Volume 3, No. 9 January 17, 2003
The sound of the ‘Fury’ A Review By Hannah Pittard "Professor Malik Solanka, retired historian of ideas, irascible dollmaker, and since his recent fifty-fifth birthday celibate and solitary by his own (much criticized) choice, in his silvered years found himself living in a golden age." So begins "Fury," Salman Rushdie’s latest novel, also his first full-fledged American novel. The golden age to which Rushdie refers is New York City in its heyday of technology, stocks and Internet companies. It is here where we first meet the book’s idiosyncratic hero, Professor Solanka, a disillusioned Cambridge scholar who has recently moved to America in an attempt to escape his own nature, to lose himself in the city’s "fury" and maybe even to redefine the person he has become. What ensues is a novel in three parts that compels just as frequently as it repels. The gusto with which Rushdie begins "Fury" is quickly lost in the 60 or so pages of background information meant to catch the reader up with the current state of its hero. The plot — a self-exiled man who may or may not suffer from Tourette’s Syndrome abandons his country in order to save his family from an evil he knows lurks deep within himself only to confront the possibility that he may be the unwitting mastermind behind a rash of recent New York crimes — is interesting, if not entirely impossible. And though it is amusing to read about New York through the eyes of two foreigners (stodgy, suffering Solanka and exiled, infamous Rushdie), the constant amazement and grandiose summaries seem more trite than might be expected of a writer of Rushdie’s caliber and fame. This is not, however, to suggest that the book is entirely without merit. The blurred distinction of voice between author and hero is curious and, at times, more compelling than the plot itself. Rushdie, who was forced into hiding in 1993 when a million-dollar reward for his death was issued by Islamic leaders after the release of "The Satanic Verses," seems to have donated many aspects of himself when generating the background for his character Malik Solanka. Both were born in Bombay, India; both were educated at King’s College, Cambridge; both meddled with careers in television. From here, the similarity of details in the lives of the author and his creation wane, while a general likeness pervades throughout. In the end, "Fury" proves more a disappointment than anything else. Though the word "fury" is thrown about every nine or so pages to remind the reader why the book is titled as it is, the power behind the word falls flat and, ultimately, loses its potency altogether. "Fury" is available at Ex Libris bookstore, 228 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
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