Questions questions questions (The Ground Beneath Her Feet - Salman Rushdie)

Member Name: Pamsy

Product:	The Ground Beneath Her Feet - Salman Rushdie
Date:	17/07/01 (66 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Compelling, Unique

Disadvantages: Lengthy, Too philosophical

The greatest novel ever written about rock & roll gods, "The ground beneath her feet" is exciting and thrilling yet philosophical and condensed into content and meaning. Rushdie uses the story of two pop superstars, Vina Apsara and Ormus Cama, as an excuse to tell the story of the world, or at least, a parellel world.

The author tries almost too hard to show every little detail of this world. The structure is well organized with a slow build up that leads to a climax, though written retrospectively.

Perhaps a little too original this fiction tries to question solid concepts such as reality and human nature. Rushdie almost seem to be trying too hard, always looking for new things to say but only rephrasing points already made. He defines vague questions, such as 'what if what we percieve as reality, is in fact not reality' and 'death is more than love or is it'. His evocations of rock music are awkward and theatrical.

Rushdie does, however, admit that death has power, especially in creating a myth: "in death she has indeed transcended all frontiers: of race, skin, religion, language, history, nation, class".

Death is also presented as able to conquer and overshadow 'human' love "But I was wrong about the nature of the metamorphic force working its marvels upon us. In our case it was not love, but death".

The question of human divinity seems to preoccupy Rushdie. He doesn't seem to come to a definite answer because the questions he sets are so vague. The conclusion that some 'have it' while others don't: "Many of us are able to answer life's darkest questions". Most of us are trying to be what we cannot be: "there is that within us which believes us worthy of the stars" i.e. people aren’t satisfied with being human, we wish to be divine, explain the mysterious.

Rushdie’s ambivalence on this subject does giv
e credit to the view that in every human being there’s the Apollonian and the Dionysiac nature.

What the novel ultimately aims to express the fragility of this world, the relativity of reality, and the ground constantly moving beneath our feet. Throughout he is questioning reality, our sense of order, and the world as we perceive it: "the world isn’t realistic any more" (but is it "real"?). His main problem is, it's all questions and philosophy, he only hints on points, but won't commit himself to say anything.

So two worlds are in collision, and one will inevitably fall. The other world, however, is not any better just different and not that much so. One of the reasons Rushdie gives for the end of the world is that people broke away from tribal collectivity, creating pluralistic societies of individuals, but "if we could cut ourselves loose, then so could everything else, so could event and space and time and description and fact, so could reality itself". In other words, isolationism causes such.

So what happened yesterday no longer has happened today, or is it that it is no longer remembered? Ultimately, the world is being destroyed, or self-punished because "the best in our nature is drowning in the worst". Again this is all philosophy, and one feels cheated when he reaches the end of the book to realise this.

Salman Rushdie is a deep thinker, but perhaps too philosophical, posing questions without answers. No doubt he has a sharp insight of this world, and can express points clearly and is a literary expert, but ultimately, all it can amount to is philosophy. He's also a little too interested in the term 'reality', hinting the world does not exist and such, elabarating on this only with questions.

Interesting, but too philosophical. Could be half the length it is and make the same points, that is if you were to call what he makes 'points
9; and not 'hints'.

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