This is right up there with a House for Mr Biswas and Kim and the overlooked Red Earth Pouring Rain as far as I'm concerned. This is a book that should be remembered and revered for centuries to come. At times Rushdie does show off, but why shouldn't he,after all- he can, and we should thank him for the effort. This guy is a walking encyclopedia,a walking dictionary and he possesses one of the most romantic and heroic minds I've yet to encounter. His love of women is on a par with Hesse, and his appreciation of history and epic mythology will never be surpassed. Hyperbolic? Perhaps, but its all there in black and white. A work of pure genius. Required reading.

If you are afraid of reading Rushdie, as many people are -- perhaps concerned he will be too difficult -- don't start here. Read The Ground Beneath Her Feet, or Shalimar the Clown. They are better introductions.

The Enchantress of Florence is a book for those already held in Rushdie's sway. These are the readers who are prepared to pick away the inessential threads until they find the tapestry. The tapestry itself is marvelous, and more than worth the effort.

My full review of The Enchantress is at maryonbooks dot blogspot dot com

Having only read Midnight's Children, I'm in no position to attempt to rank The Enchantress of Florence among Salman Rushdie's other works. I can only describe my reaction to Rushdie's latest offering.

The Enchantress is an old-fashioned adventure. Weaving together romance and action, intrigue and the cinematic grandeur, Rushdie draws his readers into a vivid world of exotic empires and historic wonders where the rules that apply to mere mortals become fluid. The power of great men and women to create by sheer force of will and the power of a story to change a listener drive the novel.

Rushdie's prose is, as always, a pleasure to read. He works his favorite milieu, the intersection of East and West, to drive home the point that it is not man's differences that cause conflict, but his sameness. 'East and West' is enriched by a study of rulers and the ruled but the most thought provoking aspect of the novel is the examinations of men and women and how each gender achieves power.

Despite an abundance of parallel story lines, the narrative is easily followed. The tiny amount of confusion and fuzziness that cling to the edges of the story only add to the mystical feel of the novel.

Having lived in Italy for a time, I found the portions of the novel set in Florence to be especially vivid. I walked the streets that the character walked. I knew the history around which Rushdie wrapped his story. This, I think, really brought that portion of The Enchantress to life. While certainly not a book that requires an encyclopedia to get through, a basic grasp of the period helps the reader see many of the more subtle points Rushdie is making. I feel that I undoubtedly missed some of Rushdie's observations when the action moved to Akbar's court.

In the end, The Enchantress' greatest asset is the deep richness of the world that Rushdie's novel inhabits. It has all the best astributes of old studio blockbusters - sweeping scope, fantastic settings, stunning vistas, exotic locals - and a wonderful interior story, beautiful language, and fascinating characters.

The relationship between the sexes over time and across civilizations is a unifying theme of this broad historical novel and philosophical exploration of the role of the individual within his society. Opening in the court of Akbar the Great, head of the Mughal Empire, Rushdie's latest novel moves back and forth between Mughal India, the Florence of the Medicis, and the Turkish court of the Ottoman Empire. Eventually, his characters even look toward a new land, recently discovered and named by Amerigo Vespucci, a cousin of one of the main characters. Though the novel is complex in its structure and sometimes challenging with its swirling time frame, Rushdie keeps his tone relatively playful, filling the novel with the fantastic, even as he is also depicting violent battles, internecine intrigues, and bloodshed. As always, his prose style is breath-taking, and the questions he raises are thought-provoking.

A yellow-haired stranger wearing a coat of many colors becomes the main storyteller when he arrives at Akbar's court and claims that he is blood kin to the royal family. His tale of his family history, filled with legends about Akbar's family, keep him alive so that he can ingratiate himself with the king, to whom he wishes to present a letter supposedly from Queen Elizabeth. This plot merges with that of Florence when some of the characters mentioned in the Mughal section become main characters in the Florentine section. Three friends, Ago Vespucci, Niccolo "il Machia," and Nino Argalia experience different kinds of lives under different kinds of rulers, a theme that Rushdie ties to that of the individual's search for identity within society.

Throughout the novel, the male characters are sometimes literally bewitched by beautiful women, whom they often idealize to the point that they create new, imaginary characters whom they see as real, including the beautiful, but imaginary, Mughal Queen. One of her distant relatives, "The Enchantress of Florence," known also as Qara Koz, Angelica, and Lady Black Eyes, has lived in the Mughal Empire, Ottoman Turkey, and Florence, a woman who has bewitched every male who comes into contact with her. She, however, just wants to "become what I have it in me to be," and it is she who is supposed to be the mother of the yellow-haired stranger, though she would have been sixty when he was born, perhaps magically.

The novel, while playful and often humorous, has a monumental scope, dealing with three civilizations, many characters with multiple names, complex historical connections shown through vividly depicted wars, elements of fantasy and magic, and movement back and forth in time, as the yellow-haired storyteller tells his story and gets interrupted by his listener(s). This can sometimes be off-putting for the reader, preventing the reader from identifying with characters and instead forcing him/her to be an interpreter of what is happening as the story moves off in many directions at once. The puns, wordplay, and delightful jokes in a novel like The Moor's Last Sigh, for example, are not an important part of this novel, in which the author seems to stand apart, leaving the reader on his/her own. n Mary Whipple

Midnight's Children: A Novel
Shalimar the Clown: A Novel
The Ground Beneath Her Feet: A Novel
The Satanic Verses: A Novel

Oddly, I felt that this book has a 1001 Arabian Nights feel to it - exotic, colourful, magical, fantastical, and cleverly woven tale. So clever, one is lulled to think fact is fiction. Like reading 1001 Arabian Nights, I became a little impatient, i.e. it got a tad long for me after a while.

Overblown, muddled plot, corny characters. Diarrhea of adjectives and superlatives. Notoriety of the author greatly outweighs his literary skills.

Overblown, muddled plot, corny characters. Diarrhea of adjectives and superlatives. Notoriety of the author greatly outweighs his literary skills.

