Quichotte by Salman Rushdie (34)

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Random House (September 3, 2019)
• ISBN: 9780593132982

AMAZON

Quichotte, an aging travelling salesman obsessed with TV, is on a quest for love. Unfortunately, his daily diet of reality TV, sitcoms, films and soaps has distorted his ability to separate fantasy from reality. He wishes an imaginary son, Sancho, into existence, while obsessively writing love letters to a celebrity he knows only through his screen. Together the two innocents set off across America in Quichotte's trusty Chevy Cruze to find her and convince her of his love. Quichotte's story is told by Sam DuChamp, a mediocre spy novelist in the midst of a midlife crisis, and as the stories of DuChamp and Quichotte intertwine, we are taken on a wild, picaresque journey through a familiar country on the edge of moral and spiritual collapse.

Salman Rushdie is the author of thirteen previous novels—Grimus, Midnight’s Children (for which he won the Booker Prize and the Best of the Booker), Shame, The Satanic Verses, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, The Moor’s Last Sigh, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Fury, Shalimar the Clown, The Enchantress of Florence, Luka and the Fire of Life, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, and The Golden House—and one collection of short stories: East, West. He has also published four works of nonfiction—Joseph Anton, The Jaguar Smile, Imaginary Homelands, and Step Across This Line—and coedited two anthologies, Mirrorwork and Best American Short Stories 2008. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. A former president of PEN American Center, Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for services to literature.

REVIEW:

What a hard book to read, but I'm glad I did.
Doesn't mean that I enjoyed it though. In the end, I didn't.
This story is a ghost story of sorts and yet not a ghost story. It's a flip between two worlds. Reality and fiction, which the author is living in the weirdest reality anyway.
Plus there was a hint of Pinnochio. Y'know, the wooden boy with Jimminy Cricket. A little too close to the original story for me, from such a controversial writer. I'm disappointed in this entirely.
It's supposed to be a love story but the only love I saw was between brother and sister. Was that theoretical? I have no clue, maybe... Otherwise, it's gross and wrong.
I'm lost. I don't even want to be found at this point.
Still, I'm happy I read something from Rushdie. I just wish I went with the book I was most curious about, The Satanic Verses. After reading this, I don't know if I can do another of his books. It's a lot.


1.5/5

**Compensation may be earned from the link within. This copy was won at Goodreads. Opinions are owned by Freda's Voice.