Victory City

I liked the insight into Vijayanagara, the real empire located in present day Karnataka, India that Rushdie fictionalizes in his magic realism fable. The character of Pampa Campana, the 250-year-old queen who never ages, is a proxy for the kingdom that lasted for that same amount of time from the 14-16th centuries. There are stories within stories here, exposing all the travails of medieval empires, replete with conspiracies, uprisings, internal turf-battles, colonizers, assassinations, and border wars between the Hindus and the Moghuls. A must read for someone trying to understand the multi-faced fabric of Indian history. It is also a… show more.

I rarely re-read books, but Salman Rushdie’s Victory City will be the exception. It is a feast of magic, humor, exotic locations, goddesses, dynastic conflict, and wars of conquest.

Love and betrayal, tolerance, and bigotry compete as the story travels through two and a half centuries of the life of one woman. Favored by a goddess, she becomes the creator of a great kingdom, speaks with the goddess’s voice, and carries her magic through her long life.

In recounting the rise and fall of Victory City, its heroes, and destroyers, Rushdie lays out a magic carpet ride for his readers.… show more.

I’m embarrassed to admit that, despite all the accolades heaped upon him over the years, I’d never read anything by Salmon Rushdie, but reading Victory City made it clear that all those accolades were well-earned.

It’s a spellbinding mix of history and fantasy, emotional reality, and Indian mythology, written by an author who is a born storyteller, a sorcerer of the printed page.

This book touched me, delighted me, and awed me. A masterful, magical novel.