The Enchantress of Florence: A Novel
by Salman Rushdie
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Book Summary Information
Author: Salman RushdieEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2009-01-06
ISBN: 0679640517
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Book Reviews of The Enchantress of Florence: A Novel
Book Review: `Home is the sailor..'
Summary: 4 Stars
Perhaps this is a key (I don't accept that there is only one key) to understanding this novel. Many sailors are happier at sea than they are on land. This novel certainly has its own fluid flow and it may be that those readers who are most comfortable with it are those broadly familiar with the history of the times reflected.
I enjoyed this novel very much. It combines some history (of which I have vague knowledge), a form of story-telling which I have come to love (when it is well delivered) and loathe where it is not. In reading this novel we are not confined to the steps outlined by Mr Rushdie. Instead I felt as though I was being invited to explore other possibilities and to identify other tangents.
To do this novel full justice, I will need to read it again. This may lead me to change my 4 star rating to 5 stars, but I expect not. If you are yet to read this novel, you may wish to examine a range of reviews to ascertain whether this novel is likely to appeal to you.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Summary of The Enchantress of Florence: A Novel
The Enchantress of Florence is the story of a mysterious woman, a great beauty believed to possess the powers of enchantment and sorcery, attempting to command her own destiny in a man's world. It is the story of two cities at the height of their powers-the hedonistic Mughal capital, in which the brilliant emperor Akbar the Great wrestles daily with questions of belief, desire, and the treachery of his sons, and the equally sensual city of Florence during the High Renaissance, where Niccol? Machiavelli takes a starring role as he learns, the hard way, about the true brutality of power. Profoundly moving and completely absorbing, The Enchantress of Florence is a dazzling book full of wonders by one of the world's most important living writers.Amazon Best of the Month, June 2008: Trying to describe a Salman Rushdie novel is like trying to describe music to someone who has never heard it--you can fumble with a plot summary but you won't be able to convey the wonder of his dazzling prose or the imaginative complexity of his vision. At its heart, The Enchantress of Florence is about the power of story--whether it is the imagined life of a Mughal queen, or the devastating secret held by a silver-tongued Florentine. Make no mistake, it is Rushdie who is the true "enchanter" of this story, conjuring readers into his gilded fairy tale from the very first sentence: "In the day's last light the glowing lake below the palace-city looked like a sea of molten gold." At once bawdy, gorgeous, gory, and hilarious, The Enchantress of Florence is a study in contradiction, highlighted in its barbarian philosopher-king who detests his bloodthirsty heritage even while he carries it out. Full of rich sentences running nearly the length of a page, Rushdie's 10th novel blends fact and fable into a challenging but satisfying read. --Daphne Durham
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