Gratitude (and, tons of it!) is owed to NetGalley, Random House, and Salman Rushdie for the ARC. My very first ARC and it’s a RUSHDIE novel! Kindly indulge my victory pirouette before we proceed.
As the inhabitants of a particularly depressing timescape (two weeks after I finished this book, Charlottesville happened!)– this epoch that marks the re-emergence of mainstream fascism, glorification of bigotry, justification of intolerance and vacillation of the entire planet towards right-wing fanaticism, we have very limited options when it comes to seeking solace from the cacophony of terrifying voices loaded with hatred. And The Golden House provides just that!
After his previous outing with the explosive 2Y8M28N that fantastically traversed the dizzying clouds of magical realism, Salman Rushdie has landed in the land of realism with The Golden House – an almost-bespoke novel for the contemporary America that spans across the past decade and anatomizes every issue that managed to capture its collective consciousness. Conspicuous in its dearth of Rushdie’s signature wordplay and elements of magical realism, The Golden House could easily be mistaken to be another writer’s. But if you are a Rushdie fanboy, you’d be comforted by his evident love of parables and the frequent parallels to Greek mythology scattered throughout the book. This book would appeal to those who’d wanted to try Rushdie but were discouraged by the complexity of his earlier novels and even to those who hated his style. Rushdie tries on a new skin in this more-conventional novel where he retains his sheer genius without the whirling prose that may be intimidating to some. Rushdie fans get to see a different avatar of his; hesitant readers get to sunbathe in his delicious writing that’s stripped off the elements they may not desire.
The Golden Family comprises the puissant septuagenarian patriarch Nero Golden and his three sons who relocate to New York from an unspecified country (Guess!), haunted by a mysterious past that they’re hell-bent on concealing. The story is narrated by an aspiring filmmaker who’s on a desperate prowl for stories and finds his treasure in the Goldens who move to his posh neighborhood that is fondly referred to as The Gardens. Their precious past is slowly unraveled as he grows closer to the Golden Men and his dream project materializes as he peels off their façade layer by layer. Rushdie meshes the story of the Goldens with the history of America before, during & after Obama’s rule, Greek mythology, philosophizing and his commentary on American culture. The resulting product is colorful, captivating and extremely relevant in today’s world.
Echoes of Rushdie’s previous novels can be frequently picked up in this story – especially Midnight’s Children and Fury. Identity is one of the most important themes here, with Goldens expurgating their original identities to escape their crushing past and one of the characters undergoing gender transition. A very memorable passage in the book draws a beautiful parallel between a person undergoing gender transition and Gregor Samsa’s despair in Metamorphosis.
At times The Golden House felt like an American version of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, chronicling the cultural and political issues consuming a whole nation; but narrated from the perspective of a wealthier, more selfish narrator. As we are carried forward from 2016 elections to Brexit to Aadhar cards, we are worried if these contemporary novels driven by concern for this depressing world are too obsessed with the NOW to make any sense in the future. Would this be remembered as well as Midnight’s Children in twenty years? Is present contemporaneity bought at the cost of future’s?
Literature Junkie 