I really enjoyed most of the story, however, as salmon said, this is his most researched work. I actually thought all his cross referencing and mentions of real people tended to be annoying. Saying hausebank of howei nowie was a rice eater, and not saying anything more was actually just boring. Then at other times i was so hooked into the main plot and really eager to see where the story goes.
This was the first book I've read by the author, pretty good.

As a huge fan of Salman Rushdie, I was once again impressed with The Enchantress of Florence. I do have to say that it is much less experimental and thus more accessible to the average reader. Despite this, it maintains the intellectual integrity of philosophies and ideas seen throughout Rushdie's earlier works.

The I yet to figure out what this whole book is about. The story tuists and turns so much I can;t keep up. I don't know who's who or at what time in history the seperate spin off stories are in. Over all very confusing story, and hard to keep up with if you can at all.

This is a good novel, but it could have been a great one. We don't learn enough about Akbar's ideas, or Machiavelli's. Or about Argalia's fighting techniques--weapons, strategies--that made him so successful. There should be a BALANCE between magic realism and history.

I first started reading Rushdie in one of my pretentious phases during college when I wouldn't read a book unless it was controversial. At the time, The Satanic Verses had just come out and, of course, I had to see what all the fuss was about. (I even bought the book in hardcover, something I rarely did in those days.) It turns out that I was so impressed by the novel, that I went back to read his earlier books and have been a fan ever since. Two of my very favorite novels, Midnight's Children and The Moor's Last Sigh, are written by him. And now, I can add The Enchantress of Florence to that list.

Rushdie's best novels are too rich to summarize. Let me just say that this one has stories within stories within stories. The first key story concerns a young, very European man who arrives at the court of Emperor Akbar, claiming to be the Emperor's uncle. To prove this, he tells a spell-binding tale of the world's most beautiful woman who makes a progress from East to West, "enchanting" various powerful men, until she ends up in Florence--the second key story of the novel. Within these, there is also the wonderful story of three young Florentine boys--one by the name of Niccolo Machiavelli--friends who go on to impact the world in ways they do not expect.

Of course, these stories are populated with memorable characters both major and minor. I was most taken by the Emperor Akbar and his fascination with what my be called "normalcy" as he feels called to greatness and struggles to understand his own power. There is the enchantress herself, Qara Koz a.k.a Angelica, and her (almost) equally beautiful servant and twin called Mirror, who cut swaths through the people around them with their looks and subtlety. There are the three boys--Ago, Niccolo, and Argalia--who start together but travel very different paths to manhood. Then there are the host of "minor" characters who come in and out of the narrative but leave a indelible mark in the memory: the prostitutes, Skeleton and Mattress; the sailor, Andrea Doria; the Emperor's plethora of family and servants.

No one since Dickens has had the skill to believably weave together a host of stories and characters into a wonderful, coherent whole until Rushdie. If this novel isn't as massive and intricate as some of his other, bigger novels, it comes through as being much more thought out and disciplined. The "competing" journeys from East to West (by Angelica) and West to East (by Mogor, our young story-teller) make for a compelling framework. And unlike some of his earlier novels which come across as a mad dash to the finish, this one progresses at a more leisurely pace, allowing a slow path to its depths. It's a great journey to take.

I leave you with one final recommendation in relationship to this book. I was fortunate to be able to see a discussion with Rushdie at the New York Public Library last month. In it, he discusses this novel as well as a number of other topics. If you're looking for a little more insight into Rushdie and this novel, check out the video on the NYPL website.

I heard Rushdie speak about the Enchantress of Florence at the New York Public Library before I read his book. I thought others might like to do the same. You can watch the event for free here:

http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/pep/pepdesc.cfm?id=4248

I appreciate SR's ability to interweave poetry and prose so well in the first half of the book. But this is two (or three) stories that he tried to jam together and just doesn't work.

He's always had his own very unique style, but his talent doesn't save him here. Hopefully he'll do better next time.

This novel is certainly worth the read for any serious reader who is looking for a short interim of "lighter, easier reading" without the lack of the dynamic depth and satisfying complexity of tone, diction, and overall plot that satisfies the mental appetite. The novel spans a veneer across a large fragment of the world and acheives something that few novels ever do: it gracefully touches everything with more than sufficient depth, rather than very little with just enough depth; thus The Enchantress of Florence can be thought of as a shorter and quicker War and Peace. So for readers looking for a change from the likes of Jane Austen and Nathaniel Hawthorne, I recommend this very quick read for a delightful state of ecstasy without the oral mitsubishi (I anticipate only a few of you may know what I'm talking about with that last bit). This truly is a 21st century Count of Monte Cristo (though obviously quite a bit shorter and thus not as permanent in bliss and remembrance).


Oh and as a sidenote, NPR did a delightful podcast with Sir Salman Rushdie himself giving a little preview of the novel, and I recommend anyone check it out. He also does a little Q&A that is quite informative.

The book reads like a poem. There is a beautiful rising and falling of sounds which form magical sentences. Lost in the fairy tale quality of the prose you can be jolted by finding a sentence concluded in contemporary vernacular in perfect meter.

Into the first 5 chapters I was spellbound. In Chapter 6 the story seems to get lost in itself. While I still loved the prose, I no longer cared about the characters. I think that paring away some of the extra plots and cameo characters would improve the book. Some of the baudy comments and scenes work, others like the superflouous plots, could be edited out.

Rushdie writes of big themes such as on power, government and men and women. Some are beautifully stated but the story moves so quickly that you can't digest them.

The literary style is reminiscent of Garcia Marquez and the weaving of history reminiscent of Gore Vidal.

The book reads like a poem. There is a beautiful rising and falling of sounds which form magical sentences. Lost in the fairy tale quality of the prose you can be jolted by finding a sentence concluded by contemporary vernacular (often the kind that is not uttered in polite society) in perfect meter.

