“But still,” said Emma, “we have to pay some attention to society’s opinions and abide by its morality.”
“Ah! In fact there are two moralities,” he replied. “The petty one, the conventional one, the one devised by men, that keeps changing and bellows so loudly, making a commotion down here among us, in a perfectly pedestrian way, like that gathering of imbeciles you see out there. But the other one, the eternal one, is all around and above us, like the landscape that surrounds us and the blue sky that gives us light.”
Other than these lines, there is sadly little to like in Salman Rushdie’s new novel.
This new novel structures the story like a video game. Pop culture references abound. I put the book down after a joke involving the Terminator.
The Terminator. I am not making that up.
3 Responses
I haven’t read it.. but remember reading an interview with Rushdie when it came out and I thought it was a children’s book, written for his son? That might explain why there are more pop culture references than some older readers might be used to.
What’s wrong with mentioning the Terminator in a work of literature? Do you think popular culture should be banned from literary works? I don’t think I know any academic specialists on literature who would agree with that.
Thank you for reading that so I did not have to :)