Losing My Way

I found this book puzzling, full of beauty and grace in parts but rather silly as well. Still, I'm glad I read it, because I had to know what the Ayatollah Khomeini had against it; why kill someone just for writing a book? On page 378, I found the answer:it's when Salman the Farsi says, "The closer you are to a conjuroer, the easier it is to spot the trick." That was bound to cause trouble, seeing how Rushdie blatantly calls Muhammed a fraud. No one likes to have their religion doubted by some intellectual who lacks faith, even if Rushdie has Mohammed stating that there is no difference between writers and whores. By then, nothing can protect Rushdie from the wrath of the faithful, though he fortunately suffered no fatal attack in the 35 years since the book's publication. So maybe I should get to work on my groundbreaking novel: Jesus Christ, Private Eye.

Before I forget, I want to put out some of my thoughts about The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. It was interesting reading about Afghanistan and about the lives the refugees in California lived. If it had one weakness it was the narrator of the tale, who was not very admirable, though he did meet the challenge of returning to Afghanistan to do a favor for a friend.

I wonder how I failed to read The Sirens Of Titan when I was young. In my youth, I was on quite a Vonnegut tear, reading everything from Player Piano to Galapagos, and beyond that to Slapstick, which I didn't like. So I went years without reading any Vonnegut. Then I saw The Sirens Of Titan on the shelf, and with my usual impulsiveness I decided it would be nice to read after Crime & Punishment by Dostoevsky. I luckily had never read it before. Many concepts he dealt with are present here, and he was honing his style, but still managed to tell a good story. In many ways, it might be his best book, although I still think Slaughterhouse 5 was his masterpiece. The two books share a connection in the planet Tramaldafore and the concept of time and how it passes yet still remains.