Into the first 5 chapters I was spellbound. In Chapter 6 the story seems to get lost in itself or maybe its own cleverness. While I still loved the prose, I no longer cared about the characters. I think that paring away some of the extra plots and cameo characters would improve the book. Some of the baudy comments and scenes work, others like the superflouous plots, could be edited out.

The literary style is reminiscent of Garcia Marquez and the weaving of history reminiscent of Gore Vidal.

The book reads like a poem. There is a beautiful rising and falling of sounds and they form magical sentences. Lost in the fairy tale quality of the prose you can be jolted by finding a sentence concluded by contemporary vernacular (often the kind that is never uttered in polite society) in perfect meter.

Into the first 5 chapters I was spellbound. In Chapter 6 the story seems to get lost in itself or maybe its own cleverness. While I still loved the prose, I no longer cared about the characters. I think that paring away some of the extra plots, characters and gratuitously baudy comments would improve the book.

The literary style is reminiscent of Garcia Marquez and the weaving of history reminiscent of Gore Vidal.

I have been reading and teaching Rushdie for years now at a university, following his work through such misfires as Fury and The Ground Beneath her Feet, because the gems like Satanic Verses, Midnight's Children, and the Moor's Last Sigh (and possibly Shalimar the Clown) were just so brilliant and so unmissable.

This book, unfortunately, is the worst Mr. Rushdie has written. Has he decided to try less hard now that he is well-ensconced in his role as a celebrity? The Enchantress of Mistress recycles much that Rushdie has done better in previous novels. Conceits familiar from other Rushdie novels get trotted out and here they creak rather than sparkle: the nested story, the series of paintings that tell a story about the storyteller/painter, the character poised to translate across cultures and geographies, etc. etc. This is Rushdie by numbers. Nothing very impressive happens here at the level of narrative form, character development, atmosphere, or philosophical reflection.

The novel feel laden with with its own self-congratulatory prose, and it sputters on for far too long. I've read The Moor's Last Sigh and Satanic Verses (much longer novels) in a couple of sittings, but this one felt interminable. When the scene shifts from India to Italy, we are suddenly introduced to a whole new set of characters, after having worked so hard to try to care about the stick figures we had already come to identify (but not know). The logic of picaresque takes over very quickly, which would be great if done with panache, but is simply irritating here because the usual Rushdian excess rings hollow. The master of the superlative has lost his touch here, and everything is either the "most beautiful," "The greatest," or exists "in all the world." As the story came to a close I felt cheated by its banal conclusions: storytelling creates our world and it is an endeavor that is dangerous and priceless in equal measure. Oh, and sectarian thinking is bad, global embrace of multiple cultures is good. But most importantly, in spite of himself, Rushdie communicates to us that our magical realist wizard has run out of spells, and we can see the handkerchiefs tucked up his sleeve before he dazzles himself with them. Give this one a swerve.

This book held my interest for the first half with hard to put down characters, an interesting plot and beautiful descriptions of place. Then a tangle of characters was thrown in without any seeming relationship to the first half of the story. The lineage of these characters was so convoluted, disconnected and obscure that only the most ardent supercomputer would dare try to keep them straight. At this point the book hit the recycle bin. This guy may be a great writer but he could sure use an editor.

"All men needed to hear their stories told," Salman Rushdie proclaims at one point in this marvelous adventure through India and Italy. "The Enchantress of Florence", a splendid story in and of itself, is all about the power of stories, the courage and inspiration people can muster from the tales they tell about themselves. The novel is also aware of how stories bend what is factually accurate and believable in order to tell some deeper truth about why we are truly human. What we create in our minds may not tangibly exist, but that does not mean these things do not hold sway over how we think or behave. In fact, the most fantastical and mysterious may contain the most power. What we think we know may be the least accurate of all.

Keeping with the theme, "The Enchantress of Florence" centers around a man of mystery--a nameless Italian traveler who then adopts several names throughout the book. The traveler journeys to the great kingdom of Hindustan where, through clever manipulation, he is able to obtain an audience with Akbar the Great. He tells Akbar he has a tremendous tale to tell him about both his own past and Akbar's.

Rushdie's descriptions are sumptuous and addictive, but it is his philosophical musings that are the most portable and significant. Rushdie's novel has the aura of Harry Potter--it is well-aware of mood and setting and effectively communicates them, but it also has an exciting, suspenseful plot. More importantly, Rushdie masterfully conceals within the book an important teaching about how we should view ourselves in the world--an appropriate tonic to triumphalism and absolutism of any form, a pleading to sensitively and humbly hear the divine voice within and around.

The only Rushdie books i've read before this one were Shalimar the Clown and Midnight's Children. Shalimar the Clown was first, and i liked it, but felt Rushdie was overrated but some of my friends in love with him. Then, Midnight's Children absolutely captured me and is still one of the best books i have ever read (let's go with, third). I was greatly looking forward to The Enchantress and was greatly rewarded.
I remember thinking how the first 70 pages or so were the best opening pages I have ever encountered. I was enthralled, in love with the characters and the world Rushdie created. I could literally see every palace, every article of clothing (especially the coat!) and every town come to life.
The rest of the book continues with its enchanting prose and the stories continue to entertain.
Unlike Midnight's Children, this book will probably not stand the test of time as a true literary masterpiece, but I don't think that was its point. Rushdie wanted to write a romance novel, not an allegory or moral story or grand epic. Whether or not this truly is a romance novel is debatable, it definitely dips into that theme, but there is so much more to it.
All in all, it's a wonderful summer read and I truly enjoyed every minute I spent reading it.

An incredible, incredible book. Stunning prose, written with an authenticity that is second to none. I couldn't put it down. This is my first Rushdie novel and he just became one of my favorite authors.

Usually love Mr. Rushdie's work, especially Shalimar The Clown, The Moor's Last Sigh and of course Midnight's Children, but there have been some notable exceptions (Ground Beneath Her Feet & Fury). So I approached The Enchantress of Florence with high expectations. Even at his most self-indulgent, he is worth reading for his incredible and evocative use of language, and unfortunately, I fear this is the case here. Might have been fun but too much for my taste.

