Random House, January 2009
The Enchantress of Florence is Salman Rushdie's most recent sweeping and masterfully-written historical novel, set in sixteenth century Florence and Sikri, the seat of the Mughal Empire of the East. The plot orbits the fortunes of a young adventurer with many names, the Mughal emperor Akbar, and the enchantress Qara Köz; however, subplots abound, and even the most clever, insightful reader will not manage to guess the tale in its entirety.
Salman Rushdie has long been a student of history (he focused on it during his time at Cambridge), and historical fiction is his hallmark. According to Mr. Rushdie, he did more research for the Enchantress of Florence than any of his previous novels, and although it is clear that this is a piece of fiction, we are left with the distinct impression that things could have happened this way. In fact a whole lot of the daily activities of the characters in the various locales of the novel did happen this way, and through beautiful descriptions and subtle characterizations readers will find themselves utterly transported into the past.
The Enchantress of Florence is Salman Rushdie's most recent sweeping and masterfully-written historical novel, set in sixteenth century Florence and Sikri, the seat of the Mughal Empire of the East. The plot orbits the fortunes of a young adventurer with many names, the Mughal emperor Akbar, and the enchantress Qara Köz; however, subplots abound, and even the most clever, insightful reader will not manage to guess the tale in its entirety.
Salman Rushdie has long been a student of history (he focused on it during his time at Cambridge), and historical fiction is his hallmark. According to Mr. Rushdie, he did more research for the Enchantress of Florence than any of his previous novels, and although it is clear that this is a piece of fiction, we are left with the distinct impression that things could have happened this way. In fact a whole lot of the daily activities of the characters in the various locales of the novel did happen this way, and through beautiful descriptions and subtle characterizations readers will find themselves utterly transported into the past.
Although the differences in the day-to-day from our own are radical and undeniable, what we find within these riveting pages are the seeds of our own awakened culture from both the East and the West. Rushdie himself is the perfect bard to tell this tale, a man whose life has sometimes been, much to his chagrin, a symbol for the clash of these two great civilizations. Surprisingly what we find here is not a catalogue of differences, but rather a somewhat impressive juxtaposition of two cultures that rarely came in contact in their own time, yet operated in extremely similar ways.
The story opens with a mysterious traveler's arrival in the city of Sikri, where he quickly manages to bewitch the Mughal emperor Akbar and the entire city with a story so compelling that he is catapulted to local stardom. We the readers then spend much of the book being lured into this very story ourselves - the tale of a woman who is both magical and beautiful, and whose dual power leads to her rise and fall from grace in several cities across three continents. She is of course the enchantress of the novel's title, Qara Köz, and through her cunning eyes the reader is treated to a most unique perspective on the awesome yet fleeting nature of power itself.
The story opens with a mysterious traveler's arrival in the city of Sikri, where he quickly manages to bewitch the Mughal emperor Akbar and the entire city with a story so compelling that he is catapulted to local stardom. We the readers then spend much of the book being lured into this very story ourselves - the tale of a woman who is both magical and beautiful, and whose dual power leads to her rise and fall from grace in several cities across three continents. She is of course the enchantress of the novel's title, Qara Köz, and through her cunning eyes the reader is treated to a most unique perspective on the awesome yet fleeting nature of power itself.
Rushdie thoroughly explores the ideas of appearance versus reality through the plights of his characters, who are necessarily wrapped up in stories within the story. Furthermore the tale is set in a time when the populace literally believed in magic and was not at all shy about using their imaginations. In fiction and in reality, trying to tell the truth is not always enough; sometimes it turns out that we do not actually know ourselves as well as we think.
The Enchantress of Florence is an edge-of-your-seat tale that readers will not want to put down, and will find themselves thinking about long after they have.
The Enchantress of Florence is an edge-of-your-seat tale that readers will not want to put down, and will find themselves thinking about long after they have.
Editor's note: Read about the writing of The Enchantress of Florence in this March 2009 interview with Salman Rushdie.
