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Quichotte

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Quichotte

By: Salman Rushdie
Narrated by: Vikas Adam
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About this listen

** SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019 **

Brought to you by Penguin.

In a tour-de-force that is both an homage to an immortal work of literature and a modern masterpiece about the quest for love and family, Booker Prize-winning, internationally bestselling author Salman Rushdie has created a dazzling Don Quixote for the modern age.

Inspired by the Cervantes classic, Sam DuChamp, mediocre writer of spy thrillers, creates Quichotte, a courtly, addled salesman obsessed with television, who falls in impossible love with the TV star Salman R. Together with his (imaginary) son Sancho, Quichotte sets off on a picaresque quest across America to prove worthy of her hand, gallantly braving the tragicomic perils of an age where 'Anything-Can-Happen'. Meanwhile his creator, in a midlife crisis, has equally urgent challenges of his own.

Just as Cervantes wrote Don Quixote to satirise the culture of his time, Rushdie takes the reader on a wild ride through a country on the verge of moral and spiritual collapse, with the kind of storytelling magic that is the hallmark of his work. The fully realised lives of DuChamp and Quichotte intertwine in a profoundly human quest for love and a wickedly entertaining portrait of an age in which fact is so often indiscernible from fiction.

©2019 Salman Rushdie (P)2019 Penguin Audio Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Fiction

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All stars
Most relevant  
excellent take on the current obsession with reality TV, big pharma, and all that us 'sound bite'.

don't try to understand, just get washed along.

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I want to support the under dog, I don't want to be telling you that Rushdie is a genius, you know that.
But this is humble, witty, readable and yet huge, ambitious and enlightening. What more can a novel be.
He does keep explaining himself, but maybe we deserve that. Look at the mess we have made of the world.

Wish I could find fault with this book but I can't

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What it is: it’s elegantly and densely written with more going on per square inch than you’d get in any number of best sellers; it’s funny and poignant and about very human concerns; it’s realism then magical realism then fantasy then hallucinated speculative science fiction; it’s full of references to contemporary music, politics, comedy, TV, films, art, life; it picks its convoluted path through this Quixotian landscape on cats’ feet in wellies; and it’s totally literary, it has all the badges.

What it isn’t: it’s never pretentious; it’s not self-important or up itself; its elegance doesn’t come at the expense of readability; its real world references aren’t shoe-horned in; it’s not clever-clever; it isn’t laughing at us struggling to keep up with it; it doesn’t play tricks on us; it’s never malign; it doesn’t make a meal of itself. But it’s not very interesting.

My view, obviously, but I couldn’t get behind its characters despite the intensity of their experiences, and I persevered only because it was in audio and the narrator was exceptional and engaging. On the plus side, my interest came alive in the last few pages, so while this book was written for someone who can love it for itself, I want the one those last pages promised.

Beautiful but ...

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So I’ve ventured into the unknown with book. Not really the kind of book I normally listen to and my first Salman Rushdie book. I didn’t finish it, I’ve got 4 hrs left, but I’m so disinterested in the characters that I’ve decided enough is enough. And ‘disinterested’ is the key here. I really couldn’t care less in the characters or how the story ends. It meanders too much and although good and funny in parts, perhaps it’s just too long. I actually like long books and will routinely listen to 20hrs+ books. Two of my favourites being Cryptonomicon which is 42hrs and Reamde 38hrs. They didn’t feel long, but this did.

Meh!

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Rushdie has an incredible imagination and I always get immersed in his world. His characters feel so real.

Amazing as always

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Brilliant book, superbly narrated. This is a complex book, that references a number of genres, most particularly magic realism and meta narrative, that the narrator handles brilliantly. Probably my favourite book of the year.

Excellent

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loved it, found the narration hard to get used to but after a chapter I was obsessed.

would definitely recommend

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A thoroughly enjoyable romp of a book. Fizzes with ideas and I look forward to reading a hard copy soon. Definitely a book that can be read more than once with its story within a story within a story structure.

A great and delightful treat from Salman Rushdie

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Before I write my brief review of Quichotte by Salman Rushdie, I must give my position on Satanic Verses. First of all, I believe in freedom of speech. Secondly, I am opposed to blasphemy or mockery of religion. Thirdly, censorship is necessary even in mature democracies with freedom of expression. Fourthly, if the consequences of the publication of a book exceed the benefits then it should not be published or alternatively destroyed. For these reasons, I opposed the sale of Satanic Verses and am critical of Salman Rushdie for doing it. However, we are best served by remembering all those who lost their lives, on both sides, but otherwise treat the scandal as being in the past. I must also add that I did not read the book but should not be criticised for not doing so. It upset and angered many Muslims and that is the point. Should Salman Rushdie be forever condemned ? No, the matter is now closed.

Quichotte is the first book I have read by the author and will soon follow this by reading his most famous work - Midnight’s Children. I must say, Quichotte is an excellent contemporary novel which for the most part is set in Trump’s America with everything that entails. Quichotte is a character in a novel within the novel and written by the author in the main novel, if that all makes sense, it will if you read it. Not exactly a new technique, it is similar to that employed by Dennis Potter’s The Singing Detective, which happens to be my favourite TV drama series but it adds a fascinating dimension. It is a book that covers the biggest issues of our time - end of the world, racism, love, obsession, the power of television, pharmaceutical ethics, terrorism, drug abuse, reality and fake reality. The novel packs a lot in and is hugely entertaining. It enters my personal list of favourite novels.

Am I In The Novel ?

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Now, I usually get through audibles quickly. However, for a long time I just couldn’t get into it and it became background noise. However, probably around 6 hours in. I fell in love and it was exquisitely performed. Well done to the performers for really bringing to life a beautiful tale.

Typical of Rushdies writing style. Took me 2 years to finish

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