Things I love about reading a Rushdie novel:

1. I have to keep a dictionary to hand.
2. I have to set it down in my lap time and time again to bury my face in my hands with giggling. And then reread, repeat.
3. Or shake my head, and wish I had such a grasp of language.
4. And wit
5. And intellect

His books are for people who know how to pay attention. If you can, you reap the rewards. His narrative is meandering and flowery, but that is what I adore. His writing always takes me to places of wonder, pain, amusement, awe and appreciation. This book is no exception. Rushdie is a literary genius.

I'm torn. I can't say I hated the book, yet, I can't recommend it either. I confess, I really didn't "get it". Interesting historical facts, some lovely, lyrical phrases, but, there was something missing; like a satisfying ending. The last 20-30 pages seemed to drag on incessantly and when, oh happy day, I reached the end, I first breathed a sigh of relief, and second, wondered why I'd stuck with it. You pays your money and takes your chances. Not a total disappointment but pretty darn close.

In THE ENCHANTRESS OF FLORENCE, his 11th work of fiction, Salman Rushdie has given the breath of life to a world completely alien to our own, and yet, in distinctive ways, rooted in a reality possible for us to recognize. Rushdie is a master teller of tales, and the seductiveness of this delightful work, which blends characters from the historical to the fantastic, is certain to burnish that reputation.

The novel opens in the late 16th century, when a yellow-haired character in a multicolored coat, calling himself Mogor dell'Amore, appears in Fatehpur Sikri, the gleaming capital city of the Mughal Empire, ruled by Akbar the Great, a descendant of Genghis Khan and Timur the Lame (Tamerlane). Akbar is in many ways a strikingly modern man, questioning the existence of God and presiding over spirited debates in the Tent of the New Worship between competing philosophical schools --- the Water Drinkers, religious thinkers and mystics, and the Wine Lovers, philosophers and scientists. And yet this same rationalist skeptic has created an imaginary queen named Jodha, to whom he's more devoted than any of the dozens of beautiful wives who comprise his harem.

The Mogor, bearing a stolen letter containing credentials as the ambassador of England's Queen Elizabeth I, describes himself as "a man with a secret...a secret which only the emperor's ears may hear." Woven through the balance of the novel, the storyteller (born Niccolò Vespucci) unveils that secret, narrating the mysterious, enthralling tale of the devastatingly beautiful Qara Köz (Lady Black Eyes), the enchantress of the novel's title, and her companion, the Mirror. Born into the Persian Empire, Qara Köz is captured by Antonino Argalia, a Florentine soldier of fortune now in the service of the Ottoman Turks. Argalia's boyhood friends include the starkly realistic political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli and Agostino Vespucci, cousin of the New World explorer, Amerigo.

Argalia returns with his gorgeous prize to Florence, and when Qara Köz and the Mirror arrive, Rushdie tells, in a typical example of the lavish description with which the novel is suffused, how "their faces shone with the light of revelation, as though in those early days of their unveiling they were capable of sucking light in from the eyes of all who looked upon them and then flinging it out again as their own personal brilliance, with mesmeric, fantasy-inducing effects." Argalia assumes the role of condottiere of the city, chosen by the ruling Medici family to protect its interests in the myriad political and religious conflicts of the early Renaissance. Qara Köz, now known as Angelica, captivates the citizens of Florence, and it appears a golden age is at hand. But when the Medici ruler, Lorenzo II, dies suddenly and under mysterious circumstances, the Florentines suspect their cherished enchantress has practiced witchcraft to bring about his death and drive her into exile.

Rushdie's tale overflows with fantastic characters and amazing stories: a court painter named Dashwanth who literally paints himself into a portrait, or a "glowing lake" that "looked like a sea of molten gold" transformed into a "muddy hollow where once...sweet water had glistened" in a matter of days. There are magic potions and spells, like the "Great Uzbeg Anti-Shiite Potato and Sturgeon Curse," albino giants, witches, heroes and cowards, scoundrels and fools. There's even a gruesome account of a battle between Argalia's Ottoman forces and the army of Vlad the Impaler, the cruel ruler on whose life the tale of Dracula is based.

Alongside these vivid creations of Rushdie's imagination are well-known historical figures like Akbar and Machiavelli, and lesser-known ones like the Italian warlord Andrea Doria. As much as THE ENCHANTRESS OF FLORENCE is infused with striking characters and lavishly spun tales, Rushdie also toys with big ideas: the relations between men and women, the cultural encounter between East and West, the uses of political power and the struggle between modernity and tradition.

The novel is multilayered and complex, and there's some degree of patience required at times to absorb all the characters and place names tossed into the bubbling stew. It's probably not a bad idea to have an historical resource close by when reading. Indeed, Rushdie lists more than four pages of works he consulted in researching this book.

"The story was completely untrue," one of Rushdie's characters notes, "but the untruth of untrue stories could sometimes be of service in the real world." Those words might serve as a suitable epigraph for a work that is itself so enchanting and teeming with life.

--- Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg

Having read a few of Salman Rushdie's previous novels, I was looking very forward to diving into his new book. I'm happy to say I was not disappointed. This breathtaking story interweaves the lives of various individuals from Akbar's empire in India to Macchiaveli and the ruling Medici of Florence. The sheer vastness and complexity of the storyline is perplexing at times, but is smoothed out as the story progresses and loose ends tie up.

As usual, the prose is absolutely exquisite, with subtle jokes and musings abound. Rushdie's ruminations about politics, love, sex, religion, and the meaning of life are lucidly expounded. His ability to convey the motivations and desires of his characters make them all the more real, amid the phantasmagorical landscape and sinuous storyline. A delight to read.

Highly recommended.

The topic is fascinating, but the plot is twisted and difficult to not only read but believe. Too bad. A writer with Rushdie's experience could have done much better.

