Daring, But Dragging
THE WEEK|September 24, 2017

Daring, But Dragging

Mandira Nayar
Daring, But Dragging

It is certainly ambitious. The Joker as Donald Trump; Bat Woman, a thinly disguised version of Hillary; Babri Masjid; the 2G scam; 26/11 and the Taj; Haji Mastan and even a throwaway reference to Brexit—Salman Rushdie’s The Golden House tries to balance it all.

Cramming disparate ideas and a glittering array of characters, the novel is typically Rushdie, epic in scale. Love, betrayal, secrets, sibling rivalry, murder, tragedy, a beautiful Russian woman, sex, power, the hatred that has swept the world, politics—of hatred, identity, gender and nationalism—and there are no heroes in a post-truth world.

This story is from the September 24, 2017 edition of THE WEEK.

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This story is from the September 24, 2017 edition of THE WEEK.

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