Quichotte by Salman Rushdie -- A review of a tale of journey, love and end
‘Quichotte’ is a sprawling work consisting of two stories, that of an author and that of a character of his fabrication, which swirl and churn and tango around one another to the simultaneously sweet and cacophonous music of Rushdie’s prose, until they meet in a breathtaking climax which left me dazed for days after I finished the novel. In a backdrop coloured with drug abuse, strained family relationships, racism in America, a chronic addiction to television and impending apocalypse, Mr Ismail Smile’s (alias Quichotte) grand quest for love at such a late age strikes one as both completely lunatic and touchingly beautiful. Sancho, Quichotte’s son born from the heavens, appears initially to be a voice of reason compared to his father’s overly romantic worldview, but as the story descends slowly into chaos, so does Sancho’s reality and own love story, presenting to the reader the sombre possibility that love may not be the default purpose, the holy grail, of the journey of life. The defi...