Rushdie's brand of magical realism has the odd quality of simultaneously engaging you in a narrative you think should be interesting and distancing you from that very narrative. Told like a fairy tale, the tone constantly reminds you that you are reading, and that reading is an artificiality. However, ever mindful of the artifice, the reader then constantly wonders, what purpose then did the maker have in mind? Thus, along the way of this entertwined story, we begin to pay close attention to the asides discussing the way of kings, the place of lying, the role of religion, the truth of power. Like the religious pilgrim, it's no good mindlessly entering the temple and going through the motions. You, dear reader, must work out the value of journey.

I was immediately drawn in by the narrative of "The Enchantress of Florence" and, while it didn't always hold me in rapt attention, I was generally enchanted by the imagination, wit, wisdom, and splendid evocation of a certain time and place when the boundary between what is real and what is imagined was fluid. I found my background in Ottoman and South Asian history and literature enriched my reading of this book. Without that background, I may have found it less enjoyable.

I looked forward to reading Mr. Rushdie's latest novel, but with a bit of trepidation. His books have never been an easy read for me, as his artful if somewhat flowery prose often distracts me from the story line. I often find myself foundering in the complexities of his words at the expense of other elements of the story. Generally I have to read and reread to begin to fully appreciate all the varied and wonderful aspects of each tale. My efforts have always been rewarded, though, by a wonderful story replete with interesting characters, and a satisfying sense that my mind has been enriched by the reading.

Unfortunately, this book did not deliver the cohesive, fascinating story I am used to from this author. Try as I might I could not really follow the story, which seemed to rely primarily upon the story-teller within the main story to provide the forward movement. While I enjoyed this at first, I found it increasingly irritating, as even the story-teller wove a multi-dimensional tale that wended its way throughout the main story jumping from one timeframe to another, one group of characters to another. The result for me at the end of many hours of reading was a feeling of complete disconnectedness from the story, even though I found portions of it enthralling enough.

The writing as always was beautiful and wonderful in its own way. I found portions of the book to be fascinating and enjoyable, but overall the work involved to make my way through the book was disheartening. I have read the reviews of others who seem to think that this book was really just a series of short stories or vignettes that the author may or may not have intended to stand on their own. Maybe this is true, but I believe that there are ideas and forces at work here that are much deeper. I just wish I knew what they were.

I may try reading this book again. Or maybe I need a study guide?

Rushdie has often been torn between two opposing interests. On the one hand, he often has a moral that he wants to impart. Midnight's Children was about the dissolution and insanity of India; Shalimar the Clown was an overwrought, heartbroken thing about Kashmir; The Moor's Last Sigh was an impassioned story of a writer on the run from a death sentence -- an obvious allusion to the price that the government of Iran had put on his head. (That death sentence was, itself, in retaliation for The Satanic Verses, which is Rushdie's worst novel. If you're going to be sentenced to death, I say, be sentenced to death for a great work of art.) On the other side, he wants to just tell a good story, with or without a moral.

Sometimes, as in the case of The Satanic Verses -- and to an extent in Midnight's Children -- Rushdie loses all discipline. He's self-consciously creating a phantasmagoria, which is a danger for someone who writes in the magical-realist tradition of García Márquez: rather than injecting bits of magic into the daily lives of your characters, sometimes you dive off the deep end and create a work of fiction that really wants to be a fantasy work. This was the trouble in The Satanic Verses.

Finally, Rushdie sometimes wants to paint the world as a carnival, and the brushstrokes lose all control. (Think here of the films of Federico Fellini.) Midnight's Children almost suffered from this, but Rushdie reined it in.

All of which is prologue to The Moor's Last Sigh and The Enchantress of Florence. These are Rushdie's masterworks. They inject fantasy where it's necessary, tell a captivating story, keep Rushdie's frenetic intelligence in check, and never let a moral overpower the novel's own momentum.

Structurally, the story is similar to the 1001 Arabian Nights, though it doesn't recurse as deeply as the Arabian Nights does. The story begins at a beautiful oasis of a city, presided over by an emperor who -- at least according to his PR -- possesses all the virtues and none of the faults of ordinary mortals. He is the living Truth itself. He refers to himself as "We," inasmuch as he embodies the people themselves.

Into this city, and directly to this grand emperor, comes our hero (sort of -- remember that there are stories within stories, so there are several heroes) with a vast secret to tell. He's a magician of sorts, wearing a strange coat in which endless objects can hide. Where has this strange man come from? What does he have to tell the emperor? How will he get through the many walls surrounding His Majesty?

This is the stuff of great fun. I don't think I'm giving away much if I tell you that he does make it through to the emperor, through the use of magical potions of a special sort. Every time Rushdie could stop and tell a little story -- say, about how the potions were made, or what they contain -- he does, and each time he does I got tickled. These are terrific stories.

Our hero himself has a story to tell the emperor. That story constitutes more or less the entire book. Most of the time we forget that we're inside the inner stories; Rushdie has wrapped us up completely within it. The inner story is where we hear about the character in the title: the Enchantress is the most beautiful woman in the world, the most beautiful woman anyone has ever seen or ever will see. Her mere presence causes otherwise stoic men to fall to their knees and either pray for her or pray for themselves (even the men themselves aren't clear which it is).

And so forth. The storytelling here is without peer. Knights with skin as white as death, court intrigues, epic battles ... this is a throwback to an earlier kind of storytelling, and what a skilled throwback it is.

At the same time, it's a history piece. The grand emperor with whom we started is Akbar the Great (which, Rushdie reminds us, is redundant: "Akbar," or some part of it, means "great"). Akbar's ancestors, it turns out, were connected in various ways with Niccolò Machiavelli and Sandro Botticelli and Amerigo Vespucci. Did these connections actually happen? How about the court intrigues: were there any parallels to them in the real Ottoman Empire? There's material enough in the historical bits alone to fuel research for years; Rushdie himself must have spent years just on that part. It's great fun.

