - cities are always the most important characters in his novels - Bombay, London - Rushdie is like Joyce and Dickens in that sense - the city is all) gets to be too much. Residing in New York brings out the Philip Roth in Rushdie. It is all very well Philip Roth being Philip Roth. It does not ring true when Rushdie starts in on the fraternity of academia residing in New York. The tone is all wrong.

The more you think about it, the less enjoyable "Fury" becomes (which is odd, considering that, in the past, one of the great joys of Rushdie's novels were that they improved the more you thought about them). What you have is part of an ongoing episode. Except, where life continues, books end. This means that Rushdie has to end the novel. Only there is not a logical end to a book about the internal life of a professor (at least not here).

So what you get is "Police Academy."

You remember the "Police Academy" films, right? A bunch of characters, each with their amusing quirks, are paraded for about an hour. At which point, (whoever is responsible) realises that the bunch of characters with amusing quirks have to DO something to bring everything to a close. Hence, a clumsy device (a riot, a jailbreak, whatever) is crowbarred into the film, allowing each of the quirky characters to shine and ending everything if not neatly then - at least it is over. The exact same thing applies here. Having resided within the mind of an intellectual for 233 pages, we suddenly find ourselves among terrorists in a war zone. Oh-kay.

Oh-kay.

It's a real dead piano key, and the more you think about it the worse it gets.

Rating:
Summary: Disgruntlement
Review: Lots of invective and some sublime writing that ultimately leads nowhere. Your point, Mr. Rushdie?

Rating:
Summary: Fury leaves furious disappointment
Review: As a novel, Fury has a simple story. As a lead character, Fury has a self absorbed weakling who runs from challenge filled with fear. As a work by Salman Rushdie, Fury falls so short of his earlier work, that it is an embarrassment to read, because although his style is similar, the writer obviously has lost his soul and meaning in the New World.
If you read the other reviews, you garnered the kernels of the plot. Continue to read if you want serious plot revelation. (If it's by Salman then the writing, characters, and the grand swirl of history encompassing the lives of the characters mean much more then the story, right?) Middle aged rich man goes to NYC, leaving wife and kid, meets two young unbelievably gorgeous women who save his soul, end his fury, and reinvigorate his imagination. He allows his best friend journalist to come to his own demise despite warnings from second beautiful woman and then lets second woman die. Becomes much richer in the process. Pretty gross, huh.
So basically, Salman has created his most disgusting self absorbed creature of his last four fictional works, (Haroun, Moor, and Ground), and then failed to provide any real context, understanding, or grounding for the character. Even Salman's New York is completely unreal. For Salman, or the protaganist, NYC is america and NYC is manhattan below 125th Street. The wealthy isolated Malik never even gets across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Also, Salman conveniently forgets the fact that New York City and America is more then the wealthy entrepreneurs and information/celebrity/and media industrialists. There are a lot of lower income people who make up the city, and needless to say, nary a mention of the working class. Fury, with its gross and simple attacks on consumption, the forgetfulness of america, and celebrities, is really a story of a rich man who uses women to feel good about himself and enjoy his life. His supposed haunting by the mythic greek furies is so unconvincing. Is this the story of the Angry White Male made hip with multi cultural cast and shrewd mythological references? It is either really misoginistic, (with the rich heiresses harnessed into pony girl and s&m attire,) or about man's inability to see anything beyond the surface beauty of a woman. Only in a shallow, simple world would a woman have the beauty to cause car crashes and make every man act like an idiot. Especially in NY, where people are armored against that sort of thing - turn the corner and see another heartbreaker - and a lot of the men are ... anyway.
So Fury is really a simple, shallow, hollow book and story, dressed in flashy Rushdie style prose, filled with allusions and hip, knowing references, accessing and borrowing several different signature styles of writing from different authors. And not one part coming close to the excellence of the chapter "Season of the Witch," not one character as compelling as Vina Apsara or Aurora Zoigiby.
Fury is the emperor with no clothes. It is the hollow facade of literature. It pretends to be so snide, smug, and smart, but it is just cheaply titilating, crass, and ultimately, a boring, tiring read. Skip it and reread The Moor's Last Sigh or the Ground Beneath Her Feet, and read a book with something to say.

Rating:
Summary: sal is a short story writer
Review: rushdie's indubitably a dude (everyone on the london scribe scene adores him) but jeez the guy is a short story writer (EAST/WEST is completely brilliant), not a novelist. Fury's just as infuriatingly unfinishable as was Midnight's Children (by Krishna, the guy tries SO hard), the dreadful and ploddy Moor's Last Sigh, and the breakneckedly beginning/quickly petering Satanic Verses...keep on writing for Granta and the New Yorker,Sal--hanging with U@ and being a chumly chum...but please stop him from writing any more big books. go read V2 Naipaul's A House for Mr Biswas, everybody. cheers

Rating:
Summary: Something of a disappointment
Review: I'm a great admirer of Rushdie's writing, but I was somewhat disapppointed with Fury. Although it grew on me as I made my way through it, it's several notches below Midnight's Children and The Moor's Last Sigh.
Problem 1: Rushdie's eagerness to display his mastery of American pop culture is so much in the forefront that it's obtrusive. Read the first chapter and you'll see what I mean. Constant -- and self-conscious -- references to Britney Spears, Marky Mark, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Leonardo DiCaprio, etc. are shoved to the foreground. In addition to being a distraction, this likely will make Fury become dated quickly.

Rating:
Summary: Overwrought and superficial
Review: The metaphor of fury is a nice a idea, but just doesn't pan out for all of America. Rushdie skims over the surface of things, but doesn't really get past the consumer culture facade he tries to creakily prop up and lampoon. The protagonist is the only character with any depth. Also, the murder and coup subplots are just plain unbelievable. The book reads like a hasty, cutsey, journalistic first draft.

Finally, the events of 9/11 make the whole book seem dated.