Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #178264 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Even before it published, Salman Rushdie's novel Fury was the subject of controversy. Holland's literary community was livid that a novel written by a non-Dutch writer was funded by their government. Rushdie watchers will spend column inches playing "spot the unmistakable biographical references": the main character Malik Solanka is a 55-year-old Indian professor; he later comes to live in England and flees to New York, leaving his wife and young son; in America, he falls for the beautiful Neela, clearly modelled on Rushdie's partner. However, tempting as it may be to focus on the circumstances of a book, rather than the text alone, ultimately it is the prose that must speak for itself.

The Fury of the title refers both to the mid-life rage of the protagonist, who finds himself standing over his sleeping wife and son armed with a kitchen knife, and the mythological furies who tore to pieces those men whom the gods had judged. As in his previous novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet, he explores the relationship of the artist to his creation and to his audience. Solanka--Cambridge philosopher, doll-maker and possible serial killer--is the unlikely and unwilling creator of a pop-culture phenomenon that comes to represent everything he despises about modern cultural malaise. He is a part-creator of a culture he hardly understands--an anachronism. The novelist's prose reflects this alienation, but unfortunately with few insights or pleasures for the reader used to his contemporary mythological lyricism. Rushdie's pop references check-list the late 20th-century US from Clinton to OJ to the World Wide Web, and this, combined with their built-in obsolescence, renders Solanka/Rushdie's narrative strained. The urban culture of New York and Webspeak provide rich seams of traditional and new vocabularies and grammar for this most magpie-like of playful language lovers to line his literary nest with. However, in so doing, he cuts himself off from the emotional intensity and drive, combined with layered cultural complexity, that has distinguished his work, the most celebrated being Midnight's Children. Rushdie at his best is an intriguing writer; ultimately, it may be easier to extract him from the media circus that surrounds him than from the comparisons with his own compelling body of work. --Fiona Buckland

GQ
‘Rushdie has found inspiration in New York, and pulls apart he city’s every nuance in this dark brilliant comedy’

Boyd Tonkin, Independent
‘Thrilling writing…A simmering novel, as crammed with passion and potholes as a New York street’

Customer Reviews

My First Rushdie Novel!!!
A really enjoyable read!!! From the beginning Rushdie's narration is driven from the perpective of his protagnist Malik Solanka(a philosopher cum popular dollmaker) a character, who one can assume, is not unlike Rushdie (middle aged, tempremental and member of privilegded arty circles). The emphasis on Malik's perceptions gives Rushdie a platform to explore ideas that are seemingly specific to him but which are surprisingly universal. Plot wise it revolves around Malik fleeing to New York from London and his family. This escape is a result of a strange incident which has led him to believe he may possibly harm his family. In New York he is forced to make sense of himself and the world around him. This done by a his exploration of; the strange city he finds himself in; his roots in India; his marriages; his sexual daliances; his success as the creator of doll which has become a media sensation; his high soceity friends.

Due to the Fury's autobigraphical slant Rushdie indulges himself in a fair degree of -thinly veiled- self-aggrandisement. This is particularly evident in the media impact Malik's creation (a doll) has on mainstream culture. Also, Malik's other creations bizzarely become an integral part of coup on a politically tumultuous pacific island (think Fiji). However in spite of this, Fury is a good novel. In a lot of ways I found it similar to Saturday by Ian McEwan, not in regards to plot or even in terms of tone...however both Fury and Saturday seem to explore post-middle aged angst in a universal and human way.

Its Rushdie, therefore it is brilliant
This is Salman Rushdie's most autobiographical novel. It is also his most readable. Fury tells the story of Cambridge Philosopher turned legendary doll maker Malik Solanka who is struggling to control his furious anger. His famous creation, Little Brian, has been appropriated by the media and transformed into everything he most detests about consumerist marketing and one night he finds himself standing over his sleeping child with a knife in his hand. Fearing for the safety of his young family Malik retreats to New York City where he finds refuge amidst a city more furious than himself. This is a city where cab drivers froth with hatred, petty resentments tear relationships apart and a serial killer is murdering women with a slab of concrete. Against this backdrop Malik Solanka tries to rebuild his life and unexpectedly developed a new doll. But will it be a success? Does the internet offer the chance for him to determine every aspect of his creation? And what about those periods of memory loss, could he be the serial killer?
This is a novel about the relationship between an artist and his creation. Only Salman Rushdie could combine the mythic Furies with contemporary popular culture and do so with such high-tempo panache. It is a terrific joy to read Rushdie, no other writer is able to combine so many themes and bring them together seamlessly and with such ease. If you have never read anything by the pre-eminent author of our time, this is the first place you should start. You will not be disappointed.

More like mildly annoying
I suppose it was worth reading, it keeps bumping along, but there are way too many loose ends in Fury to make it thoroughly recommendedable. The main problem with this novel is there are dozens of ideas and none of them are properly worked out. First it's an old man's sadness at the passing of time, then it's a murder mystery, then it's an allegory, then it's a satire.

The whole 'beautful young women can't resist rich old intellectuals' is also a bit tiresome, especially when it happens twice in the storyline.

Still, the language is fruity and witty, and the plot - jagged as it is - at least swerves enough time to keep you interested. So in the end it's probably worth the effort.