Then there's the meta part of The Enchantress of Florence -- the part that deals with the power of storytelling itself. We learn early on, for instance, that Akbar has brought a queen into existence using only his mind. His force of will is such that she becomes real, and the city eventually sees her as well. When Akbar leaves on a military campaign, he returns to hear his queen relate what has gone on in his absence. He makes love with his imaginary queen. This idea recurs throughout The Enchantress of Florence, but again: never enough to get in the way of the story itself, which is magical without being fantasy.

The Enchantress of Florence is a treasure.

This was my first Salman Rushdie book, and BOY, has it been difficult to neatly summarize for a review! I've sat down countless times over the past couple weeks and just frozen up. So, please forgive the eclectic nature of my review.

On one level, "The Enchantress of Florence" is a historical novel with wonderful information about 16th Century Hindustan (India) and Florence, Italy. On another level, there is the story itself, chock full of characters and their back-stories, and those characters' respective adventures. This layered story interweaves, back and forth across time and place. On still another level, this a platform for a fictionalized Akbar the Great to ponder the deep questions of humanity: a politically powerful man portrayed as being on the cusp of intellectual greatness as well.

There are a great many themes and juxtapositions in this book. Here are a few:
* The confluence of differing histories, philosophies and belief systems (e.g. between East and West);
* Power: political power versus the power of belief;
* The power of belief as a political/historical force: if you believe in something strongly enough, it has the force of reality; it is self-determining; especially in the realm of politics;
* Force and prudence: one of the characters of this book is a fictional Niccolo Machiavelli, who in real history wrote philosophical treatises on political power, particularly espousing the idea of a balance of force versus prudence to successfully rule. The upshot is the employment of this idea: "the ends justifying the means";
* Legend versus history: e.g. "magical realism"; also: what really happened way back when?; can we ever truly know?;
* Women: what kind of power do women have in a patriarchal culture, or any culture, for that matter? Sexual? Intellectual? What do men really want from women? Loyal wife? Plaything? Intellectual equal?;
* Who creates whom? Do we create ourselves, or are we created by others? What factors play into those things?

"The Enchantress of Florence" is very like a huge colorful tapestry: look in the upper right corner and there is a story of ancient Hindustan. Look: bottom left, a picture of 16th Century Florence. Look: there is Akbar the Great... And over there, Niccolo Machiavelli. That one female figure hiding behind a column, sometimes clearly seen, other times faded, seems to be saying something. The women in this tapestry, all of them at its center: so many of them are indescribably beautiful. All the male heads woven ito this picture, from the great of leaders, to the lowliest of servants, are all turned towards them. Looking at this tapestry, it's hard at times to know what is real and what isn't. There are strange workings just under the surface; unexplainable phenomena. In the end, is it just a story? My eyes wander all over this tapestry; there is a lot to see here.

Akbar's complex characterization carries the story. He is characterized as a man who, in his kingdom, tries to reconcile all men, regardless of religion or status. He entertains the incredible idea that discord and difference might actually be a force for good, rather than ill; an idea that coming from a king is very unusual. In one scene he is slicing up a foe, in the next he is contemplating deep things. One moment he questions his identity as a god-like ruler; later in the book he wonders about women, imagining into being his "perfect" woman. This he does at the expense of interest in his "real" wives. Later he is awakened to an undeniable and disturbing allure of an unconventional, self-determinate woman. Akbar's mind cannot be boxed; he is standing on an isthmus between ignorance and enlightenment. Ultimately, however, he realizes that his philosophy is as temporary as life itself: alive only as long as he is.

In its scale (though not in length) "The Enchantress of Florence" is reminiscent of "Don Quixote" or "The Brothers Karamazov". It is unusual for me to read a modern novel that is irreverent with timeline and theme. But like those earlier masterworks, this is a welcome part of the journey. A book with so many layers is one that keeps its reader thinking about it long after the last word is processed.

A Genie in the House of Saud: Zubis Rises (A Genie in the House of Saud)A fabulous miasma of vocabulary, color, and wit. It doesn't matter that you may not comprehend the initial flow of consciousness that issues from certain scenes, you will shortly be drawn into the intricate mysticism of language as Rushdie weaves a tale unrivaled since the pre-written days of fireside imagination. Let go of your inhibitions and mount the magic carpet.

The characters are boldly and clearly drawn. The arc of The Enchantress of Florence compels our empathy, our dread, and our hopes. Follow along as a distant world of heady scents and emotions makes us believe that we are there. And isn't that what a good story should do? Read it. You won't be disappointed.

Years ago (more than I'd like to think about), one of my tutors recommended that I read Salman Rushdie's "Haroun and the Sea of Stories." I tried to finish the novel but have to confess that I didn't. I probably lacked the sophistication back then to appreciate the exquisite prose style and painstaking craftsmanship that went into creating that award winning novel. And truthfully speaking I rather thought that Salman Rushdie was going to be one of the many winning authours that would never make to my reading pile. But something about "The Enchantress of Florence" beckoned, and I decided to give it a go. And I'm truly glad that I did. What an exceptionally enthralling and compelling read "The Enchantress of Florence" turned out to be.

The Mughal Emperor, Akbar, is ready for a diversion away from the woes of family and ruling a vast nation, when a mysterious yellow-haired stranger arrives at his court in Fatepur Sikri, claiming to be an ambassador from England. The stranger has many tales to tell about the distant European city of Florence, and the enchantress from the East that enraptured the people of Florence with her beauty and grace, and soon everyone in Sikri is enthralled by the young storyteller's tales. But will these stories prove the undoing of the court, and will Akbar's growing affection for the storyteller cause even more strife amongst his family?

