Sylvain Sarrailh Sarrailh itibaren Natividad, Oaxaca, Meksika itibaren Natividad, Oaxaca, Meksika

An important book, with a message I am obviously prone to love. I expected to really enjoy it, especially as I grow more and more interested in dystopic fiction. But was disappointed. Maybe if I'd read it younger, it would have been more enjoyable? I'm not sure. But the female characters are jarring, uneven, devices, and the characters emotions, while perhaps justifiably confused, feel rather to leap and bound in an ungainly and overwrought fashion. It felt preachy and showy, when it could have let its very dark world so the talking instead. I don't mean to offend, I know this is most likely literary heresy, but I expected more from a novel usually listed alongside 1984 and Brave New World. And I'm torn: trust my first reading or give it another chance?

My second favourite of the Rushdie novels I've read. Beautiful and inspired, and the prose is ecstatic as usual -- but it falls apart so completely at the end, as if Rushdie ran out of ideas and just decided to make it all as crazy as possible to see what would happen.