When I was a child, my mother used to subscribe to an Indian magazine for women that had recipes, articles, sewing tips and vignettes about Akbar and his wise advisor Birbal. Reading "The Enchantress of Florence" transported me back to those wonderful carefree days. Constructed somewhat like "The Arabian Nights," with the mysterious stranger playing the part of Scherazade, "The Enchantress of Florence" is a series of short stories that follows the supposed adventures of Qara Koz, a grandaunt of Akbar's, and that of her greatest love, the mercenary general, Argalia. Many of the stories are based on historical fact, but are told with elements of the fantastical, so that the mood and atmosphere of the novel is really quite fairy-tale like and dazzling. Also adding to this magical tone is Rushdie's powerfully lyrical and vivid prose style and brilliantly rendered scenes. All in all, this was a very, very fascinating and beguiling read that enraptures, dazzles and seduces. Not a book to be missed -- and I think I may be finally grown-up enough to appreciate the authour's other novels.

When I read, I fervently hope to be overcome with thought, beauty, history and by the power of beautiful words. In short, all I ask is . . . beloved author, dazzle me!

Salman Rushdie has dazzled promiscuously with this, his exalted, effete, and gorgeous new work, "The Enchantress of Florence." The last time I was similarly stupefied by sheer talent, veracity and beauty was when I chanced upon Orhan Pamuk's gifted works.

True, there is an astonishing confabulation in "The Enchantress of Florence" but then, this is adamant, consummate storytelling by a great master . . . an author who is loathe to assume that his readers do not quite have the needed references. Bravo! - Writing up to one's readers is a mark of a generous author. And what alacrity of style!

Immobilized and consumed as I was by this book, I was delighted and well, dazzled. I did not find my credulity stretched by the incredible knitting of Mughal India with Medici Florence. In fact, the juxtaposition of East-West was deliriously stimulating. "Enchantress" literally drips with color, scent and florid civilization.

The opening description of the Golden Lake scene makes wonderful allusions to the transient fluidity of power, signified in the person of the Grand Mughal Akbar, a potentate of such extraordinary majesty that readers are invited to contemplate the realization of "apex" and its actual experience within a self-conscious dynasty, whether it be Mughal, Ottoman, Italian. . .or "other"

Alas, I am sad to say, the book ended . . .as must all epics and great ages. Highly recommended. (Write on, Mr Rushdie!)

woe are we, when such a gifted writer demeans himself with sophmoric tripe such as this new novel from salaman rushdie.it appears that mr rushdie feels more than a little envy for J K Rowlings merchandising juggernaut, and has decide to cast his lot in on the childrens fantasy sweepstakes. i sincerely hope he finds his way back to cultured (multi-cultured)writing with adult themes...

When I read, I fervently hope to be overcome with thought, beauty, history and by the power of beautiful words. In short, all I ask is . . . beloved author, dazzle me!

Salman Rushdie has dazzled promiscuously with this, his exalted, effete, and gorgeous new work, "The Enchantress of Florence." The last time I was as stupefied by sheer talent, veracity and beauty was when I chanced upon Orhan Pamuk's gifted works.

True, there is astonishing confabulation in "The Enchantress of Florence" but then, this is adamant, consummate storytelling by a great master . . . an author who is loathe to assume his readers do not quite have all the needed references. Bravo! - Writing up to one's readers is a mark of a great and generous author. (And what alacrity of style!)

Immobilized and consumed as I was by this book, I was delighted and well, dazzled. I did not find credulity stretched by the incredible knitting of Mughal India with Medici Florence. In fact, the juxtaposition of East-West was deliriously stimulating. "Enchantress" literally drips with color, scent and florid civilization.

The opening description of the Golden Lake scene makes wonderful allusions to the transient fluidity of power, signified in the person of the Grand Mughal Akhbar, a potentate of such extraordinary majesty that readers can contemplate the realization of "apex" and its actual experience within a self-conscious dynasty, whether it be Mughal, Ottoman, Italian. . .or "other"

Alas, I am sad to say, the book ended . . .as all epics and great ages must. Highly recommended. (Write on, Mr Rushdie!)

Since this book was released in India first, I had a chance to read it in the fervent hope that it gave us back the Rushdie we lost with "Shalimar the Clown". The good news is that this book is gorgeously written. The bad news is that the 'story' is at best a collection of interesting vignettes with no real purpose, and that the entire enterprise is so overblown that it has no option but to collapse under its' own weight.

Leave it to Rushdie to get too eloquent for his own good. If you are into long, beautifully written sentences that can last an entire page (seriously), then this will appeal to you. After the first thirty pages, one is left wondering if the author is somehow intent upon proving his own literary ability, with scant respect for the readers' tolerance levels of 'well written prose'. He toed the line earlier in "Midnight's Children" (which I still think is grossly overrated) and in "The Moor's Last Sigh" (which is bizarrely underrated despite its meandering narrative), but in "The Enchantress of Florence" we find Rushdie making a full-on attempt to be taken seriously as the "world's greatest living writer". The attempt is desperate, at best, but also strangely pathetic. Why would he need to prove to us that he can write? His own fascination for his mastery of the written word, and indeed the English language, is a bit bizarre, considering he is one author who doesn't need to feel insecure about these things.

That aside, the story is one convoluted mess. Towards the middle of the book, I was reminded of Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian" (which was another insipid, yet wholly superior work in comparison to this). That was a book that was blatantly commercial (re-embracing the vampire genre, etc), but it also lost its way in its' unending quest to become 'serious', with ten page long passages of twelfth century's monks 'secret diaries', etc. This sort of syndrome is present in spades in Rushdie's novel - which suffers both because of its' pretension and its absolute lack of coherent plot.

The plot, if we may, sounds simple - The novel opens with the arrival of a mysterious European at Mughal Akbar's exotic and sophisticated court. The emperor is fascinated with the stranger and his tall tales, although he suspects that the storyteller is also a trickster. To be fair, the 'stranger' sounds totally out of place in the century he is supposed to be in, and acts as if he's stepped out of the 2008 version of the Encyclopedia Britannica. His know-it-all attitude and grotesquely long descriptive passages will test even the most patient reader.

While I did like the geographical transitions between the Mughal Court and Renaissance Florence, I was often reminded of that age-old adage - "All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go". The European Visitor in this book calls himself "Mogor dell'Amore," the Mughal of Love. And the 'Enchantress' is a beauty who is a master in the realms of witchcraft and sorcery. Put these elements together, and we should have gotten a fantastic fable that would work wonderfully as a film adaptation. At the very least it should have stimulated some philosophical discussion. With this book in the hands of Salman Rushdie however, the sum of the parts is as bleak and uninteresting as the individual parts themselves - while there is some spark here and there (Check out the self-indulgent prose from pages sixty two to ninety), nothing really works.

Heres the thing - Indian writing in English is often a 'genre' in itself, but Rushdie has often been the posterboy for the entire Indian-English movement. This book is a mystery - it should have been a short story but for some reason Rushdie thought it was interesting to make into a full-fledged novel. It does not work. The lengthy passages devoted to the 'look of the boudoir' and the 'beauty of the Mughal Architecture' severely tested my capacity for loquacious prose. In fact, this book far outdoes those notoriously long descriptive passages in A.S.Byatt's "Possession".

"The Enchantress of Florence" is not recommendable simply because Rushdie is either suffering the aftershock of the Padma Lakshmi effect and is queasy about his own writing ability - either that, or hes totally lost his talent for storytelling. With this sort of talent, he should perhaps invest in writing political essays and such? As a novel, this simply does not cut the mustard. Three very generous stars - two of them for the past memory of Rushdie's works.

The Enchantress of Florence begins with a mysterious yellow-haired stranger standing astride a bullock cart as he enters the domain of the emperor of India. He is godlike in stance, yet in appearance he is as a fool with his "overly pretty face" and parti-colored coat. The city to which he arrives is one of the grand cities of the world in both scale and wealth. Even the nearby lake seems to be made of gold. This of course is just an illusion brought about by the setting of the sun, but is an appropriate introduction to the story since it will become difficult to separate the real from the imagined as the story progresses.

The yellow-haired man is a teller of stories and he has arrived to tell a story to the Mughal of India that will either bring him fortune or cost him his life. This young man has represented himself to the Emperor Akbar as an emissary of Queen Elizabeth I. The emperor challenges the stranger's identity and would dismiss him except the yellow-haired man, who calls himself first Uccello of Florence and then Mogor dell'Amore (mogul of love), begins to weave the enchanting story of Qara Koz, the enchantress of Florence, who he claims is his mother.

But what is the Emperor to make of the stranger's story? What are we to make of the story we are reading? Identities and reality are not always clear within this magical novel. Who is the story-telling stranger? Is Qara Koz really the stranger's mother? Even the Emperor is not sure if he is simply an "I" like everyone else or a "we" of divine royalty. Reality is tenuous. Characters are imagined yet given "space" and relationship. Painters disappear into their own paintings. The story-teller feels himself fading away to nothingness when kept from telling his story. Is he merely defined by his story and without it has no existence? To add to the tenuous atmosphere created by questions of identity and reality, women are sometimes mere echoes and mirrors of someone or something else. They whisper and murmur and are ghostlike as they glide behind curtains and veils.

The author has woven layers of story around his readers, and enchants and draws us into his creation. We would come back night after night, for 1001 nights, to hear the story he has to tell. He shows us that story has power ... the power to enthrall, the power to rend apart and the power to create.

The Enchantress of Florence is first and foremost a story. It is secondarily an affirmation of the power of story. I found that I had to let go and allow Rushdie to take me where he would in order to fully enjoy this work. My criticism is limited to passages that seemed unnecessary and clumsy (e.g. the potato witches) and I wonder if the author wasn't too anxious to use as much of his extensive research as possible. The appended bibliography of works consulted is quite impressive and I look forward to reading from that list in order to expand my understanding of those historical elements that went right over my head.

This mesmerizing novel, even more charming, entertaining and thought-provoking than his Booker-winning "Midnight's Children", dazzles like a genuine gem. Written in prose so indescribably beautiful and absorbing that I found myself holding my breath involuntarily countless number of times, this book will most certainly elevate Rushdie's well earned lofty place in the literary world even higher.

This novel is not one long story; rather, it is a marvelous narration and compilation of several stories, each bewitching in its own way. On the surface, it is the story of a handsome, golden haired man named Mogor dell'Amore (Mughal of Love), who claims that he is a descendant of Emperor Akbar's grandfather's youngest sister, a princess of great beauty, the Mughal princess Qaara Koz. Also, this novel is partly based on history, the rest is a combination of fable, fantasy, and Rushdie's florid imagination: the great Mughal Emperor of India, Akbar, and his sons are historic; but the golden haired enchantress of Florence, I think, is a product of Rushdie's imagination or fantasy. The novel can also be read as a story about the clash of two civilizations: The Mughal Empire in the East, and the "empire" of the Medicis and Machiavelli of Florence in the West. This book can be called novel only in a broad sense; to call it an epic, perhaps, would be more appropriate.

Very rarely do readers get an opportunity to read prose as lovely and grand and mesmerizing as Rushdie's prose in this book. The cumulative effect of reading lovely passages on top of dazzling passages will surely overwhelm the reader: "Fires began to burn in the twilight, like warnings. From the black bowl of the sky came the answering fires of the stars. As if the earth and the heavens were armies preparing for battle, he thought. As if their encampments lie quiet at night and await the war of the day to come." This book reminded me of Rudyard Kipling's "Kim"; it is written in the same grand style.

Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" was considered a monumental work, and it was a commercial success too, and after winning the Booker prize in 1981, it went on to win the "Booker of Bookers" award (the best Booker prize) - Booker's twenty-fifth anniversary prize. And it is the leading contender for the Booker's fortieth anniversary prize also. The "Enchantress of Florence" is so grand that it will win, I think, the Booker prize next year. I have no doubt that this book is Rushdie's finest work.